10) House of Hell Solution

[miles]

Ya agree..
I just ran it through: The "speed run" (no Kris Knife) is 34 steps to the final battle:
p. 1 => p. 289 => p.345 => p. 207 => p. 267 => p. 173 => p. 136 => p. 317 => p. 287 => p. 193=> p. 132 => p.222 => p. 108 => p. 49 => p. 217 => p. 370 => p. 293 => p. 113 => p. 324 => p. 147 => p.3 => p. 160 => p. 294 => p. 10 => p. 204 => p. 349 => p. 131 => p. 58 => p. 323 => p. 296 => p. 318 => p. 351 => p. 336 => p. 181

Some interesting other ones:
1) Quickest way do end on a "death page"? I think it is 13 steps: p. 1 => p. 289 => p.345 => p. 207 => p. 267 => p. 173 => p. 136 => p. 317 => p. 33 => p. 358 => p. 117 => p. 341 => p-274
2) Longest way before dying? i.e as many pages as possible
3) Least likely room to visit? I reckon it must be "S": the dressing room, which you are REALLY unlikely to visit OR "J": The dog kennel (both in the cellar)
etc etc

I THINK the 94 steps in the solution is the optimal one... with no cheating of course....

[misomiso]

Jan 6, 2022 0:03:57 GMT CharlesX said:

Jan 5, 2022 23:24:17 GMT misomiso said:

Yes I'm getting the hang of it now.

I'm coming to the conclusion that is probably the best 'designed' gamebook of the whole franchise. It's very very clever.

SJ's use of dead ends where you can only die is how he does it I think, as it allows him to funnel players into dead zones from various different directions.

I remember playing this as a kid and just having my mind melted; I worked out the cellar was bad, but I think I got hooked on the secret staircase in the Shaitan room, which is a MASSIVE ballpunch as it turns out the secret stairway is the BAD way down!

Brutal design.

That depends; to me, SJ's combination of heavy horror and instant deaths comes across as cliche. Funny the other SJ writes FF so forgiving and so dissimilar from his UK counterpart.

Yeah I guess it's all a balance.  I think House of Hell is definitely ONE of the best designed though.

[dragonwarrior8]

But.....did you make it to your appointment???

For some reason I always thought you were on your way to a job interview the next day. Not sure why I thought that but was wondering what other people's head canon was in that regard. Maybe you had an appointment with F.E.A.R.?

(Between the "appointment" and the "FEAR" score I feel like there is a tie-in to be made here!)

[kieran]

Jan 6, 2022 19:57:57 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

But.....did you make it to your appointment???

For some reason I always thought you were on your way to a job interview the next day. Not sure why I thought that but was wondering what other people's head canon was in that regard. Maybe you had an appointment with F.E.A.R.?

(Between the "appointment" and the "FEAR" score I feel like there is a tie-in to be made here!)

I always assumed it was a business meeting, maybe a sales pitch or the like. I've only really considered now that this was just in my head-canon.

[Gerontius]

I've just been working through the digital version of House of Hell (my original paper FFs are long lost after a leaky attic incident) and have been working on an interactive graph of the whole experience! If my daughter gives me time to write a blog post about it, I'll come back and share it.

But I have a couple of holes and was hoping someone might be able to fill them in.

I don't know what's on pages 51, 186 or 190. I'm guessing they're death descriptions? Or have I missed something else.

Also, there are three weird dead ends in the book that I've not seen discussed at length (unlike the kitchen dead end, which everyone talks about!). I'm assuming some things got partially edited out in development, and wondered if people knew anything more about the history of the book.

1. In the hypnotism book in the study (p.39) and in the dog's room in the cellars (383), you find pieces of painted canvas. There seems to be no purpose to these. Any thoughts?
2. The man in grey in the Asmodeus room says that there's a way to escape at the end of a passageway in the cellars (p. 75). Presumably, this is the passageway on p. 60 with the button that sets off an alarm and kills you. Might this originally have been an alternative "good" ending?
3. The door of the nameless room on p.15 is locked, and you're asked if you have a key. But the description if you do just says "key doesn't fit". It's possible you got a key from the Balthus room (p. 40). Any thoughts on whether the nameless room was originally accessible to give the whole zombie fight in the Balthus room some purpose as an extended side quest?

