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Throughout the years, I have played so many puzzle games that it would be hard to count them. Still, now I have played another in the name of The House Dreams Along With Them, and this puzzle game puts you in the role of an unknown person as you first dream up a house filled with puzzles and mysteries to solve until you eventually find said house in real life.
Once you find the house, it is your job to essentially build each room in the house by falling asleep at certain locations within the house so that you can solve contained puzzles within each room, and once you complete these puzzles, you will unlock the room in the main house.
During my time with The House Dreams Along With Them, I spent my time trying to solve all these different puzzles and spent even longer trying to figure out the secrets of the house.
The Puzzles in The House Dreams Along With Them Aren’t as Simple as You Think
Right from the get-go, once you load into The House Dreams Along With Them, you will be met with puzzles that you need to solve to first understand the mechanics of the game before you jump into the actual house itself and begin your journey to designing your dream home in such a unique way.
Although there wasn’t any order on how you could begin to do the rooms within the house, I myself decided I would start with what could be considered the easier rooms, with them having shorter times, and eventually progress to the more complicated rooms.
Once I began to enter the puzzle rooms of this house, I found that the puzzles inside were definitely complicated in the sense that you couldn’t just enter the room and solve the puzzle in an instant, but they also weren’t so complicated that you needed each and every clue to solve them.
Because of this, I found it quite fun to explore the different rooms and see what I could see within them, as the puzzles of each location were all different from each other, with none repeating, meaning that there was always a new challenge and mystery to uncover.
Whether it was simply finding a password, playing a game of the floor is lava, or even finding a matching set of items, each room was entirely different, and this was a major appeal to me.
Although the actual puzzles within the rooms were quite interesting, there are also numerous puzzles set within the house itself as you slowly fill the rooms, meaning that you aren’t just trying to complete the house, but you also have a task of solving more puzzles once you finish building the house.
For those who might be wondering if the puzzles will be too challenging for them, there isn’t too much to worry about, as yes, there are some puzzles that will have you scratching your head for a long while, but there are also clues that you can find in the form of Intuitions and Knowledge within the game.
These features are essentially a notepad and a tips screen that allow you to remind yourself how the game works or even gather new information that can help you solve any problems before you.
One example of this is that you might begin to notice a pattern within a certain object, but you are not sure what is triggering it. Due to this, you can view the object in question, and the Intuitions page will often provide more detail on how this object behaves without giving you the answer to the puzzle itself.
So this could mean that you can see something moving, but you aren’t sure how you are triggering it; this then brings you to the Intuitions page that explains that looking away from the object makes it move, providing enough of a hint that will aid you in solving your dilemma without telling you how it will actually solve the situation itself.
For me, this was a brilliant form of assistance from the game, as it still allowed me to figure out how to solve the problems myself, but it also provided me with hints if I was completely stuck, as the Intuitions page also blocks the writing unless you choose to reveal it, making sure it is entirely a choice.
The Mysterious House is Full of Details and Items to Look at
After you have entered the house for the first time and begin your search through the different rooms, you will first be met by an empty house with missing walls, no furniture besides what you need to sleep by, and just the void.
However, once you begin to search through the different rooms, you will begin to find all kinds of furniture and items within these rooms that you can interact with, as a large majority of the house is filled with interactables.
This means that the devs have put a lot of hard work into providing the player with a space to explore and interact with, while also providing so much detail that every room feels like someone has lived in it for years.
The biggest detail for me was how the different rooms weren’t just there to fill a void once I solved them, but they still had their reasons for existing, with some rooms having more puzzles buried within them or with some having plenty of interactables to use.
Although these items weren’t overly useful, it was definitely interesting for me to wander around and check out the different items within the house, as the kitchen is full of items you can look at, or the living room with the bookshelves, or even the fireplace you can put logs into. There are so many things you can do, making it feel like it is a house you can explore, not just a room you can complete and forget about.
Even before you unlock the rooms, the puzzle rooms are also incredibly interesting, as they are filled with hidden locations and details that you can easily miss if you aren’t paying attention. This is down to the many secrets hidden within the game, and they each have their role to play.
For me, exploring the house wasn’t just a simple task to solve the puzzles and move on, but it felt like I was living in this house, and I wanted to explore everything that was hidden within. Because of this, I enjoyed exploring and looking around each room both during the puzzling and once they were unlocked, as they were simply just fun to see.
The Story Is as Baffling as the Game’s Fun Concepts
When it comes to the story of The House Dreams Along With Them, I wouldn’t even know where to begin, as it is definitely a unique story that brings with it a confusing amount of philosophy and thought and is even tied to another game known as The Logomaster and a novel known as The Aspect of Separation.
However, I will say that uncovering the story and what lies within was definitely a fun experience, as the game’s lore was buried deep within the game in the form of notes and hidden objects that I had to search for, while also having a few different secrets buried within.
Although the lore was very well hidden, the way to find it was definitely interesting to me as bringing in the mechanic to blink at your own command, squint to see things clearer, and zoom in to get a closer look.
All of these different mechanics were an interesting way of helping me to find out what was happening within this game world and provided me with a whole new perspective that I haven’t seen in a video game.
For me, this massively emphasised how the story was being told and how elusive it can be, as there wasn’t a simple story with voices and cutscenes to follow but instead focused on mysterious notes hidden throughout the house.
For your next read, why not check out our review of Dreadline Express, or check out our review of Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy.
Thumb Wars reviews every game based upon the structure of our review policy, and every review is on OpenCritic.
Liam is a Senior Editor, Writer, and Critic for Thumb Wars and has been working with the team since day one. Liam is a big fan of all things gaming, as you will catch him playing all of the new releases from every genre you can imagine. Whether you find Liam gaming just for fun or spending his free time streaming, you will always find a smile on his face when it comes to all things gaming.
