"You are getting closer... not. At this pace, Robin will save YOU!" - Stauf

The 11th Hour is the slightly inferior sequel to 7th Guest, Trilobyte's classic horror adventure and a Herculean Puzzle game challenge published in 1993. After the prior game's success, The 11th Hour is published in 1995, yet eventually failed to deliver the achievement of its predecessor and became Trilobyte's last game. Following the horrors of Stauf's mansion, the narration takes place 60 years after the original game with a new vicious challenge as the product of Stauf's ingenious evil.

The opening FMV movie introduces our protagonist, Carl Denning; the investigative reporter for the television series "Case Unsolved". Being the semi-educated and sensitive as a door knob douchebag, Carl gets into a relationship with his producer, Robin Morales, only to end the relationship a couple months after with cruel remarks, implying that he'd wish that Robin would be one of the missing people that she's been investigating about in the little town of Harley-on-the-Hudson. Wait a minute, isn't that Stauf's town? Not so curious enough, Robin actually gets missing on investigation and a mysterious little device called "The Gamebook" is dropped on Carl's doorstep. Opening the device, Carl encounters a video of Robin, stranded in Stauf's mansion, desperately calling for his help... You can see where this is going, right?

The moment Carl steps into the mansion, our gameplay begins. Stauf sends us the most confusingly complicated riddles through the Gamebook and asks us to antique hunt in the whole deserted mansion to grab the item that would be the answer for his riddles. In the meanwhile, we solve a handful of frustratingly hard puzzles - in some we compete against Stauf's AI - and witness many short movie crops retelling us the background of Robin's investigation as the series of events prior to our arrival at the mansion. Will we manage to save Robin from Stauf's evil mansion?

I think we already know the answer to that question, knowing Stauf's sense of humor and resourcefulness from the prior game. Anyhow, let's take a look on the game itself. Camera angles and the movement pace got slightly better and faster in adventure interface. Our encounters are not as much as uncanny though, and the acting of characters in the movie crops is plain bad with needless dramatization. The dramatization in 7th Guest was a success considering the tone of the environment and time - 1935 - but in this game, which takes place in 1995, characters' attitude and reaction simply end up being ugly. They are all portrayed as shallow as shallow can be.

It should be proper to note that the Steam Overlay doesn't work at all; and the game crashes regularly if you wouldn't use a compatibility mode. The soundtrack consisting of midi-music are mostly okay, but the repetition of chosen songs and their suitability to scenes that we encounter is questionable. In some of the puzzle scenes, the soundtrack gets silenced completely. I remember a joke coming from a streamer about that issue: "Maybe Trilobyte wanted you to hear the sound of your own aneurysm."

The environment display is a bit better compared to 7th Guest yet the mansion itself didn't age gracefully. Everything is practically in ruins now and Stauf's riddles are suicidally hard with anagrams, cypher codes, synonyms, word associations, cryptograms, accent remarks and even bilingual references! Knowing your art history doesn't hurt either! After the first 2-3, solving these riddles and finding the answer within the mansion becomes a frustrating chore rather than being fun. The starting point of the whole riddle and the actual answer rarely corresponds with each other, leaving you confused and annoyed most of the time. Randomly choosing objects makes you no good, considering there is a truckload of rooms and a good amount of clickable objects in each of them - and Stauf relentlessly mocks you with each wrong answer. Puzzles themselves are not as half as bad, they are relatively possible to figure out with patience but considerably troublesome to arrange with given angles and the slow pacing of puzzle interfaces.

In and all, 11th Hour is less remarkable compared to the first game, being subpar on acting and nauseatingly frustrating in terms of riddles. By the end of the game, you'll be given the chance of making a choice between 3 different endings, yet none of the endings are satisfactory or somewhat meaningful. I'd really like to recommend this game, I remember having a lot of fun with 7th Guest but this is not an educative challenge like the first game. This is a trial of association with little to no indication for the wanted associations given to you. Good luck if you'd like to try anyway.

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Circa 1993 and originally played on a CD disc. Sequel to The 7th Guest. Horror, mystery, point and click, "hidden object" puzzler. The game itself holds up to time passage but the graphics, speed, sound, color, etc. are not adjustable (at least not by me) and depending on the computer (especially newer ones) may make the game lag or be twitchy - just a warning. Included with the game is a "making of" section that are short movie clips about different aspects of how the game was put together, about the charaters, and the NEW 'AT THE TIME' concept of a 64 minute movie divided into clips and inserted in the gameplay to tell the story. (These clips are not skippable, nor is the beginning movie which the player only sees once and sets up the story.) Recommend listening to the title screen music/song. It is really creepy.

Storyline: Investigative reporter Robin Morales has decided to do a story concerning the Stauf Mansion in the town of Harley, prompted by rumors of present disappearances and the mysterious happenings 70 years ago and presently. (So sad I did not realize Stauf is an anagram of FAUST until nearly the end of this game.) Robin has disappeared while doing her investigation and her colleague/ex-boyfriend/boyfriend Carl Denning (news anchor) goes to the Stauf Mansion to find her. Through various video clips throughout the gameplay the player discovers what is happening and why. (Digression: the way Stauf says Carl when taunting him reminds me of when the llama Paul says Karl (Llamas with Hats - YouTube) and I can imagine Karl the llama being perfectly content in the grisly Stauf mansion).

