| Quick Verdict: Whisper of the House is a fantastic example of what I feel an organizational game should be. You’re free to arrange things as you’d like, and you’re given enough space to do that. With the ability to explore the town, it kept things from feeling too stagnant, and the overarching mystery kept me coming back for more. |
| Game: | Whisper of the House |
| Developer(s): | 元气弹工作室 (GD Studio) |
| Publisher: | 元气弹工作室 (GD Studio) |
| Review Score: | 9 |
| Cozy Score: | 9 |
| Price: | $14.99 |
| Pros: | Interesting concept, adorable art, and you weren’t inundated with a ton of items with not enough space to place them. |
| Cons: | The game kind of halts at the end if you haven’t found enough anomalies. There are places that you feel you should be able to get into, and you may be enticed to find a way in, but you have to wait for them to open on their own, and that’s not clear. |
| Platforms: | PC |
| Genres: | Puzzle, Organizing |
Whisper of the House is part organizational game and part scavenger hunt. The main part of the game will have you running around town helping people organize their spaces, but as you explore, you’ll unearth secrets, earn achievements, and find anomalies scattered along the way.
In Whisper of the House, you’ll have an entire town to explore, complete with homes and businesses that you’ll get to help decorate.
Almost immediately, you’ll get this feeling of being displaced out of time, and that feeling is supported by talking to the local townsfolk. There’s a heavy emphasis on the fact that no one has visited the town in a long time. And, when they tell you that you’re the first, they make it seem like you’re the first in years.
Obviously, I’m not going to spoil anything, but I will say that as you help the townspeople, you’ll run into themes of the fantastical. There’s a home that allows you to perform magic, one with time-bending qualities, and even one with a basement that feels like a pocket dimension to another place entirely.
Add in the fact that you come into contact with ghosts and that the museum in the middle of town has glowing numbers above it that depict an ever-changing number, and you’re left with the feeling that something more is going on here.
What I love about Whisper of the House isn’t the mystery hanging over the town, but the fact that you have a bit of freedom to do as you please. The game is fairly linear, but with the ability to do the tasks or simply run around town exploring, it makes it feel a lot more open than it is.
If you give me the chance to run off in any given direction, I’m gonna abandon the plot every single time and do that.
When it comes to helping others, there are three ways to do that. Normally, you’ll head into a place, whether it’s someone’s personal home or business, and you’ll get free rein to place things. There’s a little robot that holds all of the items, and it will spit things out one at a time for you to place. It’s helpful because the items tend to be methodical. You’re not getting a bunch of random things thrown out all at once. There’s an order to it that makes it feel like a flow rather than a hassle.
Secondly, usually when it comes to a business, there are places that have exact spots where things need to be set. You’ll know which you’ve stepped into because the ones with specifications will have glowing outlines of where what you’re holding needs to go. Weirdly, these were equally as fun.
Lastly, there’s a function that allows you to basically play forever. There are noticeboards around the town that hold job requests. Upon accepting them, you can build apartment spaces for people. They’ll have a few guidelines and choice items they want, but otherwise, you get free rein. In this mode, you can even change the walls and floors.
In the main story, once you finish someone’s home, you’re generally given a gift of a rare item that you can use for your own home decorations. And, if you need a break, you can run around town. There are stalls set up all around that you can buy items from that you can use to furnish your home or others’ homes.
These stalls will spit out things randomly, but there are hundreds of items to collect. If you’re not in the market to spend money, you can still find items organically by searching around. All over, you can find dumpsters, bins, and recycling crates that you can scrounge through for items. They’re not always guaranteed to be of use, but you can basically do this every single day.
This game engaged my raccoon senses. There wasn’t a trash bin I wasn’t formally acquainted with.
Additionally, there are glittering spots around town that have money for you to collect or broken hydrants that you can fix. These tiny things helped to make it feel worth your while to explore the town.
Lastly, you may notice something… off, as you explore and help the town. Every so often, an item may look glitchy with runes and a purple aura wafting off of it. By clicking this item several times, you’ll not only return it to normal, but you’ll generally gain an achievement as well. And that’s not all, the glowing numbers above the museum will decrease with each object that you return to normal.
Unfortunately, there will come a time when things seem to stop rather abruptly. It happens so quickly that you almost feel like you’ve glitched or missed something. Not everyone will have this problem, but if you’re like me, you’ll come to the end of your tasks, and you’ll still have glowing numbers above your museum.
In order to experience an ending, you’ll need to get those numbers to 0. Fortunately, there are far more anomalies to correct than are required, so it’s not really that big of a deal. However, you may need to consult your Steam achievements page to get some idea of what you’re missing and where to find it.
I was missing two, and once I found them, that was it. The ending was fairly simple, but I was left with a game that I actually quite enjoyed. When it comes to organizational games, it’s kind of a delicate balance to juggle in supplying enough items to furnish a place without it being cluttered.
Watch the trailer for Whisper of the House!
I hate to bring out a comparison, but Camper Van: Make it Home is kind of a perfect example. In that game, you furnish a camper van with limited space, but the amount of stuff you needed to fit greatly exceeded the space, leaving you juggling things and constantly fiddling with placement. Whisper of the House gave us more than enough space and understood the capacity for decorating. I rarely ever moved something after I placed it down.
All in all, I had a really good time with Whisper of the House. I thought the pixelated world was charming, and it felt vibrant with life and activity. If you enjoy organizational games, then this one is one you’ll want to snag.
If you’d like to grab Whisper of the House for yourself, you can get it for $14.99 over on Steam. Otherwise, you can check out some of the other reviews posted here, like Cardamom: A Musical Visual Novel or LAN Party Adventures.
