Haunted House is a 1982 adventure game for the Atari 2600, where the player’s objective is to find and recover three pieces of a magic urn hidden throughout 24 rooms in a mansion. The player uses matches to illuminate items and certain areas within the game. With nine lives, the player must navigate the mansion, collecting one object at a time, and swapping objects by touching another one.
The mansion consists of 24 rooms spread across four floors, with doors that allow the player to ascend and descend between floors. However, each door can only be used in one direction. As the player explores the mansion, they may encounter enemies such as vampire bats, tarantulas, and a ghost, which cause the player to lose a life upon contact.
Haunted House features nine difficulty settings that introduce new challenges, such as locked doors requiring a hidden master key, extra enemies, and enemies with enhanced abilities. For example, bats can steal a carried item and place it at a random location around the mansion. A scepter can be found inside the mansion, which, when collected, prevents enemies from chasing the player on most difficulty levels. However, the ghost will continue to chase the player on higher difficulty levels, regardless of whether the player has the scepter or not.