House of Wolves

Since prehistoric times, people loved anthropomorphic animals; one of the reasons is a huge potential for generalization.

When watching movie actors with certain facial features, hair color, skin color, this human concreteness of detail somewhat impedes seeing in them our friends, our relatives, ourselves - and, thereby, somewhat hinders our understanding of universal things the movie is trying to say. But Judy Hopps, an anthropomorphic rabbit, looks like many and many different young girls from different parts of the world.

Aesop's fables are always about humans - but not about specific humans. Even when they feature human characters, those are always extremely abstract figures with minimum individuality: "a shepherd", "a fisher".

House of Wolves is a very short game about a young human who is being raised by eponymous talking canines. The wolves fit here especially well: on one hand, they're dangerous predators, long feared and associated with cruelty; on the other hand, there are many stories of wolves adopting human children. And they are similar to dogs, so familiar to us and so capable of loving us... in their own way.

I personally find wolves wonderful and beautiful creatures, but it doesn't really matter in this game - because, in truth, it's not about wolves at all. It's about humans, just like an Aesop's fable. About parents abusing their children and trying to shape them into something they could never be. There are many ways to understand it; you can read it as a fable about being transgender, or about being vegetarian, or about many and many other things. There's a huge potential for generalization.

The story mechanics is of a particular interest. (Major spoilers follow.)

(Spoiler - click to show)The game gives you an illusion of choice and then takes it from you. It's a technique used in several classical games such as Rameses. Although it may seem to make a story resemble static fiction, it's actually a powerful twist that only IF can manage. Never having freedom of choice from the start and having freedom forcefully taken away are two completely different experiences.