Play Haunted House Online

Game Overview

Haunted House on the Atari 2600 is one of those games that somehow manages to be creepy even with its super simple graphics. You play as a pair of floating eyeballs (yep) creeping through a pitch-black mansion, hunting for three pieces of a magic urn. The whole place is crawling with tarantulas, bats, and this one obnoxiously fast ghost—if they touch you, poof, there goes a life.

You can’t see anything unless you strike a match, which lights up just enough of the room to make you nervous about what’s lurking in the corners. Of course, the second you get comfortable, a gust of wind or some creepy-crawly blows it out. There’s a scepter that makes you invincible, but you can only carry one thing at a time, so you’ll constantly be juggling keys, urn pieces, and your only defense. The tension is real, especially when you’re fumbling in the dark, hearing that ghost getting closer.

It’s surprisingly strategic—do you grab the urn piece now or come back with the scepter? Do you risk another match? And good luck finding the master key hidden somewhere in that maze. The whole thing feels like a horror movie where you’re the idiot wandering into the obviously haunted house. But in a good way.