House of 1000 Doors 1: Family Secrets

House of 1000 Doors: Family Secrets
by Alawar Five-BN

Series links: House of 1000 Doors 1: Family Secrets, House of 1000 Doors 2: The Palm of Zoroaster, House of 1000 Doors 3: Serpent Flame, House of 1000 Doors 4: Evil Inside

Available at:
Alawar as Collector's Edition / Standard Edition
Big Fish for PC as Collector's Edition / Standard Edition
iWin as Collector's Edition / Standard Edition
GameHouse as Platinum Edition



Guide Kate Reed as she solves four mind-bending mysteries that  take her to worlds she's never imagined in House of 1000 Doors: Family  Secrets! When the dead cannot find release, the House of 1000 Doors serves as a portal that allows the living to help them. Communicate with spirits and meet  the mysterious Lancaster family that resides within  the spooky house in this incredible Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game!

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• Bonus gameplay
  
• Integrated Strategy Guide
  
• Stunning screensaver
  

Key Game Features as listed by Alawar:  

• 90 locations
  
• 25 mini-games
  
• 15 HOG scenes
  
• 13 CGI cutscenes
  
• Bonus chapter
  
• Concept art
  
• Wallpapers
  
• Step-by-step walkthrough
  

Click images to enlarge
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Wonderful Game
     

BASED ON COMPLETED GAME

Great concept for a game – a ghost house that has an uncountable number of doors to other places and  times. Plenty of room for many sequels that still allow an infinite variety of adventures.

The game also has excellent graphics, quite different characters, and beautiful ambient sound and music. I loved the HOs with their high degree of interactivity and quality graphics, but there was a greater emphasis on the adventure aspects, which were very well done. There was some degree of travel involved, and a map might have been a good idea, but I managed without. Hint directs you to the right location without requiring refill time, so it’s a good navigational tool. 

There are the ever-popular morphing objects, not necessarily easy to find, and once you’ve completed a particular adventure, you can’t go back to get them, so keep your eyes peeled!  Highly recommended!

I recommend this game!

House of 1000 Doors 1: Family Secrets CE (IHOG)

Options include separate sliders for music, sound effects, and ambient sounds, plus multiple choices for screen resolution, full screen, wide-screen, and custom cursor.  There are two difficulty settings to choose from: Casual and Expert.  Not a huge difference, but at least Expert has no sparkles (except for the HOS.)

We have a MAP which shows which locations are "active," as well as a jump-to option.  Using the HINT button during the adventure portion will give you a directional arrow without discharging your hint.  In addition, the hint button charges separately for the adventure and HOS sections.  The tutorial is optional.

The toolbar at the bottom is retractable, but no way to lock it in the open position (just as good for me -- more graphics to enjoy!)  Something that I really appreciate is that when our toolbar is full and we click to see more, it actually scrolls completely over until we see items we couldn't see before.  In other words, it doesn't reveal new items one click at a time, which is very nice!  

To be honest the first five minutes or so weren't all that interesting to me, but that changed pretty quickly.  This game is yet another example of why I love Alawar Five-BN games SO much   The quality is outstanding in every way, from the graphics to sounds to gameplay to story.  The cutscenes are, as always, outstanding (though I generally don't care for their character design   ,) and the voices are pretty well done.  In the beginning the game is a great mixture of adventure and HOS, but sadly, the further you progress, the more HOS you will need to do.  Some of them we revisit often, though we do have a different list of things to find each time.

As for the hidden object scenes themselves, they are lightly interactive, with items that need an action being listed in red.  Zoom-in scenes do NOT count as taking an action, so if you can't find something, mouse over until you see something you can zoom in on   At the top of the to-find list, it clearly tells you how many items you have left to find.  Not all are listed at once, they'll fill in as you find things.  There is NO misclick penalty.

The devs added extra touches that make a game really shine.  During the HOS, if we move (or open) something, we can move it back.  Clicking on random objects will frequently get you extra information about your surroundings, and possibly extra story. Usually, when playing this kind of game, once we pick up an item or finish interacting with a zoom-in scene, the scene automatically closes, and you can't access it again.  Not so in this game!  Although it may be confusing for players who aren't as experienced with IHOG's, it's something that *I* really appreciate.  I can't tell you how many times I've clicked on something, and had the scene close before I was truly able to take it in.  I like being able to really look at the graphics without being forced out by finishing my task.

The JOURNAL documents our journey without spoilers, and the story also progresses via newspaper articles that we will find periodically.

There are some VERY creepy moments in this one.  Not gross or gory, just... creepy.  I admit that towards the end I was getting upset.  There was a recipe that we had to find the ingredients for, and these ingredients are ones that I would REALLY have a problem with collecting, for moral reasons.  Luckily, we're able to find everything we need, and there is no need to kill anything   There is a point where we use a whip to get a large animal to move, but it was the noise of it that made it get moving.  There is also a need to give a mouse to a cat.

There is one mini-game that requires perfectly-timed clicking   All mini's are skippable, no matter which difficulty setting you choose, but I mention it because I know that some of you hate to skip anything.

We will find 27 portraits during gameplay, and returning them to where they belong will sometimes earn you an item that you will need for your quest(s).  We also have two items that we will use over and over again during gameplay, and they stay in our inventory until the end, when we don't need them anymore.

CE Content:

• 35 morphing items
  
• Integrated strategy guide
  
• Bonus chapter
  
• 13 concept art (all quite lovely, and in shades of black & white)
  
• 9 wallpapers with two resolutions to choose from: 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 800.  These walls do NOT have ANY text on them -- just the gargoyle logo from the game (I hate it when the artwork is obscured by the name of the game!)
  

There are over 700 sounds if you look in the foldesr, though most are ambiance, like the ticking of a clock.  You can, however, grab the music tracks by copying them to another folder.  To find the tracks, look here:

C:/Program Files/Games/House of 1000 Doors Family Secrets/DataLoc/Sounds

Find and COPY out the seven music tracks titled track01 through track07.

Extra content (except the strategy guide) is locked until you finish the main game.

Bonus Chapter:
The main game ended at a very good point.  The bonus takes you back in time a bit, as if the game hadn't ended yet.  It (the bonus chapter) really should have been integrated into the main game, but that's a small gripe.

There are 11 NEW locations to visit (not including hidden object scenes and zoom-ins), plus four from the main game that we re-visit.  The story is good, and deals with the reason we went to the house in the first place!  This resolution was mentioned during the ending scene of the MAIN game, and now that I've played the bonus, it makes more sense

The main game was excellent, and I think I would have been just as happy with the SE, but the CE was worth it for me for the wallpapers, the morphing items, and the bonus chapter.  My only complaint is that I would have preferred that it had stayed adventure-driven, rather than getting HOG-heavy, but overall, I'm very happy with this game

Last edited by genkicoll on Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:18 pm; edited 10 times in total

The idea or rather the concept itself was so thrilling. Imagine having access to a portal that lets you travel to the entire world.
I was creeped out a bit too. because I have no stomach for anything even slightly horror. But I ended up liking the game anyway.

Great!  Glad to hear that you enjoyed it!   The House of 1000 Doors series is quite popular.