Gameplay: This game is actually easier to play than the 7th Guest. The puzzles are not super hard logical puzzles and the brain busters that some of the logic puzzles in the 7th Guest were. Plus the storyline is much easier to understand. This is a stand alone game and playing the first game is not required to understand this one.

One of the best features is the Gamebook (phone). The Gamebook (accessed in the upper right - just point the mouse there and it shows up) contains an AI who will play or simply solve the puzzles for the player, all except the last endgame one. I suggest that the AI play any game that is being played against Stauf. (Gamebook has all the rules for the puzzles and games, and will tell the player if they are playing against Stauf.) Of the 5 Stauf games (not including the endgame one) only the mouse maze as far as I am concerned is unbeatable without using the AI to do it. (In my game it took the AI 3 times before it beat Stauf.) The other Stauf games are like Othello or Go, and logic and good strategy will beat him.

The gameplay is driven by answering "riddles" which read and are solved like British cryptic crossword puzzle clues. The 41 cryptic crossword puzzle clues can be anagrams, homophones, put together words (like guile + lot + in = guillotine), backwards spelling, backwards anagram, separated words, etc. There are also number clues and two cipher clues. Once the word is found then the player must go find that object somewhere in the mansion and click on it to get the next cryptic crossword clue. Fortunately the Gamebook gives the player hints about the word/object that needs to be found.

When the player arrives in a room if an object can not be clicked on then a puzzle has to be solved first. There is one puzzle per room and once the room opens up the player can go solve the puzzle. Defintely look around at everything because the player will be back to find some object when mentioned in some word clue. Puzzles include 2 chess puzzles (exchange sides - one with knights (6 pieces), the other with bishops(4pieces)), various logic puzzles, a couple of scrambled word puzzles and a train puzzle. As I said before these puzzles are easier then those encountered in the 7th Guest. The Gamebook will also kindly ask if the player wants the AI to outright solve the puzzle.

At word clue 7, 17, 29, and 37 all the movie clips gathered between those word clues will be played in full showing the player "the story". These can NOT be skipped. I highly recommend saving at these points. There are 9 save slots and make sure to save before exiting the game.

Finally save the game (final save point) at the last word clue (which is at the grandfather clock) because you may opt to play the endgame more then once (and beat Stauf's final game more than once) to see all the endings. There are three different endings to this game and are determined by Carl's choice. Do try to remember this was a very inventive and innovative game when it was made in 1993. So please try not to laugh too hard at the end or be disappointed by it. I personally think the end is still really creepy, even the ending that would be considered the best, "good" or "true" ending today.

I recommend this game for puzzlers who want a challenge and something different from today's fare.

Three reasons to buy this game:

* Challenging puzzles for people who enjoy frustration.
* A decent and interesting horror story.
* It's a very valuable piece of gaming history.

Three reasons NOT to buy this game:

* Cheesy cutscenes (but for some of us who like to laugh, it's a GREAT reason).
* Won't appeal to people who love HD games.
* The engine is outdated. Some people will have to fiddle with the game to get it running.

Now... for the review:

I have to admit that, like most people who played this game when it came out, I have fond memories of it: I used to play it with my family, in the weekends, when we usually took turns to solve the puzzles or to try to beat Stauf in Honey & Blood or the Rat Maze.

It's kind of sad, but I haven't played like that with my family and friends in a while. It seems like games rarely have that balance anymore. Most games nowadays are divided in two: A single player paradise with a flexible difficulty (so the player doesn't lose its appendix because of the frustration) or a multiplayer gore fest where rarely you understand what's happening anymore. Yeah, like most gamers, I also enjoy those kind of games, I know it's the evolution of gaming. However 11th Hour (and the 7th Guest) was a game which could be enjoyed with other people in a single gameplay and somehow, it seems it was meant to be played with the advice and skills of other people or it could be a very frustrating game.

You had to ask for help before the internet spoiled everything.

But time has passed and I know this game will barely catch the attention of new and young players. It's a shame. It deserves an opportunity, at least as a piece of history. The game has an interesting story but cheesy and low-res movies require some faith and imagination from the player; a suspension of desbelief and a willingness to enjoy what's happening or what's about to happen, regardless of the acting, or the 90s modelling and rendering. In my latest gameplay, although I knew most of the story, I could feel some scary or tense moments. The music is amazing, a true accomplishments (some puzzles are so difficult, that you could be listening the same tune for hours and you will hardly feel tired from hearing it).

Henry Stauf is a great character. It could be an icon like other popular videogame mascots.

It keeps crashing in modern pcs.Dont buy it until they fix it.

Really bad port. Game can't handle modern graphics cards, crashes constantly.

Avoid, even at $1.50

The 11th Hour, the sequel to probably one of the coolest games of time, and probably one of the biggest let downs sadly. Creative direction and internal struggles within the original developers company made what was probably the most anticipated sequel a complete and utter flop. This game feels less polished than the first, though I can see glimpses of what made the original stand out. The Groove engine was an interesting push, though at the time when it came out, wreaked havoc on machines if would work at all. Due to nostalgia, this game is a must in my list, but I can honestly say, its not a game to own if your not into the nostalgia of it all.

