These ghoulish games won't leave you bored
The idea of a haunted house is something very primal - everyone has some idea of what it means to encounter a spook house, and Walt Disney directed his Imagineers to create the ultimate example of what that could look like. It is no surprise that this idea has stretched beyond being a show, which the ride is, to becoming a type of alternate world that we want to interact with and become a part of. Ever since the attraction opened, Disney knew this would be the case, and the company has marketed various games over the years allowing its fans to get a bit more personal with the world of the Haunted Mansion.
Leisure Dynamics' makes a spooky splash
In 1975, Leisure Dynamics, a toy and novelty manufacturer with a number of brands and a wide range of Disney licenses, released their "Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion Game," a highly detailed three-dimensional board game under their Minneapolis-based Lakeside division. The game, which promised to be a "chilling challenge to escape the spinning spooks," included many of the characters and scenes found inside the Haunted Mansion attraction (as well as a design based on the Disneyland architecture, despite the "Walt Disney World" designation in the game's title). The gimmick was a game board that included four cogged wheels that would spin the entire game path around. The instructions, while complex, were straightforward enough that most children could easily figure out how to play. The game was released at a suggested retail price of $8.99, and generally sold for between six and seven dollars throughout 1975 and 1976. By 1977, the game was often sold at discount for as low as $2.49, until stock was depleted.
Lakeside made a bit of a splash in the toy world with the release of their "Haunted Mansion" game. Lakeside hired "Revolting Development, Co." from Costa Mesa to design an attention-grabbing marketing gimmick for the 1975 American Toy Fair in New York. The marketing geniuses at Revolting staffed the Lakeside booth in New York with "audio-impulse-tape-driven" mechanical representatives which they had placed behind the table, designed to look like shrouded spooks. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, A "ghost-head mannequin explained and demonstrated Lakeside's newest toy, the 'Disney Haunted Mansion Game.' All the salesman had to do was take orders. It was so successful the company had to step up production three times."
As the Haunted Mansion has become a cultural icon, so has interest in this beloved chestnut. Many monster kids who owned the game recall game play with fondness, and the extensive art really captured the essence of the attraction. The spinning ghosts added a random element to the experience that added an entertaining gimmick to the game. To get a feel for the playing experience, you can watch people break out the game on YouTube. Steve Banes actually managed to track down the 1975 and 1976 Lakeside wholesale sales pamphlets which describe the game, and you can view scans of each page at his "And Everything Else... Too" blog. Likewise, Haunted Mansion collector Christian Pratt has unearthed one of the promotional buttons from Lakeside's American Toy Fair booth in 1975, which is pictured at right.
Theme park exclusives
In the mid-aughts, the Disney Parks released their own versions of some classic board games, giving them new life by adding a Disney twist. The Haunted Mansion was honored with its own version of Parker Brother' "Clue," and a few years later, Hasbro's "The Game of Life" was released with a Haunted Mansion twist. The original Haunted Mansion "Clue" came in a tin container that was only available at the theme parks, and was reissued in a similar format in a cardboard box for sale at retail outlets outside of the Disney parks. Scott Rogers, posting in a BoardGameGeek forum, notes that "this version ditches the murder angle - ironic considering the house IS populated by ghosts! You'd think that someone had to have died there! - and instead asks 'Which guest is being haunted, which ghost is doing the haunting and what room are they haunting in?'" Scott ends up recommending the game, adding that as a Haunted Mansion fan, it was an easy call for him to make. If you're a fan of "Clue," then the Haunted Mansion angle is a blood red cherry on top. (A keychain-sized pocket version of Haunted Mansion "Clue" was also developed for sale as a souvenir at the parks.)
By many accounts, "The Game of Life" was a spookier proposition as far as game play is concerned. With a focus on the "after-LIFE," winning the game means you have crossed over to become the 1,000th happy haunt in the Haunted Mansion. While terminology and graphics were altered to reflect the Haunted Mansion's scary sensibilities, game play is essentially the same as the standard version of "The Gale of Life." Click here to watch "Mozzy & Maryssa" review Haunted Mansion "Clue," and click here to watch Heather unbox the Haunted Mansion-themed "The Game of Life."
