Of the mainframe games I've covered, HAUNT is one that really stands out, from its unique writing and sanity mechanic to its intimidating scale and development timeline. If you were to read about the game on paper, its scope, development time, and mechanics would sound like a description of a game from decades later, yet the execution of that writing and gameplay is very rooted in its era. Its survival is something that really interests me. When it comes to that era, post-home desktop explosion in the 70s, it is THE mainframe computer horror game I think of, much like Hunt the Wumpus is for the era before, and yet it seemed to stick to its form factor unlike Wumpus, being ported all around and published commercially. Even when it comes to tracking down a way to play it today, access to the game seems like a flickering flame, though I'm hopeful its story and the lessons that can be learned from it will be immortalized through its place in horror game history.
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