In 1992, the European Computer Trade Show let people take a look into the future of the game industry. While most of these games would seem to be a clear evolution of what already existed, a few decided to take advantage of the new technologies creating what, for some years, would be seen as the future: CD-ROM games. And among the very first was the mind challenging The 7th Guest.
What we have to remind ourselves of here is that at that time, almost no computer was equipped with a CD drive at all. Many did not even have a hard disk. Compared to a floppy disk, a CD could store about 500 times as much data.
The time has come. The night of all nights has arrived, where I will dive into darkness. Evil awakens and a nightmare comes true: Dracula rules our city of New York and the lord of darkness is also the head of the local corporation for cyber-genetics, cyber-space, cyber-surgery, cyber-technology, cyber-weapons and cyber-surveillance. Appropriately, it has been a very long time since the city has seen any light; we are in an apparently endless night.
Darkness holds one of the primal fears of mankind. But why are we afraid of it? We are afraid, because something might be lurking in the utter blackness and when it is trying to harm us we will not see it coming. Since it easier for us to deal with the tangible than with the abstract, we tend to antropomorphise our feelings. And this leads to the birth of the bogeyman, our manifested anxieties. Especially children with their more vivid imagination combined with all their insecurities – born out of inexperience – are prone to conjuring them up. And since your fear can be turned against you, parents use it to make their children behave – as cruel as this might be. Yes fear is a powerful tool: Whomever you are afraid of has control over you. And this is one of the main themes of Bogeyman.