Your House Review

If someone sent you a mysterious key and an address on your 18th birthday, would you drop everything to go and investigate it? If like Debbie Clough, you’re penned up in a boarding school and under the cosh of an abusive father, it seems like a no-brainer. But who is the benefactor, why do they own a mansion, and why are they so keen to offload it to a teenager? These are some of the mysteries you’ll need to solve in Your House, which straddles the genres of visual novel and escape room effortlessly.

The text presentation is a character in its own right. Bold words can be clicked on to move Debbie to different places or to investigate objects. Occasionally the text mirrors the location in which Debbie finds herself, the page scrolling horizontally and narrowing just as she squeezes through a narrow tunnel. Sometimes the words come to life and you’ll need to chase them around the screen. 

You’re also kept on your toes as different blocks of text offer up mini puzzles. No bold text? Maybe there’s something else on the page you need to click on. Bold text greyed out? Perhaps you need to pick something in your inventory to help. 

There is very little in the way of a tutorial, but in the confines of an otherwise straightforward visual novel it feels refreshing, since it keeps the immersion from fully being broken by game prompts. The inventory screen was initially confusing; clicking on a closed fist takes items out of your possession ready for use, while an open hand returns them. However, once you get to grips with the limited number of options available for progressing, things click into place. 

Like any good escape room, the clues to help Debbie are often right in front of you. The key is knowing how they fit whatever puzzle you’re trying to overcome. Some of them are obvious: a frequency written on a pair of shoes, for instance, is easily matched to a radio in another room. However, more obscure riddles await, sometimes layered two or three levels deep. The addition of night vision goggles at the halfway point means that you need to revisit previous areas with them switched on to see if any previously invisible hints now appear — and this also applies to objects you’ve picked up. Some of the later puzzles felt very tough indeed, but the built in hint system offers just the right amount of pointers to help you out. 

The story is told in present tense and the majority of the game is illustrated with static images, although there is an animated top down segue of Debbie moving between rooms in the mansion. This was a nice attempt at kineticism, but in one chapter you perform a lot of back and forth around the mansion and those two-second vignettes soon become irksome. 

Fortunately, the puzzles are interesting enough to keep you engaged. Unlike the maths-heavy bent of Escape Tales, there is a genuine grounded mystery to solve in Your House which — more outlandish reveals aside — integrates its teasers superbly, while always pushing the narrative forward. If you can get past the idea that someone could architect a building in the manner laid out here without any questions being asked, you’ll be fine. 

Unlike Escape Tales, there is only one ending, but this feels appropriate. Early on, a few options are provided on a route to a destination, but this level of decision-making is dropped soon after and the game is no worse off for it. Could it have fleshed out certain aspects, such as Debbie’s relationship with her father? Perhaps. But the game touches on general themes of family and loss with care, and there is clearly a love of early 20th century French and Italian cinema from developer Patrones & Escondites given the number of references made throughout. 

A few bugs are still waiting to be ironed out. A record player refused to open despite the correct buttons being pressed (a chapter reset sorted this, and the five chapters only take about 45 minutes each), and a flashlight which required moving in a specific direction didn’t respond until I’d left and reentered the scene. But aside from these minor points, a few typos and a bizarre oversight in how Roman numerals translate on a clock face, Your House feels like a very confident indie title, and a wonderfully fresh mash-up of two enjoyable genres.