In This House

In This House is a horror-adventure video game for Nintendo Game Boy, Analogue Pocket and PC. It uses timeless four-color 8-bit graphics to tell a universal story about the struggle for one's identity within a family.

You play as Bianca, a young woman who is visiting her grandpa at the 5th anniversary of her parents' death. She doesn't feel welcomed by her family, which also includes her aunt Barbara, her uncle Julian and her cousins: Leo and Seb.

The meeting is cut by sudden information: a mutated rabies virus is spreading and soon infected walking corpses find their way to the house the family is staying in. If that wasn't enough, Bianca starts to see a ghost of a girl who is related to terrible secrets hidden by the family. Your task is to survive one terrifying night and uncover the truth about your loved ones.

In this House will be available on May 2025 but you can play the demo NOW.

Also, you can support the project and pre-order the full version of the game on Kickstarter!

The game consists of five main elements:

• Exploration - takes place from a top-down perspective; the player has complete freedom to explore the house filled with interactions, but some of them can only be activated at certain moments. However, it is worth trying each interaction to learn more about the characters and the truly living world they inhabit.
• Dialogues - each character has a separate dialogue screen with hand-drawn portraits; during dialogues, the player must make choices that affect the plot and Bianca's relationships with other family members.
• Hidden object screens - at certain moments, Bianca must find key items to move the action forward. She is then transferred to a hidden object mini-game, where the player searches for the listed items on carefully crafted backgrounds that exploit the limits of the Game Boy's graphic processor.
• Combat - the arcade part of the game, which aims to show the chaotic realism of close encounters with the infected, who tower over the main character in terms of weight and aggression. Each fight is a terrifying challenge.
• Visual Novel Elements - the final game will feature approximately 300 unique, hand-drawn pixel art illustrations and animations that will deepen the cinematic experience of observing a symbolic, mature story.

Controls:

Arrows	Movement
A (Game Boy, Analogue Pocket) / Z (PC)	Action
B (Game Boy, Analogue Pocket) / X (PC)	Go back

In This House is a modern take on the ghost story with zombie survival elements. It uses the horror genre to tell a deep, meaningful story about staying true to yourself in the midst of people who are trying to influence your life. Bianca (and thus the player) gradually learns the dark secrets hidden by her family members, guided by the ghost of a girl who initially seems to be a separate entity, but becomes increasingly connected to the events that unfold in the titular house.

The main inspiration is of course the cult Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero, a work that is still relevant today, but of course there are more inspirations. The plot is influenced by 28 Days Later, the Silent Hill series, South American magical realism, David Lynch's films, Stephen King's The Shining or Skinamarink and The Exorcist, from which the game's title comes from.

The game has a lot of text and dialogue, and each of them is specially created to emphasize the themes and message of the story. This is a story clearly for a mature audience, completely unique for the Game Boy console. Nothing that is meant to shock is shown for the sake of shock, so the horror of the game does not come from cheap tricks like jump scares or brutality, but from the game world itself, full of details, which, despite the addition of ghosts and zombies, could still be our real reality. It talks about such things as the disappointment of adulthood, discovering the flaws of your idols, the difficult life in difficult times, riddled with gray moral choices. If someone expects only arcade action, they will bounce off In This House. However, if someone wants a game that will leave an emotional impact behind and stay in their head for years, they will find a product for themselves.