The Open House is a short exploration horror game with a strange, but interesting, mix of both lighthearted and sinister tones. The player has been tasked with testing out a technology similar to that of Zillow’s virtual tours, which will allow a potential buyer to view entire homes electronically. While exploring the assigned house, though, you’ll quickly become aware that something isn’t right - in fact, something very bad happened with the previous owners.
The game opens by immediately showing its sense of humor; a stock image realtor greets you to explain the program’s premise and basic controls, while a jaunty tune plays in the background. You’ll move simply by clicking on the left or right of the screen to turn, then in front of you to go forward where possible. There’s even a built-in UI with sensible buttons for buyers, including “Overview” for general info on the house, “Detail” for talking points on each room from the realtor, “Live Chat”, and “Make Offer” (those last two are disabled in the tester’s alpha build of the program.) These aren’t all that useful to the player in the grand scheme of things, but it adds a sense of realism to the ordeal and participates in some of the best moments of the game later on.
There are four big clues lying around that relate to the house’s sinister past, with the atmosphere becoming more and more unsettling after each discovery. There’s even some smaller details included just for the player to notice (for example, a seemingly random shovel in view of the backyard door.) [SPOILERS] After finding everything you’re required to, the tone quickly shifts to full-on horror. A program crash reloads an earlier version of the house that reveals exactly what took place. You’ll soon find out that this wasn’t just a simple crime, but one influenced by the supernatural. This part includes my favorite bit of the whole game - upon moving for the first time during this reload state, the UI detaches from your screen and stays in place, just floating in the hallway.
[SPOILERS] The program shortly resets again and things go from bad to worse as the demonic presence somehow traps you within. You can walk freely from this point on using the arrow keys; I really liked this movement switch, as it makes it feel like you go from a passive observer to a direct participant in these disturbing events. [SPOILER END]
Unfortunately, though, the overall story only gets worse from here on out. It relies much more heavily on cheesy tropes when the premise was already very basic. The only thing that bolstered it in the first half was the unique presentation as a Zillow-adjacent experience; the second half just feels like your average Unity asset flip. I do, at the very least, appreciate how the game never relies on jumpscares, making room for slightly more creative moments of tension. However, that doesn’t mean any of it is particularly fresh or memorable.
Speaking of other people’s assets, that’s not an exaggeration or a guess. Pretty much everything in The Open House is something the creator paid for - including the house itself, which is a slightly modified version of an asset from the Unity Store. This house is actually used pretty frequently in low-budget games (especially horror), such as House Party, Exposure, and Mortem. You can already guess, then, that the graphics are incredibly simple. There’s really no art direction that can shine through either, since all of the visual content is just other people’s works smushed together. It definitely looks passable, but it’s incredibly boring.
The same goes for the sound design - it’s all basic clips that you could probably find by typing in ‘scary sound effects free download’ to Google. The only thing that stuck out to me was the pretty piano piece that plays during the less scary first half, though it’s still very simple and not really anything special. I’m just a sucker for piano if I’m being honest.
In fact, nothing about this The Open House is that special. The evil force is barely present or explained. The previous tenants are important figures in the story but we know almost nothing about them. The player is just… the player. There’s no gameplay to speak of, either, aside from walking around and finding some very obvious clues; although I do appreciate the switch-ups in movement and UI to make the experience more meta, like it’s a real computer program gone rogue from a supernatural force. I wish they’d leaned into that idea more, rather than taking the easy way out with basic scares and a cliche story.
In the end, the only things I particularly enjoyed about The Open House were the mixing of lighthearted and creepy tones, the handful of smaller details sprinkled throughout, and the funny after-credits ending. There were even a few solid story moments (such as the program crashes), but everything else is just painfully dull or outright bad. I would say this one is an easy skip, unless you’re looking for a middling horror game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Visuals: 2/5
Sound: 2/5
Story: 2.5/5
Gameplay: 1/5
Worldbuilding: 2.5/5
Overall Game Score: 2/5

hmmmmm... something's off...... i don't know........ whats goin on here.... somethin aint right.... something's going on...... hmmm.... somethin just aint right..... i don't know..... there's some funny business i think....... whats goin on here...... somethin aint right........... something's going on........ somethin just aint right....... i think there's something funny goin on.... hmmm................ somethin aint right............. what's goin on here........ hmmm.................. something's off...................

Maybe my rating is a bit too high for what this is, but I somehow got a very good experience out of the first act. It kept me questioning whether it would be a shitpost or actually terrifying while actively leaning on the latter. All of that was possible by going in blind + not noticing the "detail" option during the "item" sequences, which is such a minor moment but which would've answered my question in an instant and not in the game's favor. But I got lucky twice, and the subtle horror of the game's first act got me like few things have. THAT's liminal horror done right.
Everything after you get all the 'items' is alright at best and really annoying at worst, but damn those first 10-15 minutes have potential.

The first half of this was a blast. The short of it is that you're doing a virtual tour for an open house, exploring the whole place at your own pace while listening to what the virtual real estate agent has to say about the place. The mood — the writing of the agent, the use of a stock asset house, the stock piano music playing overtop — creates a pretty great image of something funny-in-a-low-effort kind of way as the game starts going weird and the horror elements start popping up. The second half is... less than amazing — there were a lot of sections where I was just kinda standing around really not sure on how to progress, and it's generally kind of hard to follow up in these slow-buildup kinds of games when you hit the peak — but the ending is absolutely hilarious and a great, brief return to form for the humour that was super present in the first half of the game. This one's only like, half an hour at most and also free so if you're interested, go check it out. Can't say much without spoiling but it's a pretty unique experience. 7/10.