YOUR HOUSE is a puzzle game aiming to marry many differing mediums and narrative stylings. It’s, somehow, a comic book and a short story with choose-your-own-adventure undertones and escape room thrills. One of its hooks is that it’s “a game you can read, a book you can play.” I ultimately walked away from YOUR HOUSE loving the sum of its parts rather than the whole.
So, you play as 18-year-old Debbie. Debbie has an unfortunate relationship with her parents, leading her down a troubled road in life. She ends up in a boarding school, and she longs for freedom. To unshackle herself from the burdens that torment her day-to-day existence. On her birthday, she receives a mysterious, cryptic letter. This call to adventure leads Debbie to the titular YOUR HOUSE. Or, rather, her new house — if she can solve its many mysteries.
So, the gameplay loop is simple. You’re reading, you’re clicking on objects, you’re being the Sherlock you were meant to be. However, YOUR HOUSE gets early brownie points for messing with me in ways I wasn’t prepared for. I feel like explaining why would ruin some of the game’s surprises. So, I’ll say this: don’t be afraid to click everything. This is a tricky bugger of a puzzle game. There are even… …quick-time events? Kinda? Those sections are few and far between, unfortunately, but occasionally, Debbie has to do some sneaking. …Or dodging. The game shines in its ability to blend so many storytelling frames and piece them together to create a format I truly want the team of PATRONES and ESCONDITES to continue pursuing!
the promise of ‘your house’s narrative was better than its execution
I’m not going to sit here and say that YOUR HOUSE has a bad story. It doesn’t! The writing throughout the roughly four-hour game is phenomenal, actually. There’s a delicate dance between reading and listening to the characters that I feel the game balances quite well. My problem, though, is with the lack of narrative depth.
I’ll say this: the bulk of Debbie’s characterization and agency takes place in the first hour of the game. “It delves into themes of identity, motherhood, and the price of freedom, introducing a fresh storytelling format that explores the boundaries of video games and books” is one of YOUR HOUSE‘s main “hooks.” All of that narrative work is mainly done in the first hour. With some of those themes popping up for good measure here and there.
Which would be great if I wasn’t set up to go on this deep, evocative personal journey. Because once Debbie gets to that house, it goes from intriguing character drama to mildly goofy “Detective Debbie.” But, hey, you likely aren’t here for the story anyway. After all, the main attraction of YOUR HOUSE is, indeed, the puzzle/escape room aspects!
the puzzle-solving highs and lows made for a jarring experience
For this next part, I feel obliged to clearly state my puzzle gamer credentials. I beat The Case of the Golden Idol without using any hints. I like Return of the Obra Dinn, but I don’t love it like most people (an article for a rainy day). Most of the Sherlock Holmes games are hit-or-miss for me. I adored Superliminal. I consider Escape Academy a cozy game. Basically, I live this puzzle/narrative/deduction life.
I’ll use Idol to try and articulate why YOUR HOUSE ended up leaning a bit uneven. In Idol, you operate strictly within a defined set of rules by way of word selection and using your wits to come up with the right answer. No matter how difficult a scenario may appear, Idol always gives you the tools to come to a logical conclusion on your own. YOUR HOUSE, for me, did that sometimes.
When I completed a puzzle on nothing but my own deduction skills, it was utter nirvana. Especially because YOUR HOUSE always throws gameplay “wrinkles” at you. But with the freedom of the “loose” deduction format comes the frustration of potentially knowing the answer, but not knowing how the game wants you to input the answer. There’s often too much ambiguity in a solution where you’ll sit back and wonder, “…How the hell was I supposed to naturally come to that conclusion?”
‘your house’ has a bit of old-school point-and-click moon logic in it
Inside baseball time: the developers were kind enough to add a walkthrough for reviewers so that we didn’t spend too much time on any one puzzle. I’m not ashamed to admit that I utilized that bad boy on more than one occasion. But, in some cases, I was truly baffled by how I was expected to connect certain dots. Like interacting with a nail that the game gives you no indication you can even do. Or figuring out consonants and vowels for a particular puzzle (it’ll make sense when you get there… maybe).
All this to say: YOUR HOUSE has style in bunches. The ambitious multi-layered storytelling and puzzle mechanics work splendidly in motion. In my opinion, though, the game suffers a bit from being too vague and undefined with some of its puzzles. Also, the narrative let me down ever so slightly.
Gripes aside, though? It’s an easy rec for fellow puzzle geeks. If for nothing else than for us to have a conversation about YOUR HOUSE and decide if I’m just stupid. I want PATRONES and ESCONDITES to master this format because it works! It just needs some fine-tuning!
VERDICT: RECOMMENDED
YOUR HOUSE releases on March 27, 2025, for PC and Mobile devices. A copy was provided by the publisher for the sake of review. Reviewed on PC.
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