I found this cool old website for The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, and T7G3: The Collector. The author is "Bones the Caretaker". The section of the website for The Collector says "Copyright site-design and written content by Paul van der Meer 2003".

Wait a minute, I know that name! Paul van der Meer is the director of The 7th Guest VR and Project Lead at Vertigo Games!

I don't know how old this website is, but it doesn't exist anymore. Luckily the Wayback Machine captured most of it (missing a bunch of images).

Unfortunately the Wayback Machine is a little slow, so navigating around the house in this way is a bit of a pain, and the split screen isn't sized properly for modern screens.

So I made this tweaked version that can be easily self-hosted or downloaded, and it runs much faster.

Viewable on http://t7g.mods4ever.com/

If you're lazy, the easiest way to see the whole site is to go to the map page and middle click every link. T7G Map and T11H Map

Source code at https://github.com/Die4Ever/bones-7guesthomepage

If you have any improvements to contribute you can make a pull request.

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20041127023227/http://uk.geocities.com/veluan2002/

The Cutscenes are out of order in the Game. Here is the Cutscenes in order as told in the book, The 7th Guest: A Novel by Matthew J. Costello. Cropped the black borders with only a small loss of quality.

Trilobyte:

Trilobyte mourns the passing of Robert Stein III who left this world on January 17 of this year.

Rob was an integral part of the innovative creation of The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. We were incredibly lucky that he came into our lives, bringing his great talent with him. He will always be respected and admired by anyone who had the good fortune of having known and worked with him.

Jonathan Sposato:

rest in peace brother. robert stein III was the first ever art director at banana republic back when their catalogs were hand drawn by him in a marin county studio. he was also the co-creator of the epic hit game “7th guest” and it’s even bigger followup “11th Hour.” i first met him when i was a young teen making computer games, where he was my slightly older colleague at ‘Virgin Mastertronic’, an offshoot of richard branson’s ‘Virgin Records.' he taught me so much about ‘suggesting detail where there isn’t any.’ years later after college when i started my first games company, i hired rob to be our senior art director, where he routinely regaled us with stories about his run-in’s with special effects greats phil tippett or ray harryhausen. he once lived amongst one of the most untouched pre-industrial humans, the trobriand islanders, during a once every 75 year solar eclipse because he simply wanted to experience what they would experience. he traded drawings for food and lived among them for months. it was said that the founders of banana republic mel and patricia ziegler hired him on the spot, sans portfolio, because he was the very vision of the wanderlust adventurer they sought to sell the idea of. the son of a decorated fighter ace and cold war spy robert k. stein, rob was born for adventure. when i had occasion to go to africa, he once warned; “if your flight has to divert to uganda, do not get off. my dad and i were once held at gunpoint by idi amin’s henchmen in entebbe…”

thru out the years, rob and i ended up working together on and off in parallel careers at microsoft where he designed almost all the iconography for Windows Vista, while i putzed around in the consumer division and xbox. a few years later i tried to recruit him to be a part of my startup, he refused. after selling that one i gave him another shot and he refused again. when i visited him in hospice he laughed; “goddamn it sposato you should have done a better job talking me into those!” to which i replied; “robert you’ve lived 3 lives in the span of my one. no regrets man. no regrets.” and he truly had none.

after a brave fight, rob succumbed to cancer on Jan 17th of this year. he is survived by his beautiful, delightful, and very funny wife Summie Aoki-Stein, an accomplished flight attendant speaking multiple languages who has many great stories of her own. i am grateful my friend was in great care by such a loving partner. his ashes are with the beach and sea in his favorite spot on earth; kailua beach in oahu, hawaii. you can visit rob virtually thru his gorgeous illustrations at https://www.instagram.com/robertsteiniii?igsh=MW1lNGo4NHJsamhibQ==

you will be missed robert...

the highlights are some pictures of Robert Hirschboeck as various characters https://rhstauf.tripod.com/photo2.html

and an interview from 1996 done over AOL chat, in character as Henry Stauf https://rhstauf.tripod.com/interview.html

a lot of these are from 1991/1992 when the game was just called "Guest", with camera angles that you can't see in the actual game, and higher resolution renders

pretty cool stuff

Similar to the strategy guide for The 7th Guest I posted a while ago: https://programming.dev/post/9424024

Here's a list of different places you can chat about this series of games. We're a bit divided, but the fans are out there!

