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Your House

A noir visual novel set in Your House - Daniel Calabuig DevGAMM Interview

We caught up with Patrones y Escondites' Daniel Calabuig in Lisbon to talk about the intriguing visual novel - point-and-click graphic adventure that is Your House, a DevGAMM hidden gem which is set to release in just a few months.

Audio transcription

"All right, we're in Cascais for the DEVGAMM. This is day two.
I'm taking a look at the interesting indie games being showcased here, and I'm here joined by Daniel.
And it's interesting because, you know, we're neighbors, Spain and Portugal, so there's a bunch of Spaniards around here."

"And I just learned about your game, which is Your House, and it looks very nice, very intriguing.
So which would you say is the elevator pitch for Your House?
Our elevator pitch would be Your House is a game you can read or a book you can play. It's both.
It's a thriller story, text-driven mystery about the cost of chasing your dreams."

"As I'm seeing in the background on the screen, you guys sort of have this mechanic where you click on the words.
What do you trigger when you do that?
Well, as I said, it's mostly text. Text is the scenario. You have to read and interact with words, but not only words.
Also images, some videos, in order to move forward along the story."

"And in that story, you come to meet some puzzles that you have to overcome using the information that you gather by reading or interacting with those objects.
So it's like a visual novel, but also like a graphic novel in a way, mixed together in an interactive way?
It's a point-and-click. Yes, but no."

"Is it a graphic adventure? Yes, but no.
Is it a choice-your-own-adventure? Yes, but no.
Is it a scapebook? Yes, but no. It's kind of like a mix of all those things.
You mentioned that the main message is all about chasing your dream and the costs."

"So how does the story start? What are we going to do? Who's the main character? What's going on here?
The main character, that is you, you play the role of a young woman.
She just turned 18, and on the day of her birthday, she receives a mysterious letter with a postcard and a key.
She's fed up with her situation, it's the worst day in her life, so she decides to flee away from boarding school and go directly to the address that is written on the back of the postcard."

"Then she arrives to that house, and that house hides a life-changing secret.
She will have to move around all the rooms, discover hidden places, and find out the secrets that will change her life forever.
Anything else that you would like to tell me about the setting?
Like the environment, where is this set, time-wise?
It is set in the 90s. The aesthetic is, I would say, like a noir comic."

"Some people say that they see some Daniel Klaus comics here.
You mentioned Dylan Dog, those are references that obviously have inspired us.
And the setting is somewhere in the world, we don't specifically put the name of the place.
It's Higgsville, but it's an invented place, but it's set in the 90s."

"Patrones Escondites, what's the team like?
Are you in charge of the story and the art, or what other developers do you have working with you?
We are a very small team. I personally take charge of the game design, the game direction too.
We have a script writer, we have a programmer, we have an art director, an illustrator, and we have a producer."

"My partner Beatriz is the producer of the game.
We like to say that we are focused on narrative games, we are storytelling explorers.
We like to use the power of video games to tell stories.
Is this the fourth or fifth game you've done already?
Yeah, this is our fourth game."

"And actually, your house is the prequel to our first game, our debut game, which was UnMemory.
We published it in October 2020, and this is the prequel to it.
And your house is going to be open, when?
We plan to release it early March 2025, just three or four months from now."

"But the demo is already available on Steam for people who want to play it.
And if they like it, we'll wishlist it so they get to know when we release the full game.
And the game will, for now, release on Steam only?
On Steam, but also on mobile platforms, Apple and Google."

"Anything else that you would like to highlight about the upcoming game that we didn't touch upon?
Not really. Well, there's some curious thing.
It is based on a true story. Actually, it does exist, a house full of secrets.
And the protagonist?
And the protagonist is some very filthy Wall Street broker."

"That has nothing to do with our story.
That's interesting. Based on a true story, alright.
Thank you so much for your time, Daniel.
Looking forward to playing your house. Thank you."

"Thank you for covering us."

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