The House

SPAG
The House is a short game that represents Owen Parish's first attempt at IF, and it is fairly entertaining, despite its derivative story and some technical annoyances. Ostensibly the objective is to get out of a house that you woke up in, hungover and disoriented. You have heard disturbing rumours about this house and its occupants. Could they be true? If you decide to explore the house, other objectives become readily apparent, and you uncover goings-on that will be familiar to genre fans. The story borrows from Lovecraft and Frankenstein, but it is underdeveloped, and I never did get a clear understanding of the House's secrets. This may have been because I did not get the full score, but I think it is more likely that the ideas never mesh into a coherent story.
-- Neil Butters
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Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 1 Write a review

Considering that the Help text tells you this is a practice game, the various problems with it should not come as a huge surprise. There are several overt programming errors, but a lot more of what's wrong is lack of beta-testing. Many synonyms aren't handled, and obvious actions aren't anticipated. There's a stethoscope you can't wear or listen to, for instance, and stinky items you're not allowed to smell, and containers which do have contents but which describe themselves as empty if you try to LOOK IN them. I liked the solution to the maze, but that's just about the only thing I really liked much -- the game is otherwise pretty uninspiring on the design side, I'm afraid. The game needs a clearer sense of purpose. No, not a goal for my player character -- I think I've figured out what that's supposed to be -- but a sense of what it's trying to do, as a game. Is it supposed to be puzzly and challenging? If so, the descriptions need to be sharper and more evocative. Is it supposed to be creepy? Then there ought to be more effort put into the atmosphere. Heck, maybe it's even supposed to be a parody of bad beginner IF through the ages, but if so, the humor also needs to be more honed. Whatever this is, it doesn't have a very strong sense of itself.

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