Waxworks is a Horrorsoft

Adventure Soft

Adventure Soft is a UK-based video game developer established by Mike Woodroffe, first as an importer and reseller of Adventure International games. The firm operates out of Sutton Coldfield, and is best known for the Simon the Sorcerer series of games....

 first-person dungeon crawl

Dungeon crawl

A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...

 style RPG. It was originally an Amiga game but was also released for DOS

MS-DOS

MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...

. It is infamous for its still-startling depictions of gore (in 256 colors

8-bit color

8-bit color graphics is a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, such that each pixel is represented by one 8-bit byte. The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256....

) and its difficult gameplay. This was Horrorsoft's last game before they became Adventure Soft

Adventure Soft

Adventure Soft is a UK-based video game developer established by Mike Woodroffe, first as an importer and reseller of Adventure International games. The firm operates out of Sutton Coldfield, and is best known for the Simon the Sorcerer series of games....

, a company renowned for their Simon the Sorcerer series

Simon the Sorcerer series

Simon the Sorcerer is a series of point-and-click adventure games created by Adventure Soft. The series follows the adventures of an unwilling hero of the same name and has a strong fantasy setting similar to Sierra's King's Quest and Westwood's Kyrandia series...

.
Many years ago, a witch named Ixona stole a chicken from an ancestor of the player, who chopped off her hand as punishment for the theft.