Your House is inspired by a remarkable true story. Back in the 2000s, a rich New York couple paid architect Eric Clough to renovate their new apartment, with the slightly odd request that a poem about their family should be hidden away in one of the walls, like a time capsule. Inspired by this, Clough took it upon himself to make a few unorthodox modifications to the dwelling without his clients’ knowledge.
Just over a year after the couple and their children had moved in to their home, Clough sent them a cryptic note. This clue led them to a hidden panel, behind which was a book, which in turn led them on a scavenger hunt through their own apartment. Clough had crammed the rooms with hidden messages and complex puzzles that it took the family weeks to solve. One involved wrapping a piece of leather cord around a bed post to reveal a message. Another involved removing two decorative knockers then joining them together to form a crank, which was used to wind open a hidden panel in the dining room, behind which were various keys and keyholes. All of this eventually led to the hidden poem.
Spanish indie studio Patrones & Escondites replicates this puzzle gauntlet in Your House, but rather than rich New Yorkers, you play as the troubled Debbie, who is having a terrible 18th birthday. She’s just found out that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend – and she’s been kicked out of boarding school to boot. But at midnight she receives an anonymous postcard with a key and an address, which leads her to a mysterious, deserted house.
Your House acts as a standalone prequel to the 2020 game Unmemory, but whereas this previous title utilised photos and film, Patrones & Escondites has adopted a comic book style here, reminiscent of artists like Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) or Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets). These illustrations – created by artist Jon Ander Torres – look gorgeous, but the majority of the game is delivered via text, presented like the chapters of a book. The occasional interactive word is highlighted in bold, and clicking on it will, say, take you to the named room or let you interact with a particular object.
This mechanism works best when the text gets playful, such as when Debbie walks through a narrow tunnel and the words spool out in a long horizontal line while the margins get smaller and smaller. But the ingenious puzzles are the real star of Your House, involving things like working out the correct sequence of notes to play on a piano to open a secret panel, or looking for the hidden pattern in a series of portraits. Most will require copious notes on pen and paper. The very best ones will leave you fruitlessly scratching your head, only for the answer to pop into your mind with a sudden rush of adrenaline, followed by a sense of elation as the combination clicks into place.
The third of the game’s five chapters in particular is truly wonderful, presenting a warren of secret corridors and a series of interconnected puzzles that are particularly satisfying to solve with the help of night vision goggles that can reveal hidden writing. But sadly the game can’t quite keep up this pace to the end, and despite the odd flash of brilliance, the quality of the final puzzles never quite reaches the height of those in the middle of the game. The plot, too, fizzles out unsatisfyingly, with a solution to the house’s mystery that seems obvious and yet doesn’t make much sense when held up to scrutiny. Still, the idea of a house with conundrums built into its very fabric remains tantalising: I couldn’t help but give my own house a sweep after playing, just on the off-chance there might be a previously unnoticed hidden message or two.
• Your House is released on 27 March