Now this is dead-ication
While this is ordinarily something I'd put in the fandom section of DoomBuggies.com, I can't ignore "Escape from the Haunted Mansion," which is "Trader Sam's" exceptional home-grown Haunted Mansion-themed board game. And here's the kicker - it's free for you to download and make for yourself. Simply visit Trader Sam's website - The Disney Experience - and download the templates and instructions. Perhaps what is most exciting about this game is the fact that by constructing it, you are constructing a gorgeous model of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion as well.
Hours and hours of scream time
Over the years since DoomBuggies.com launched in 1997, it has become apparent that this supposedly timeless history site has an inherent problem reporting on new media. An attempt to include every instance of the Haunted Mansion's intersection with digital technology is a ghoul's - er, fools errand, as apps and digital bits of media become obsolete in the blink of an eye.
All of that said, let's take a brief look at how the Haunted Mansion has been respresented in digital forms over the past couple decades. A few notable instances stand out as early examples of Disney's haunted house's influence on modern culture. The first was the seminal Nintendo Entertainment System ROM "Adventures in the Magic Kingdom," released by Capcom in 1990 (which you can play online today). This side-scrolling platform game had a level based on the Haunted Mansion in which the player would avoid a variety of ghosts and ghoulies (including familiarities such as spooks in mirrors, hands rising from coffins, ghostly ballroom dancers, and floating books) by throwing candles at them, accompanied by an original score by Yoko Shimomura, who would go on to score the "Kingdom Hearts" games years later, among dozens of other projects. In the game, the player must find keys on six levels of play, after which Mickey is able to unlock the castle gates to allow the Magic Kingdom's parade to begin - a fairly common type of premise for the era in a game that was well-known due to the popularity of the Nintendo video game system and the fact that a Disney theme was part of the product.
Listen to Yoko Shimomuara's hypnotic theme from the Haunted Mansion level of Capcom's 'Adventures in the Magic Kingdom' for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
However, looking back at the game after technology (and the Disney Company) had moved forward, reviewer Kevin Wong found the entire concept of the game questionable: "Think about it - essentially, the developers turned the ... so-called 'Happiest Place on Earth' - into a hazardous, perilous realm, where one could die in a fiery pit, crash into an asteroid belt, or get swarmed by scary ghosts," Kevin posits. "The pirates were supposed to be ‘Yo-ho-ho’ pirates - not real, rape and pillage pirates. Was any parade - even a Disney parade - worth getting killed over?"
Let's go, Tokyo
In 1994, Tomy released a similar game in Japan for the Super Famicon (SNES) featuring Mickey Mouse on a rollicking race through Tokyo Disneyland. Called "Mikkī no Tōkyō Dizunīrando Daibōken" (or "Mickey's Great Adventure in Tokyo Disneyland" when translated), the game is a clear step up graphically from the Capcom game, demonstrating how fast video game technology was moving in the 1990s. In this game, you are Mickey Mouse trying to rescue your fab friends from the wicked Pete - armed with nothing but water balloons as weapons and helium balloons to help you travel through the park. The Haunted Mansion presents a challenging level, as various ghosts and ghoulies try to attack you and Madame Leota tries to hurl her floating instruments at you.
The Mansion level's graphics are impressive; Marc Davis's art from the walls of the attraction has been faithfully represented in pixel work, and the various characters' facial expressions are priceless, for a '90s side scroller. The game's ROM is available for download in various places if you have a SNES Emulator installed on your computer, or with Flash installed you can play it online.
Nukem, Danno
On the other hand, 1996 brought us "Duke Nukem 3D," a first-person shooter game from 3D Realms which, alongside Doom, has been credited as the co-forefather of the modern first-person shooter, a category of game play that has since brought countless millions of dollars to the video game industry (as well as the dimenhydrinate-based drug manufacturing companies.) The fascinating thing about Duke Nukem 3D was the ability for players to use the game's BUILD platform to create "Total Conversions," or fan-created environments within which the game could exist. In many cases, fans would create intricate worlds that were less interested in the game play and oriented more toward the visuals of the conversion.
