I don't believe House has a message to convey deeper than what it wears on its sleeve; a story of an abusive home and perseverance. It is reflected in a gameplay cycle that is repetition indefinite; alluring in promise of new opportunity, pushing you to seek a happy ending. Though antithetical to fun by design, a perfect solution can be discovered through the failure that brings understanding. Seconds skimmed from cut corners are as valuable as years of a life spared, though they ebb away in the same ways like the very ocean of information that threatens to drown. Things slip through the cracks so easily, time sifts through your fingers and carries with it those you meant to save.

At times it feels insurmountable; a game of chess played solely reactionary until mastered. The house, in turn, plays cruelly, personified by it - not indifferent towards the player, but terrible and spiteful. Somehow it is not unfair; foreshadowing clues you in to the house's next move at every opportunity, but you are helpless to know what it means. The twelfth stroke of midnight brings with it punishment for incompetency. Your father returns home and swiftly deals punishment. He can be defeated with the shotgun, as surely as his and your bodies are made of the same flesh and blood, but that's hardly an ending safe from lifelong trauma.

Death is not an option to win, this much is illustrated clearly. You only wake up to the same cycle again. You are not free from it; but a cog of it. You must persevere. Maybe you just need to be faster. You drop a bowling ball on the cat and watch it pop, justifiable by compromise of five seconds saved. You take the hatchet and cleave your family, cathartic that you can still influence fate.

Only with time does understanding eventually turn complexity into nothing but a fading façade. It becomes so simple once you've memorized the board. House can be solved; a triumph, readily transparent from the start and such an enthralling process it was. You spare your family, and a picturesque dream sequence of an ideal family life plays before you. Is this real, this time, the cycle broken? Can things so easily return to a state of normalcy? Regrettably, not likely.

The true ending of the first act of House is not so perfect, but strikingly more real. It is an escape. The light at the end of the tunnel; a reward for your courage in not resigning yourself to the ideal that life cannot get better. To not allow yourself to suffocate, to be strong in the face of fear.

It is only unfortunate that we are not all so strong as to be able to dig ourselves out. The second act is where I believe the imagery and messaging culminate where they are paired with a more bleak and discouraging atmosphere. Melody's side of the story; her sister gone and with her the reason for living. The state of the family has deteriorated. The clock begins restlessly at 12 AM. The piano has become something Melody fears. Yet once she recovers the flute it is only with memories of song do solutions begin to slowly unravel; the ghost of a kindly grandmother representing the last ounce of hope, represented cautiously by candlelight in the pitch dark.

There is only one ending for Melody, that which allows her to slowly dig herself out. It is forgiveness, and acceptance. It is revealed that the sister, too, was unable to do it alone; she is found at the finish line, clinging on. You take her by the hand and go together, dragging her with newly found strength, to face the unknown future.

House is not totally original or groundbreaking, but it is one that resonated with me. The project oozes charm from a place of passion. It is tightly executed, shortly and to the point. While it is far from profound, possibly not as ambitious as it could of been, it mirrored similar experiences from my own life near symmetrically. Overall an unforgettable experience, even if only because the chisel of repetition engraved it firmly in my brain.

Sometimes I find myself dreaming about this place. I can feel it pulling me back. Like I never even left. But I remind myself this time it's just a dream. An old memory.