YMMV / The 7th Guest

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Carl Denning hasn't a clue what the GameBook is when he finds it on his doorstep. The prop used in the live action cutscenes is actually a real-life palmtop computer, one of the predecessors of PDAs and cell phones. Some models even had network connectivity, which could somewhat justify how Samantha is able to reach Carl through it.
• Awesome Music: Both of the games' soundtracks are excellent, especially "Skeletons in the Closet" and "The Game" from 7th Guest and "Mr. Death" from 11th Hour. You can order the soundtracks separate from the games, though they also come bundled with the GOG.com re-releases.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The clown in the pool room, with his REEEEEEEEEED BALLOOOOOOOOON.
  • The woman who occasionally beckons you down a hallway.
    • Finally explained in the 13th Doll, she's his wife.
  • In one part of The 11th Hour, Ed Knox gives you a warning. Then his head randomly explodes.
  • Who expected the random appearance of "Let's Make a Real Deal!" at the end of The 11th Hour? Carl is just as confused.
  • When you head towards the telescope in The 7th Guest, a rush of wind threatens to blow open the doors leading outside.
• Complete Monster: Henry Stauf, a down-on-his-luck-drifter who resorted to thievery and murder, found he had a talent as a toymaker. He also resorted to the dark arts to help along his career: a pact with dark forces let Stauf use his toys to spread a disease that killed multiple children, then torment their souls to sate the Evil Powers That Be. To lure in his final required victim, Stauf promised to give six guests in his mansion anything they asked for—if they would assist him in capturing the child. A guest who tried to help the boy was turned into a living mannequin. When the last living guest delivers the boy—Tad—to Stauf, he either kills her with acidic bile or causes her to regress to a featus depending on the version. He then reveals the truth to Tad: the boy was doomed to relive his time in the mansion while having his soul tormented by Stauf for all eternity.
• Designated Hero: Carl doesn't exactly make the best first impression in the 11th Hour intro. His response when Robin says their relationship makes it look like she's slept her way into her position is "Well, didn't you?" He follows that up with a crude joke about her "many talents" and the explicit hope that she'll disappear while investigating Stauf's mansion. He does try to help her, but damn.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The animated pictures in the introductory book from the first game are positioned in a way that makes it look like a certain other kind of book...
• Moral Event Horizon: Brian, Edward, Martine, and Julia all cross this fairly early in 7th Guest.
  • Stauf jaunted past it at some time before the earliest part of his revealed history.
• Narm: By today's standards, some of the acting in this game is just too over-the-top to be taken seriously.
  • In the master bedroom, after Temple conjures a beautiful woman and reduces her to bones, Brian Dutton utters a Big "NO!" while rearing back for no apparent reason.
  • The last line of Stauf's poem in the library is quite laughable for its hamminess. "Crazy, Sick, and MEAN!"
  • That brief cutscene with the patient in the lab waking up and realizing that his brain's gone, and then looking down and attempting to put it back. No, literally.
    • Although, given the squicky nature of the whole event, it could also come off as Nightmare Fuel, especially with the disgusting gurgling noises in the background.
  • The cutscene that plays after the Spider Puzzle on the front door is bizarre. Tad tries forcing the front door open only to flee because Elinor Knox screamed at the sight of something that came from the basement. It Makes Sense in Context but without foreknowledge, can feel silly.
  • In the attic, Elinor Knox has apparently become an immobile mannequin due to Stauf, only able to move her head, but she seems disinterested like she merely locked herself out of her house and calls for help in a confused tone.
  • Stauf's malicious giggling when you fail certain puzzles. After failing the same puzzle repeatedly and listening to it over and over again, it can become unintentionally funny and you might end up laughing with him.
• Narm Charm: The cheesy acting can be one of biggest draws of the game, making the live action cutscenes a key attraction of the game. Stauf and Brian Dutton really stand out with their dramatic hammy dialogue.
• Padding: The 11th Hour is practically one Fetch Quest after another, only they're split up by puzzles.
• Polished Port: The iOS port of 7th Guest eliminates the most annoying part of the original game by significantly speeding up the transitions and load times. While some hotspots are a little too small for the iPhone screen, everything is so much quicker that even with the somewhat finicky touch controls, it's still faster. Some puzzles were also omitted entirely, including the Microscope puzzle, which ran on processor speed and became all but unbeatable since tech became much better as time passed.
• Porting Disaster: This is what happened to the Philips CD-i version—and yes, such a thing did exist. The transition scenes are much smoother and the sound quality is excellent. But the joystick interface is clumsy, some scenes are missing their background music, and loading times are both more common and much longer than in the PC version (one puzzle takes almost twenty minutes to solve even with the lowest number of moves). Some of the puzzles are also missing; amongst them is the infamous soup can puzzle, which might push this port into Porting Distillation territory for some.
• Special Effects Failure: The scene of Robin walking towards Dr. Thorton's office blatantly shows the set's bluescreen soundstage down the hall.
• That One Puzzle:
  • The 7th Guest has the Microscope puzzle, which is a game of Ataxx against the AI. The AI's intelligence is based on how fast a computer's processor can figure out the best possible set of moves in a set amount of time. It was far more possible to beat the game back in 1993; nowadays, you need to lock the available processor speed via an emulator if you want to beat it.
    • The 11th Hour has the Beehive puzzle, which is pretty much the same puzzle played out on a hexagonal board.
    • In 2013, Trilobyte Games remade the Microscope puzzle into a separate iPad game, The 7th Guest: Infection.
  • 11th Hour's concluding game of Pente counts. In order to see all three endings, you need to beat the game three separate times. The first time you play the final puzzle, the player gets the first move. On the second playthrough, Stauf gets the first move (which is a hefty advantage all on its own). For the third go-round, Stauf gets the first move and gets to look at least five moves ahead. As with the Microscope puzzle, processing speeds have made this game much harder to defeat.
• The Woobie:
  • Tad is one, in case that's not obvious.
  • Five of the six guests meet a swift death. Poor Elinor isn't so lucky.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Robert Hirschboeck steals the show as Henry Stauf for a lot of fans, thanks to his memorable Large Ham presence in the games with just the right amount of creepy to keep him villainous.

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