Naturally, it wasn't long before a Haunted Mansion-themed Total Conversion was built. Before 1997 had passed, "Dukeland" had been created by Parasite Productions. To quote from their own understated synopsis: "Those aliens bastards have stolen the happiest place on earth - Disneyland. The aliens tried to physically remove Disneyland and it broke into pieces. Your mission: take back New Orleans Square and Tomorrowland. No one steals Disneyland... and lives!" Following the successful fan reception of "Dukeland," programmer Steve Tyler came up with yet another Duke Nukem 3D-based mod called "HM-3D," which was solely focused on creating a virtal tour through the Haunted Mansion. You can find HM-3D here.
Of course, being a product of an adolescent male-oriented video game industry, Duke Nukem 3D was a game which celebrated death, mayhem, and scantily clad women, and was also one of the earliest videogames to stoke a mature-rating controversy along with questions about censorship, which are too far beyond the scope of DoomBuggies.com to warrant more than this sentence. To play Duke Nukem 3D today, you can download and install EDuke32, a port that will allow the game to be played on almost any platform. The Dukeland mod can be downloaded from Nitro404.com.
Next up: kart racing through the Haunted Mansion
"Mario Kart" was another genre of videogaming established by Nintendo in 1992, and by the turn of the century, the racing-style game was a cornerstone of the videogame industry. DoomBuggies.com is proud to have been a reference point for "Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour", a game from Eidos Interactive released in 2000, which features a lovingly-designed race through the Haunted Mansion. Ross Harris from Crystal Dynamics spoke to DoomBuggies.com about the project. "I'm happy that I got to do 99% of the Haunted Mansion racetrack all by myself," Ross said. "Disney gave us a lot of reference, and we spent five days in the Disney World parks in Florida where I shot hours of videotape - but most of the reference for the Haunted Mansion came from the internet — your site included. I think I did a pretty good job of being faithful to the Mansion, if you take into account the technical limitations, and some changes made for game play purposes." You can still find it on Amazon.com for Playstation, Dreamcast, or GameBoy Color.
A notable review: "I shouldn't be recommending this. Nobody NEEDS another Kart racing game. But... as a Disney collector's item, it works wonders. When I first heard of this game, I thought for sure it would never work, that it wouldn't be as fun as the real thing. Of course, nothing could be that great (I feel like a little boy all of the sudden!), but this game works on just enough levels that it's worth the ride. Bottling the magic of Disneyland is rare in a licensed product, but that essence is here in Disney Magical Racing Tour." —Marc Nix, Snowball.com
Murphy's Law
In conjunction with the 2003 Haunted Mansion motion picture, TDK Mediactive released the definitive Haunted Mansion video game, titled simply "The Haunted Mansion." In this game, you (playing as "Zeke," the new caretaker) needed courage to stay alive as you would battle beastly creatures and solve puzzling quizzes to rescue the 999 trapped happy haunts and bring peace to the cursed abode. Fans of the film and ride alike were happy with this homage, as it contained surprises and characters from both sources. Game play was fairly intuitive, yet challenging enough for even experienced gamers. At a preview party TDK hosted at Disneyland's famed Club 33, even hardcore game developers and reviewers found much to praise about the game.
The video above shows the opening to the game which is presented at the start of game play. While this product provides a loving homage to the ride, it also overlays an intricate storyline into the setting, which is necessary for a lengthy and challenging videogame. Overall, critical response to the game was positive, though mixed. Play Magazine was unconvinced, calling the game's storyline "way overdone, weighing down the gameplay... and convoluted specifics of progression are unnecessary given the game's linear structure." On the other hand, IGN took a more positive view of the game, saying that "the good news is that the videogame version of Haunted Mansion is in fact not based on the disappointing Eddie Murphy movie of the same name, but rather on the attraction that started it all. As a result, it's a little creepier and slightly more true to the original material." As of 2019, 92 percent of Google users who rated the game gave it a thumbs up. You can watch Near Plays recorded gameplay on YouTube to see some of the action and discover some cheats for the game. You can get the game on Amazon for either XBox, Playstation 2 or GameCube.
Listen to the Haunted Mansion game version of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" sung by the singing busts, who are credited in the film as the Dapper Dans, the name that is given to the quartet which performs regularly at the Disney theme parks. The film version is a different recording than this game version (although the vocalists are the same). The vocalists credited in the film are Shelby Grimm, Harry Campbell, William T. Lewis, Tim Reeder and Bob Hartley.
