''Fun House'' is a 1991 action video game based on the US version of the

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

show '' Fun House''. It was released in North America for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

with significant differences between the two.

Gameplay

NES version

The general gameplay concept is that each level is like a child's version of ''

The Running Man Running Man may refer to: Literature * ''The Running Man'', a 1963 novel by Joan Carol Holly under the pseudonym J. Hunter Holly * ''The Running Man'' (novel), a 1982 novel by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman * ''The Running Man' ...

'' with a basic top-down view. Players must throw

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word , ...

es skillfully at a series of easy-to-hit targets. Some elements of the game are indirectly taken from the classic arcade game ''

Pole Position In a motorsports race, the pole position is usually the best and "statistically the most advantageous" starting position on the track. The pole position is usually earned by the driver with the best qualifying times in the trials before the ra ...

'' (except that the player does not have the option to play as a

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship ...

vehicle). In order to make it to the next level, the player must make it from the starting line to the finish within the time limit with a young child on

inline skates Inline skates are a type of roller skate used for inline skating. Unlike quad skates, which have two front and two rear wheels, inline skates typically have two to five wheels arranged in a single line. Some, especially those for recreation, ...

. Otherwise, the player loses a chance and must start the stage over again. The host of the televised game show, J. D. Roth, congratulates players for winning a stage while taunting the player with late 1980s/early 1990s sarcasm when he loses a "chance." Icy floors and slime colored ramps offer an additional challenge to the player. There are 72 rooms in the entire Fun House; with targets that are either numbered or given a generic target graphic. Each room has a name that usually gives a clue about how the room's design is implemented; either as clues that describe themselves or as a pun-laden name. Although the player is given three chances to successfully navigate the entire Fun House, collecting 25 silver coins acts as a

1-up In video games, a life is a play-turn that a player character has, defined as the period between start and end of play. Lives refer to a finite number of tries before the game ends with a game over. It is sometimes called a chance, a try, rest ...

. Warp zones will allow players to access the more difficult levels of the Fun House at an earlier time; thus allowing gamers who are pressed for time a chance to beat the game with a higher level of risk. Realtime Associates released a similar game lacking the Fun House branding for the

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same te ...

under the name of '' Out of Gas''.

MS-DOS version

In the MS-DOS version of Fun House, the players have to play in three mini-games before a trivia round; they are either a shooting game or a different kind of arcade game. After answering three kid-oriented trivia questions (usually about ice cream or elementary school knowledge), they had to run through the Fun House Maze for some more points. Each player had to go into the Fun House three times to pick up prizes. Most of the prizes were good (adds points to the score) while some of them were actually obstacles (deducts points from the score).

References

{{reflist 1991 video games DOS games Hi Tech Expressions games Nintendo Entertainment System games North America-exclusive video games Video games based on television series Video games scored by George Sanger Video games developed in the United States Video games set in the United States Multiplayer and single-player video games