Games You Might Have Missed: Heart of the House

Heart of the House is an interactive fiction game written by Nissa Campbell and published by Choice of Games. It was released on October 26th, 2017.

As an interactive fiction game, Heart of the House is basically a digital choose your own adventure novel. There are no pictures, or graphics of any kind, only text and menu options that allow you to choose how you want to progress through the story. Similar to other story-driven adventure games, your choices shape how the narrative plays out. In Heart of the House, I found this to be far more true than something like a Telltale game. The way you decide to play really does change how things play out, giving the game plenty of replayability (as long as you have the time to read through it again). At around 350,000 words, it’s a pretty hefty read.

Set in Victorian England, Heart of the House is a Gothic horror novel. Your protagonist is an orphan with a sensitivity to the supernatural, especially spectral happenings. They were raised by their uncle and learned the secrets of supernatural sleuthing and the occult. When that uncle goes missing, it’s up to you to try to find him. The writing is very well done, effectively balancing great story development and creative use of Gothic/Lovecraftian tropes with moments of levity and indulgence to keep the story from becoming overwhelmingly dark and stagnant.

I use “they” pronouns to describe the protagonist because they’re completely customizable. From their gender, pronouns, name, romantic preferences, to even their clothes, you as the player have complete control. This helps make the story more personal as you become attached to the character you’ve helped to create.

The overall interactivity and care put into the product really helped me fall in love. I haven’t been able to do much recreational reading since graduating from university last year. All of the forced reading required for the English Lit track made it hard to read just for the fun of it. Heart of the House changed that by allowing me to control how the story would progress and who my character would be within it. As someone who loves Gothic horror, the subject matter and quality storytelling had me excited to start, but the choices and customization were really what kept me clicking through chapters. Well, that and getting to have some rad lesbian love interests.

If you love horror, interactive fiction, or maybe need something to reignite your passion for reading, I would definitely recommend Heart of the House. It’s available on Android and Apple devices for $5.99 and on Steam for $6.99.

All images courtesy of Heart of the House.