!stauf_mansion@lemmy.mods4ever.com - This Lemmy community, you're here right now! If you need a Lemmy account then go here and make the account. (Sorry, my server is too weak!) If you already have a Mastodon account (and you're feeling brave/technical) then you can put @stauf_mansion@lemmy.mods4ever.com into the search box there and follow that account.

https://discord.gg/Hss5cJg - Stauf's Mansion Discord. Pretty active with a good number of fans. ALSO HAS Stream Detective so you can find people streaming these games on Twitch! Very fun to watch people fumble through the puzzles for the first time and chat with them, just be careful with backseating. Make sure you assign yourself the roles to get notifications for Stream Detective, ask in there if you need help.

https://www.reddit.com/r/7thguest/ - Reddit community. Not very active, but with a good post or crosspost there could be people from outside the subreddit finding it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/the13thdoll - Facebook group. Lots of fans for all the games here, very active.

https://mastodon.social/tags/the7thguest - Mastodon hashtag #the7thguest, you can follow hashtags on Mastodon so they automatically show up on your home feed, very handy! Also check the hashtags for #the7thguestvr, #the11thhour, and #the13thdoll and whatever else you want.

https://www.gog.com/forum/the_7th_guest_series - GOG Forum. Mostly tech support questions but there are a lot of fans there.

https://www.gog.com/forum/the_13th_doll_a_fan_game_of_the_7th_guest - again a GOG Forum but for The 13th Doll. Still mostly tech support questions.

https://www.twitch.tv/search?term=the%207th%20guest - Twitch categories so you can watch people playing the games live and chat with them (just be careful with backseating). Open each one and click Follow to add the game to your followed categories list. But honestly you're better off joining the Discord and using the Stream Detective inside there.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/The7thGuest?f=live - Twitter hashtag #the7thguest. Unfortunately you can't follow a hashtag on Twitter, so you gotta just check it manually. Also check hashtags for #the7thguestvr, #the11thhour (although there's some noise in there), #the13thdoll, and any other game you want. (Make sure to switch to the "Latest" tab instead of "Top")

Any other places with fans of the series? Let me know! I'm mostly hanging out here and in Discord, but I'll probably see you if you post to any of the others!

This shout-out filled episode features Matt Costello on the curious craft of writing for games. A prolific novelist, his career spans the length of our industry, from the genre-defining 7th Guest to huge hits like Disney Universe and DOOM3. A peek behind the Curtain of a lesser known, but fundamental aspect of #gamedev

We left a surprise for The Fat Man on this track...

For the track "The Final Hour," we asked George "The Fat Man" Sanger's daughter, Gwendolyn Sanger, to record the "voice mail" sample... and not tell her dad. This is his reaction video of listening to the track for the first time, not knowing that's his daughter doing the voice.

Follow their Bandcamp so you know when you can buy this album! https://error47.bandcamp.com/

https://error47.band/

They're also on Mastodon! @error47@musicians.today

if you want spoiler free hints, check my video instead https://youtu.be/T5rBc_T8x2g

The composer for Vertigo Games' VR reimagining of The 7th Guest sat down with us for an hour to compare notes.

Listen to Jonathan's soundtrack for The 7th Guest VR: https://musicbyjonathan.bandcamp.com/album/the-7th-guest-vr-original-soundtrack

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonathan_vdw

Jonathan's website: https://musicbyjonathan.com

Check out Soup's On - our 4xLP reimagining of the soundtracks to The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour: https://kickstarter.com/projects/twoguysrecords/soups-on-music-from-the-7th-guest-and-the-11th-hour-on-vinyl/

ignore what he says about difficulty running the game or DOSBox, that's outdated info, just use ScummVM

Based on the 7th Guest Sphinx spirit board, hand-crafted 18" x 13.5" on real wood with Eye of Providence pyramid planchette. Signed on back by Rob Landeros.

old trailer just found, courtesy of GoatedQuest

The digital soundtrack to the @the7thguestvr will be available later this month (date TBA)! This rearranged score holds 30 tracks and features @LaraAusensi @TheMightyFatMan Nathan Madsen @FrankKlepacki and Hannes Frischat.

Twitch profile here https://www.twitch.tv/mike_mega

If you wanna know where all the coins are https://www.speedrun.com/t7gvr/guides

Darkshoxx has a speedrun for All Coins which shows where they all are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF8-TxobtoE

I spent a lot of time looking at every little thing and trying to 100% it, I got close!

Also we have a speedrun leaderboard now with some work-in-progress guides https://www.speedrun.com/t7gvr

and check out that first speedrun from darkshoxx too

Ok I love you Stauf Mansion Fan, but the exclusion of "Downstairs" is inexcusable, I would've removed "Down in the Drain" for it. https://thefatmanandteamfat.bandcamp.com/track/downstairs

Reminder that The 7th Guest VR is expected to release about 15 hours from now! I hope to be streaming it on Twitch ASAP https://twitch.tv/die4ever2011

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2456960/The_7th_Guest_VR/

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/5223884527630557/

https://store.playstation.com/concept/10008625

And make sure to join our Discord if you want to keep track of all the Twitch streams, not just mine! https://discord.gg/Hss5cJg

Our esteemed guests... Fancy yourselves detectives in The 7th Guest VR Cryptic Puzzle Quest?

Watch for clues from our honored creators to cast light on that which keeps you in the dark.

Win a Quest 3 & More: https://the7thguest-vr.com/enterifyoudare/

Reminder that The 7th Guest VR comes out in 2 days, on the 19th