Note: This game uses AI “art” to patch together its visuals. I address this in my review, but I wanted to make clear right away that I am staunchly against such practices. I have deducted points for this reason.

I Live Under Your House is an interesting twist on the horror genre that shares the perspective of a demonic creature who lives alone in a hole and eats humans. You’ll intimately come to know this creature’s inner workings - its thoughts, motivations, and even feelings. You may even empathize with it a bit by the end, despite its violent nature.
The creature lives in an underground network of tunnels and holes that it’s dug out, with an impressively large, almost church-like central room that has been there since before it was born. No one else has access to these tunnels, and in fact, the creature highly values its solitude. The only beings it ever comes into contact besides its food are, first, the uncanny humanoid spirits who laugh at it while it tries to sleep; and secondly, another monster who lives outside of the hole’s exit. This monster tries to engage the creature in conversation whenever it leaves, despite it never wanting to. Still, they encourage it to leave its hole, kill, and eat humans, showing intimate knowledge of how the creature operates mentally and how to manipulate it.
The creature’s origins are left intentionally vague and abstract. In fact, it seems unaware of how it came to be itself, except that it was born from something human-like that has lain comatose in its lair since giving birth. What’s even more interesting is that despite having murdered and eaten dozens of people, the creature doesn’t seem inherently evil. The first time it killed was only because the man it was watching out of pure interest spotted it and started laughing at and beating it. Now, it seems to only get angry at humans when they encroach on its territory - such as nearby campers, or the house that’s just begun to be built directly atop its hole.
[SPOILERS] The story from here primarily focuses on our creature’s budding parasocial relationship with the lone woman who moves in after construction is finished. Its small semblance of peace is ripped away as it’s forced to hear her every move from above. It eventually resolves to kill her, yet upon sneaking into the house and laying eyes on her for the first time, it’s filled with a new sensation; a strange, twisted love that replaces its anger and leaves it confused. It even begins to enjoy listening to her going about her day, and sneaks in a few more times to explore and try to catch a glimpse of her. [END SPOILERS]
It’s a pretty decent conceit for a story and there are definitely some interesting beats, but the writing is largely unmemorable, especially the further into the game you get. The first few minutes are definitely the most intriguing, as you explore the creature’s home and learn what you can about its life. There’s not many big moments that really stand out after that, though, and the closer you get to the ending the more rushed it feels.
My biggest complaint is easily the choices that influence which of the game’s three endings you get, though I did like the endings themselves (either good, bad, or “joyful”.) [SPOILERS] The first is whether to kill or spare one of the construction workers building the house. This is already a pretty silly choice to include, because the creature is hungry and angry at the time and we know from its description of past events that it loses control when it starts to feel this strong urge to kill. There’s really no reason for the creature to choose to spare him in the first place, except for the player’s own sense of empathy. The second decision is even more innocuous, as you can either steal the woman’s dress or leave it during one of your visits. [END SPOILERS]
It doesn’t even really make sense as to why these choices correlate to the endings they do. Neither of them influence the course of the story in any way, instead altering only the very last scene. There’s no grand symbolism or intricate plot details. Instead they just feel like two random moments of the slightest player freedom thrown in to allow for multiple endings at all. The writing first needed to naturally feel like it could diverge into different conclusions (it doesn’t), and then you could include impactful choices that reflect that. Worst of all, these are the only glimmers of “gameplay” you’ll run into while playing this, aside from simply interacting with objects - and the whole game undoubtedly feels more empty for that.
Instead of the actual writing or accompanying mechanics, the atmosphere is what really gives I Live Under Your House’s story impact. From the moment you awaken in the caves there’s a noticeably tense, thick air about everything. You’re totally absorbed in the world from the perspective of this creature, and its warped ideas on concepts such as parenthood, love, and knowledge. It feels as if it could be a real cryptid living in the underground of your own town’s outskirts, responsible for strange disappearances and murders.
As with most decent games, the aesthetics of I Live Under Your House are a big influencer on its tone. But what makes this game stand out from most are the two distinct presentations - not just in terms of style, but gameplay as well. Mechanically, the cave is a point-and-click (although there’s limited interactions and no puzzles.) Its color scheme is a monochrome black and sickly green, and the few character designs dotted throughout are extremely unsettling.
By contrast, the portions that take place in the woman’s home are a low-poly 3D style. You can walk freely and interact with the woman’s belongings for a few extra bits of internal dialogue, just as you can with the creature’s own limited belongings back in the cave. That same sickly green is color-graded over the entire house, keeping a sense of synergy between the two disparate styles.
I honestly really liked both of these styles at first… that is, until I found out that the creator used edited AI images to put them together. I had a sneaking suspicion upon seeing the laughing spirits that haunt the creature’s sleep; they’re definitely visually fascinating, but they undeniably have that indescribable, uncanny AI feeling about them. And honestly, the idea of using AI to produce spooky imagery for a horror game is cool on the surface - but it’s simply a fact that AI can’t create the same thoughtful and consistent designs that humans can. Aside from categorically being worse quality, I hope I don’t need to explain at this point why AI is harmful to actual human artists.
At the very least, the creator does make the sound design on their own - and the result is likely my favorite part of the game! The ambient noises are low and gravelly, and the music is very arrhythmic and unnerving. Some audio cues even call to mind Silent Hill (a huge compliment, obviously.) My only complaint is that certain moments were a bit too loud compared to the rest of the game, to the point that it seems like they were turned up only to be more startling. Aside from that small imperfection, I Live Under Your House overwhelmingly succeeds in the audio department.
I wish I could say that the game carries this success over into its other design elements; but unfortunately, it largely didn’t click for me. The visuals are a great match for the sound at first glance, but the glaring usage of AI is a huge blemish on the entire experience. The writing is strong in terms of worldbuilding, but the meat of the story is less interesting and falls flat by the end. The gameplay was disappointing, to say the least; I thought there might be some true point-and-click puzzles, but the most I got was picking up an unmissable item and bits of (albeit well-written) lore.
And even though the endings are exceptional, replaying the game to earn all three feels like a chore thanks to the downright mundane choices involved - choices which barely change anything except for the last scene, making it feel even less worth it. So while I think there’s a lot of potential here, I also wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend I Live Under Your House. It’s a game with a lot of decent ideas that are outmatched by its shortcomings.

Visuals: 3.5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 1/5
Worldbuilding: 4/5
Overall Game Score: 3/5 [3.2/5]

A neat lil indie where you play as a funny lil dude living underneath somebody's house. It's a point-and-click and a walking simulator with a solidly spooky atmosphere and a simple story. A lot of the artwork is pretty cool, definitely the stuff of nightmares. The game is also pretty funny but even for a short game it's kind of a chore to replay it for the different endings. The dlc has some of the best moments in the game.

It took me around an hour and half to see everything the game had to offer. For three bucks that's not bad, that's still cheaper than renting a movie digitally. So if you got the time to kill and you don't mind a slow-paced point-and-click/walking simulator then do yourself a favor and play in the dark with headphones on.