Your House is like a choose-your-own adventure mystery book

Your House is a visual novel that is the closest game I’ve played to reading an actual book.

In Your House, you play as Debbie, a girl who receives a mysterious postcard on her birthday with an address and a key. The address leads to a mansion that’s filled with secrets and puzzles for you to solve, and the game’s presentation does a lot to sell the feeling of curling up on the couch with a good mystery novel.

Much of how you interact with the game is by reading through pages of text to know what room you’re in, what’s going on, what you can interact with, and where you can go next. As you scroll down the “page” you’re reading, certain words, rooms, or locations will show up in bold. Click on those, and something will happen, whether it’s more text appearing on the page or a little animation that shows Debbie moving from one room to another. When you reach a dead end, you’ll usually be offered a link back to a hub area like a living room.

Many pages also have gorgeous pictures in a ​​noir comic style that you can click on to investigate in more detail or interact with to solve puzzles. One had me note the number of consonants and vowels in a name under a picture to access a secret area; in another, I had to click on bathroom tiles aligned with buildings on a map to uncover a secret.

As you flip back and forth between the different areas to search for clues and think through puzzles, it really feels like you’re jumping between different sections from a physical book. The game even has a narrow aspect ratio that helps you feel like you’re reading a paper page.

The game is short, which I liked; I finished my playthrough in about three hours. (Though I did rely on a lot of in-game hints, which may have helped me get through the game faster.) The plot, while interesting on a moment-by-moment basis, wasn’t particularly shocking or revolutionary. I also thought things wrapped up a little too neatly at the end.

But Your House’s choose-your-own adventure atmosphere was excellent, and the puzzles were satisfying to figure out. I’d happily “read” another game like it.

^{Your House is available now on PC, iOS, and Android.}