A GameBoy Advance version of the game in which you played as a mysterious slender woman rather than Caretaker Zeke was also developed, reportedly to near completion, but for reasons unknown, the GameBoy Advance version never made it to market. The game was signifcantly different from the other 2003 releases, and we include it here as a footnote since it was a similar tie-in with the movie, in which you were apparently still to have freed trapped spirits in order to win the game.
More epic platforms
Because of the attraction's extreme fandom, it's likely that most popular Disney franchises will eventually at least nod at the ride. Take "Epic Mickey", for instance - the 2010 video game developed by Warren Spector which recast Mickey as his vintage, mischevious-yet-heroic persona made popular in his early cartoon shorts and codified by his appearance as the Soceror's Apprentice in Fantasia (1940). In Epic Mickey, a setting called "Lonesome Manor" takes the place of the Haunted Mansion - differing from the attraction in some ways, of course, but keeping its spirit alive (and obviously designed to look just like its counterpart in Anaheim.) The quests inside are supplied by a "Madame Leona," and levels of the house include a foyer, stretching room, library, ballroom, and the Mad Doctor's attic.
As made evident by the concept art at right, the Lonesome Manor architecture was initially designed to encompass different facets of the architecture from both the east and west coast versions of the attraction. This remains true with the inclusion of a libary in the gameplay, a feature exclusive to the Walt Disney World attraction, though the facade eventually developed for Lonesome Manor most closely resembles the Disneyland version of the ride.
The general concept of the game is that the sorcerer Yen Sid has inserted Disney's "forgotten" properties, such as disused and little known characters (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, anyone?) into a painted world of his own construction, but Mickey has turned that world into a wastland by screwing around with Yen Sid's painting. The dramatic telling of this story works well with the Haunted Mansion mystique, and Lonesome Manor takes full advantage of both the Haunted Mansion's built-in spooky premise as well as Disney's other haunting properties, such as the Mad Doctor and the Lonesome Ghosts.
One element of Epic Mickey that deserves special note is the score by Emmy award-winning composer Jim Dooley. Jim pointed out that Warren Spector's first goal was to capture the "Disney sound." "I was given tons of artwork, and had a lot of time to sit with it, and sit with the worlds," Jim told the Mousetalgia Podcast. "I let my mind chew on it actively and passively. Also, I beckoned the Disney Archives to help me out." So Jim chose two films that he believed would lend him direction, and received copies of the scores and rehearsal piano charts from "Pinocchio" and "Mary Poppins" to use as grounding points to establish his "Disney sound," and took off from there. "You find these little bits of lost Disney history," Jim said of the scores he received. For Jim, the process of creating Epic Mickey's soundtrack involved "looking at the new stuff, going back to the old stuff... and then moving forward."
Listen to sample from "Lonesome Manor," one of James Dooley's themes from 'Epic Mickey'. While Jim used many points of inspiration to create his soundtrack, there are some elements of this particular cut that resemble some of the features of Buddy Baker's "Grim Grinning Ghosts" melody, though assembled into a dramatic orchestral work that captures the essence of Mickey's struggle upon which the video game is based. You can purchase the full "Lonesome Manor" track on Amazon.com.
Opening up new worlds
In 2011, Microsoft Studios released "Kinect: Disneyland Adventures" for the XBox 360. The game is an "open world," or a virtual recreation of a world from which to start the gameplay - and in this case, Disneyland provides the model. Players can explore the intricately replicated theme park, playing games themed to the various rides and earning Disney currency as they go through the game. In the case of the Haunted Mansion, players can walk all around the facade, exploring it in great detail and perhaps meeting some friendly statuary before entering the front door. Once inside, Madame Leota sends players on a dizzying fall through the floor of the ever-elongating stretching room until they begin a quest to escape the clutches of the not-so-happy haunts. Rather than providing a new soundtrack, the "Disneyland Adventures" game relies on pieces of the original recordings from the park to create its soundscape.
Watch The 8-Bit Tour's video documenting the Haunted Mansion interaction sequence from "Kinect: Disneyland Adventures."
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