Self Published
2018
Complexity: 1
The House Always Wins is a game about characters in a house, trying not be be killed by said house, and failing. It seems that this game was made as a student project, as there is reference to material being added “post-in-class-presentation,” but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on it. The fact that is is a non-commercially-distributed product means I’m going to go easy on it.
Setting: N/A
The game takes place in a--presumably spooky--house. It is specifically stated that this house can be anywhere and anywhen, but unfortunately my classification system doesn’t really accommodate games set within a specific type of setting within any greater setting. So I’ve just classified it as “modern” with the assumption that most players would opt for a more familiar setting.
Character Creation: N/A
Players choose a profession and flaw for their character. There’s really no need for anything more than that, they’re going to die anyway.
Mechanics: 4/5
The House Always Wins is fairly interesting in that it manages to firmly be a role-playing game, while not including most of the mechanics associated with the medium. Players start be collaboratively drawing the rooms of the house on a sheet of paper, and deciding in which room the characters will start. Next, players are given 4 minutes to draw the 10 “Somethings” on cards--e.g. “Something strange,” “something useless,” “something dead.”--which are shuffled into a deck. This is pretty much my biggest issue with the game, as 24 seconds really doesn’t seem like enough time to think of something clever and render it in a way as to be understandable to other players, especially for non-artistically-inclined folks. There’s also an “And Deck” and an “Other And Deck,” but I will get to those in a bit.
Gameplay begins with the first player drawing a Something and an And--a short descriptor to be applied to the Something. So for example, they may draw a skeleton--something dead--and “Mildly Inconvenient.” The player then describes what the thing is, and what their character does in reaction to it. Maybe the skeleton is blocking the television, or blowing vape in the general direction of the characters and they have to ask it to stop without seeming too rude--or maybe something that isn’t stupid. Play then moves around to the other players, who describe their interaction with the Something, house, and/or other characters. Next is The House’s turn, The House is played collaboratively by all players--if all characters are alive--or just the players of dead characters. Like the players, The House draws a Something and an Other And--basically the same as And cards, but tailored for The House. For example, they may draw ping pong balls--something useless--and “Flood of,” and decide that one of the characters opens a door only for the room to become flooded with ping pong balls. The game then goes on to the next round with the next player going first and adding a new Something to the ping pong ball flooded room with a skeleton passive-aggressively blowing vape in the general direction of the layers.
Now the whole point of the game is to die--as it is in the game of life--but with no real mechanics in place, how do you determine when a character dies? Well it’s quite simple, player’s decide when their character dies. What you say!! Yes, the whole point is for your character do die a dramatic and/or comedic death, and as such players have the final say on when their character dies--although it is a little unclear if this must occur of the player’s turn or can be done at any time. Now you might be thinking “Yeah, but I’ve got that one player…” and there are rules in place to prevent pointless exploitation by players who fail to understand the core concept of the game.
Writing: 2/3 [•]
The rules are a little less than optimally presented at times, but not so much so that it affects understanding. The overall writing styles seems to be trying to convey the ‘fun’ feel of the game, and I think that was conveyed well, the attempts at humor are not overused and usually hit their mark.
Presentation: 2/5
Now I regularly complain that games look like they were laid out in Microsoft Word. Well this game was, and aside from a hideous footer you probably wouldn’t know it--in other words: not having Indesign is not an excuse for bad lazy layout. There’s a few weird formatting choices, page breaks where I would prefer them not to be, and just in general I prefer A4 sized to not be single-column, but none of that is really objectively bad--except maybe the single-column thing. My biggest issue is the use of a display typeface for the body text--as it can be a bit hard to read at times--and I would have liked to see game terms bolded so they were easier to identify--especially considering these terms include “Something” and “And.” The interior art is all downing in a sketchy cartoon style and does a good job illustrating the game’s humorous tone and aspects of gameplay.
Final Remarks
The House Always Wins seems like a nice fun little game. It is however a little rough around the edges, and I’d really like to see what it could be with a little more polish. Imagine that, me singing the praises of a game with loose abstract rules, that’s never happened before.
Base Points: 6
Character Creation: N/A, Mechanics: 4/5, Presentation: 2/5
Adjustments: +0
Setting: N/A, Writing: +0, Content: N/A
Overall Score: 50% (6/10 Points)
Wait, how does a skeleton vape?
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