The Haunted Hoard: Bogey Manor (Arcade)

If someone was able to infiltrate and demolish a haunted house filled with ghosts, witches, and hovering gorgons, they’d easily be recognized for their bravery and heroism. However, the young boy known as Fritz doesn’t seem content with expelling evil from just one homestead, Bogey Manor seeing him tackle 40 haunted mansions that all at least have slight differences, his efforts more like tackling a haunted neighborhood rather than a single manor.

 

All 40 of the houses you’ll enter in this arcade platformer are similar in a few key ways. All of them are four floors tall, the different floors connected by staircases or doorways that are positioned differently depending on the level you’re in. Staircases can be reliably climbed, but the door you enter on a floor can take you to any other door on that side of the house, meaning it can be a risky gamble if you don’t know what monsters are lurking above or below even though it can be a quick escape route if your floor is packed with trouble. The house has four sides and you pass between them by heading towards the edges of the screen, a compass at the top of the screen helping you stay oriented. This compass also provides a pretty important alert system that is vital to understand to avoid what otherwise feel like cheap deaths. Monsters can enter from either side of the screen and are sometimes even obscured by walls, but the compass flashes red to warn you when an enemy is heading over or still hidden by the walls, meaning you can flee in time to avoid bumping into the baddy. Levels do have a timer meant to keep you active, but if it runs out there is some wiggle room as fireballs need time to generate before they fly across and almost assuredly obliterate poor Fritz.

Getting the hang of the universal house shape will help you start to understand the strategy in clearing out the houses in Bogey Manor. To clear a level you must find and destroy all of the colorful crystal balls found around the house. If you can do that, the house will begin to crumble, the player needing to quickly make their way to the bottom floor entrance to escape. If you do fail to make it out you can continue playing in the next house, but in most levels there’s going to be enough time to make your way out so long as you try some common sense strategies like clearing out top floor crystal balls first. You get three lives per credit, but interestingly enough if you continue after a game over before the countdown runs out, you can start from any house you like that you’ve reached in your current run. Reaching the final mansion feels much more feasible this way, but while staircases, crystal balls, and doors all technically set the stages apart, what really makes them feel unique are the way monsters are added to the action.

 

Entering the Bogey Manor decked out in what looks like a super hero costume, Fritz comes equipped with a baton-like weapon for fighting the creatures that go bump in the night. However, even some of the most common enemies aren’t possible to kill with it. Little fuzzballs can be eliminated with the stick, but ghosts are initially impervious to your blows as are creatures like the abundant Frankenstein’s monsters. To be able to clobber them properly, you must first startle them by using an odd pointing maneuver. This distracts the monster, leaving them vulnerable to a good whack that will cause them to crumple and not be a concern for a while. Overusing this maneuver on a single foe will start to aggravate them and send them chasing after you in a fuss, and a single bit of contact with a monster will end Fritz’s life. Choosing the right time to distract and knock out a fiend compared to just running away becomes a key part of navigating the floors. Quick and reactive strategizing to ensure your long term safety in a stage ends up giving the action a thrilling edge, and depending on your level the monsters may mix together in interesting ways. One stage might go overboard on the hovering gorgons who paralyze you with their touch, but pairing them with those simple furballs turns a laughable foe into a real threat. An annoying enemy with a broom will pass through some stages hiding doors and repairing crystal balls, and some stages end up about trying to figure out how to incapacitate them properly to avoid them constantly undoing your work. There are spinning floors you can attack to send monsters flying up to get stuck in the ceiling, but they can also be used against you, especially when Frankenstein’s monster reaches one and starts throwing a fit. Witches can use different spells to antagonize you, one able to teleport you between floors but this can also be a helpful outcome in houses with few connections between floors. Not every mix is a winner, the penultimate house actually has witches that appear suddenly with lethal attacks that you can barely plan around until you start to figure out their spawning locations, but more often than not the monster mix feels smartly selected to put up a fight without feeling like Fritz is underequipped.

Fritz does have a few ways to turn the tide in the haunted houses though. Destroying flashing red crystal balls will cause items to appear, many of these proving quite helpful. Some houses will only illuminate the currently floor you are on, but the right item will illuminate the whole house to make finding crystal balls easier. Grab a certain item and all monsters will freeze for a time, giving you the means to explore unimpeded. The most important power-up to consider though instead involves a flashing door that will appear from time to time in a building. Enter it and Fritz will get an upgrade to his hero outfit, the young man truly looking like a powerful superhero as he swaps his baton for a sword and gains a few boosts to his ability to traverse the mansion. Not only does he move faster, but he can take out enemies with his new blade and can even perform a jump that lets him travel freely between floors without a door or staircase. Super Fritz is a limited time power-up, but this boost can really turn the tables if you’re able to find it and can make even a house like number 39 feel more achievable as soon as you grab it. Its high power comes with a small cost, as clearing a level without using it gives you a boost to your score. Failing to make it out of a crumbling house also denies you the post-level points, but the choice on whether or not to use such a powerful tool to clear a level does feel like an interesting consideration for those concerned with earning high scores.

THE VERDICT: The 40 houses to conquer in Bogey Manor are pretty effective at mixing up their floor connections and patrolling monsters to keep the player on their toes. While some houses lack a unique identity, some have clear inspirations for what the challenge should be, setting them apart and making you consider your approach to clearing out crystal balls a bit more. The game still cuts a quick pace as you race against a timer and constantly moving monsters, but with helpful power-ups, tricks, and Super Fritz if you really want to pull off a reversal of fortune, Bogey Manor provides some stylish spooky fun that knows just how capable it should let the player be in order to keep them hooked.

 

And so, I give Bogey Manor for arcade machines…

A GOOD rating. Besides some stages like house 39 with its devious disappearing witches, Bogey Manor really feels like it wants to put up a fair fight and it is enjoyable to tackle it because it doesn’t often resort to cheap tricks to kill the player. Escaping a crumbling mansion almost always feels possible but sometimes you will just barely squeak out. Having to look at the compass to know if moving to the next screen is safe isn’t the most convenient alert system but it is properly sensitive so you usually have sufficient warning before you could have blundered into a death that felt unfair. The crystal balls are scattered well enough to send you traveling across most of a house but you still have the time you need to find your path to them even if you do need to devote time to outmaneuvering the monsters lurking about. The creatures you encounter are also a smartly designed bunch for the most part. Your ability to distract them gives you a way to overcome most any you encounter, but the fact they’ll get right back up in a bit and can get infuriated if you abuse your ability makes choosing when to utilize it feel meaningful. Super Fritz is perhaps the smartest addition to Bogey Manor though, feeling like the right option for overcoming some of the deadlier haunted houses but not always a necessary means of clearing even some of the more complicated designs. There are a few tiny issues like a crystal ball sometimes being positioned above rotating floors that make it hard to whack or the need to press up to enter doors when that’s also how you can ascend a nearby staircase so it confuses the game on your intentions. Otherwise, Bogey Manor does feel pretty sound once you understand the systems at play and only rarely does it feel like it is overstepping its difficulty sweet spot.

 

Like some arcade games, the settings the cabinet owner activates can take away some of the allowances like the accommodating continues, they can boost you up to five default lives, and they can seemingly even tinker with the difficulty level to make it even harder. With standard settings enabled it does feel like Bogey Manor provides a good challenge without standing out as a quarter muncher, clearing the houses of horrors balanced well by the effective relationship between level layouts and the enemies present.