Thanks!

G
dreamsofgerontius.com

[greenspine]

51 is an opportunity to search for secret doors under the cellar stairs. 186 explains about the Ghoul's paralysis ability. 190 has you successfully attracting the attention of the men in the kitchen after eavesdropping on them before you've even entered the house.

Moving on to your questions, 1 might only be part of the digital version - there's no mention of canvas in sections 39 and 383 of any of my copies of the book (Puffin, Wizard 1, Wizard 2).

For 2, I suspect that the mention of a way out is just a red herring, to temporarily trick readers into thinking that the passage leading to the robing room might be a way out. I don't think there was ever any intention of providing an alternative 'good' ending: it's the wrong Steve Jackson for that sort of thing.

As regards 3, the nameless door is just the one at the back of the storeroom. I imagine it's locked from this side to prevent readers from endlessly looping round.
Funnily enough, in the Warlock magazine teaser for House of Hell, it was necessary to enter the Balthus room and collect a key from it. In the full House, however, it's just another place to avoid.

[Gerontius]

Thanks.

In the digital version, the opporunity to search for secret doors is on p. 61, not p. 51. Could you doublt check? Thanks!
I found 190 in the digital version. Thanks.
The Ghoul's ability isn't in a separate page in the digital version. In the paper version, is it a redirect saying "if you suffer 4 wounds go to..."?

I've got a draft version of the interactive graph done! You might need a github account to access it, but hopefully not. If I manage to write my blog post, there will be a downloadable version to use with the free yEd graph editor

www.yworks.com/yed-live/?file=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/DreamsOfGerontius/4e6c007aa155a6747370b887fd0d22bd/raw/620596a7d02414bb005630babae646159f855015/HouseOfHellFFClassic

[greenspine]

Jan 11, 2022 17:28:03 GMT Gerontius said:

Thanks.

In the digital version, the opporunity to search for secret doors is on p. 61, not p. 51. Could you doublt check? Thanks!

In the book, you search for secret doors by subtracting 10 from the number of the section you're on. Thus, you go under the stairs at 61 and turn to 51 to seek the secret door.

The Ghoul's ability isn't in a separate page in the digital version. In the paper version, is it a redirect saying "if you suffer 4 wounds go to..."?

It's handled a bit oddly. There's a redirect which comes into play after 2 wounds have been inflicted, leading to a section that says, in effect, "You're half way to being paralysed. If the Ghoul hits you twice more, it's game over."

[Gerontius]

Jan 11, 2022 17:30:54 GMT greenspine said:

In the book, you search for secret doors by subtracting 10 from the number of the section you're on. Thus, you go under the stairs at 61 and turn to 51 to seek the secret door.

Ah. That explains why it's so hard to find the secret door in the digital version. You HAVE to get there via the "hide from the bats" route. The way to find it from p. 61 is missing entirely. Hide from bats is 320, then there's "info from an old woman" on p. 310, which I thought was how the -10 trick worked in the book. Guess it's just a bug plus a coincidence.

It's handled a bit oddly. There's a redirect which comes into play after 2 wounds have been inflicted, leading to a section that says, in effect, "You're half way to being paralysed. If the Ghoul hits you twice more, it's game over."

Thanks. That now makes sense.

[Gerontius]

I've confirmed with the developer that the pieces of canvas were intended as a digital easter egg, but it had to be removed from some versions of the game.

I've also reported the p61 to p51 bug to them. I think the p320 to p310 transition isn't just a coincidence, but how they implemented the "subtract 10". They just forgot to also add it to p61/

[ltgseb]

Hi - So a while ago I started building out the house from HOH in Roblox.

www.roblox.com/games/9947297426/House-of-Hell-Draft-1

I wanted the house to match the book's description as closely as possible and I see that there are a bunch of HOH maps out there that all look slightly different. Anyone here know which is closest to the book? I took a crack at it in my Roblox build but it's still a work in progress, and I'm a total Roblox newbie. Also I don't have the time to complete this project all by myself.