The 11th Hour is a tough game to recommend, because I enjoyed playing it but I don't necessarily think it's "good". If you tend to like cheesy FMV point and click games with their at times frustrating logic, this game is probably worth a try. If you get easily frustrated with really obtuse puzzles or lackluster story, you might want to choose something else.

The gameplay is a combination of puzzles and riddles. I found the puzzles to be pretty reasonable, although some of them were pretty challenging. The riddles were a lot more variable ranging from incredibly easy to incredibly obtuse. Figuring out what the riddle is getting at doesn't necessarily doesn't necessarily give a clear indication of what the corresponding object is. The in-game hint system is also not always clear, and at least once actually gave me the wrong impression of a puzzle. The puzzles where you have to go against the AI were difficult, but all were possible to beat without getting the computer to solve it for you.

The gameplay is all pretty divorced from the story. You unlock the cutscenes by solving riddles and completing puzzles, but those riddles and puzzles don't have anything to do with the story of the game. The story is okay. It's there, and it's interesting enough, but it isn't anything special and doesn't make a lot of sense if you really think about it. The characters aren't especially interesting and the acting and dialogue is all pretty cheesy.

I never had any major technical problems playing the game, and I didn't have to tweak any settings to get the game to work. I'd still recommend that you save frequently, though, because some of the puzzles are really irritating to have to do over in case of an unexpected glitch.

For all its flaws, I still really enjoyed The 11th Hour. I thought it was mostly fun, and had lots of elements to enjoy, although there are certainly much better games out there. It's also pretty cheap, especially when it goes on sale, and the soundtrack is pretty nice. Overall, 5/10

TLDR; Do you enjoy being berated constantly, especially in situations where your abuser is withholding information and context from you? Yeah, me neither.

First, I want to make it clear, this game is definitely playable on modern hardware, with a few caveats:

- Run in Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode
- Intro credits and room transitions will be sped up
- Random crashes. Save after every single event.
- Type PP then right-click to skip unwanted cut-scenes
- No volume control, in game music drastically overpowers the voice acting

So, you ought to be able to run the game. But should you? Probably not. One of my complaints on 7th Guest was the lack of items to interact with. 11th hour has the opposite problem. You can now interact with nearly all objects. The problem is that only one item is the "correct" one at any given time, and if you choose incorrectly you get berated by Stauf.

Oh, Stauf, you cheeky bastard. Didn't solve a 100+ character cryptogram right away and started clicking random objects? "I'VE MET BIRD DROPPINGS SMARTER THAN YOU!" Didn't beat an AI at connect four? "IS THERE A LOT OF INTERMARRIAGE IN YOUR FAMILY?" I stayed for the exploration and the puzzles, but Stauf's incessant blistering insults were a bit too much.

So the puzzles must be worth the effort of dealing with the other crap, then? Not really. Remember that nearly impossible microscope AI mini-game that was arguably the worst part of the 7th Guest? For some reason the developers decided to make about half of the puzzles nearly impossible AI mini-games! The game does give you hints if you ask, and will even allow you to solve most puzzles with the click of the button. But if you are using the Gamebook to skip the puzzles, that defeats the sole purpose of playing the game. Try as I might, I did end up using two skips: the chess knights puzzle and the honeycomb mini-game. The rest I powered through on my own. By the way, roughly half of my playtime was spent screwing around with the damn furniture puzzle alone.

After all is said and done, I have no regrets playing through this title as yet another re-visit to a bygone era of gaming, but I wouldn't recommend firing this one up unless you absolutely know what you are getting yourself into. This one is more frustrating than fun.

Not to be confused with Greame Base's excellent tale of birthday games and rodent treachery. The 11th hour is the sequel to The 7th Guest, an FMV horror puzzle game from the mid 90's. The game is played from a 1st person perspective and involves the player wandering around the games mansion looking for clues suggested by the disembodied voice of the mansions owner and solving "spooky" puzzles as you go. There are also a host of FMV events to stumble on to which detail the story of previous visitors to the house. It's a little slow but mostly holds up but I'm not sure who if anybody is going to be scared by anything that goes on, it's all just too funny.

-Everything seems to work, gameplay is somewhat engaging
-pretty hilarious. Also I have a crazy uncle by the same name as the games villain which just made it funnier
-slice of 90's gaming history. I was suprised to see that this was made in the SCUMM engine

-B grade acting, goofy plot, falls flat on it's face as far as being "horror" goes
-the villain looks like Mr Layheih (RIP) from trailer park boys

The 11th hour is unlikely to change anyone's life but it's a good laugh and plays decently, maybe not for recommended to everyone but if you are the sort of person who enjoys their B grade (or even C or D or E grade) horror films then you will probably enjoy this, similarly if you enjoyed the first person FMV puzzle games of the 90's this will take you back.

A classic!
Although people still says that this is a downfall from The 7th Guest, it is defenetly a must-have for fans of the genre.
Can't wait for the 7th Guest 3!