Christmas at Grandad’s… with a Villainous Dentist
In Humbug, Graham Cluley’s second and final text adventure, Christmas doesn’t bring comfort—it brings danger.
You play Sidney Widdershins, packed off to your Grandad’s for the holidays. Waiting in the wings is Jasper Slake, Grandad’s evil neighbour and a “particularly sadistic dentist” intent on getting his hands on the old man’s crumbling manor. It’s a story built not on cutscenes or graphics, but on words and puzzles.
A Year in the Making, Not for Novices
Cluley has said Humbug took about a year to write, a significant effort for a one-person project. It first reached players as shareware on the cover disks of the February 1991 issue of PC Plus, quietly slipping into thousands of homes.
While it keeps the playful humour of Jacaranda Jim, reviewers quickly noticed that Humbug carried sharper teeth. One contemporary review observed it “is not, perhaps, an adventure for novices.” Its puzzles are more intricate, the solutions less forgiving, demanding patience and lateral thinking.
Lasting Impressions
Decades later, Humbug continued to fascinate. In 2018, Joe Pranevich wrote a quite extensive review on The Adventure Gamer, noting the game has “more charm than it has any right to have,” while also stressing “it’s also quite difficult.”
Like its predecessor, Humbug has been released into the public domain, now playable far beyond its original DOS-era audience.
The game stands as a snapshot of an era when one person, a keyboard, and a good idea could create an adventure tough enough to stump players—and memorable enough to linger for years.