Anyhow, any help is appreciated!

[electricwater]

If anyone fancies another game book in the vein of House Of Hell (possibly my favorite FF since I bought it at my primary school book evening back in 1984) then you might try Nightshift by Victoria Hancox. I just finished it and found it reminiscent of HoH, with some disturbing horror, surreality and a sprinkle of humour, combined with a fairly intricate solution.

[CharlesX]

Jul 17, 2022 9:09:59 GMT electricwater said:

If anyone fancies another game book in the vein of House Of Hell (possibly my favorite FF since I bought it at my primary school book evening back in 1984) then you might try Nightshift by Victoria Hancox. I just finished it and found it reminiscent of HoH, with some disturbing horror, surreality and a sprinkle of humour, combined with a fairly intricate solution.

I've read her Nightshift and while it is definitely well-written (good description and dark atmosphere, clever puzzles), I would say it is excessively difficult more than intricate - for its linearity, not for the dice rolling - although that might just be me!

[tea]

Played this using the book many times back in the 80s & then more recently with the mobile App. But I still have the same question:
Who was the Man in Grey?
I think it is the balding man that is locked up in the cellar, but could someone confirm this?

[greenspine]

According to Shekou, it's the white-haired man in the Asmodeus room, but it does make more sense for it to be the balding man in the cellar, as he provides more useful information.

[gerontius]

Hi

Ages ago I promised to upload a full and finished "puzzle dependency chart" for House of Hell. Family committments and website troubles held me back, but it's finally online: dreamsofgerontius.com/2022/12/13/graphing-fighting-fantasy-favourite-house-of-hell/

Hope someone finds it interesting and/or useful!

G

[scouserob]

That is pretty damn cool.
I’ve had a look at its general structure, whilst trying to avoid spoilers.
(House of Hell is my next Fighting Fantasy book to complete and dissect, perhaps after Crown of Kings if I can face mapping 800 paragraphs including goodness knows how many tricky spell hubs.)

I’m surprised there weren't a lot more green instant deaths in there.
My abiding memories of it are of making a poor choice and paying the ultimate price.

Must have been a nightmare to configure with none of the arrows pointing back up.
How are loops/hubs handled?
(Couldn’t look too closely and remain unspoiled but I’ll keep the xml file until I’ve completed and mapped it.)

[vastariner]

Makes no sense to me - just looks like a load of code. I assume it needs some sort of software to extract?

[scouserob]

I downloaded the file then uploaded it to the yED Live page that was linked in his post above.

[gerontius]

Dec 14, 2022 16:22:02 GMT scouserob said:

How are loops/hubs handled?

I don't think there are any actual true loops, but there are a couple of arrows that point up and a double ended arrow. So loops can be represented and followed if necessary.

Major hubs were a pain since I had to keep track of the different ways you could get there and write them in the boxes.

But the biggest problem was the "information" you learn and working out where to point that towards to indicate that you need some object or code to progress when you reach a particular page. I should probably have put those lines in a different style - dotted, or something - to indicate that it's not a "path" through the book.

It also took a lot of trial and error to work out when a page needed to be split over several different boxes if, say, you get scared and then immediately get into a fight. But, by and large, I tried to keep to one box=one page where I could.

And there's a lot of green near the bottom of the graph!

[vastariner]

Dec 14, 2022 17:33:43 GMT scouserob said:

I downloaded the file then uploaded it to the yED Live page that was linked in his post above.

Ta.  Emphasizes how intricate and detailed some of those dead ends are.  And if you want a really trippy experience, try scrolling it up or down while listening to Autechre.

[someone]

I have a complete solution to this gamebook, obtained by solving it as a Markov Decision Process with a discount of 1 and:
- a reward of 1 for transitions from section 109 to section 400,
- a reward of 0 for any other transition.
However, it is made of 11 files, most of which are several MB and hundreds of pages.
Thus I cannot post it here.
I can still e-mail it to anyone interested in it.

EDIT: for information, here is a flowchart of the system that has been solved: FF10.pdf (74.4 KB)