External Links


Play Online
Play this game in your Web browser.
The Loneliest House.zip *
Contains The Loneliest House.gblorb
Post-competition release, at the IF Archive. Contains game file, walkthrough, and source code.
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
ECTOCOMP 2023 games archive *
Contains The Loneliest House.zip
At the IF Archive.
This is a pseudo-format used to represent download adviser records that apply to multiple formats.
* Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

The Loneliest House

by alyshkalia profile

2023

Web Site

(based on 4 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

You've always been drawn to the lonely old house on the hill outside your town...


Game Details


Awards

9th Place, La Petite Mort - English - ECTOCOMP 2023

Entrant - The Bare-Bones Jam

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(0)
4 star:
(3)
3 star:
(1)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 2
Write a review


2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
An eerie voyeuristic languished gaze at an abandonned house, November 6, 2023
by manonamora
Related reviews: ectocomp, barebonesjam

This is a short parser letting the players use only one command: examine (X / L), where the point is to examine the abandoned house, and its different element, as if you were exploring it. Examining an element gives you a description, which focuses on other smaller elements, which if you examine those will describe further details, and... so on and so forth until the details are simply too small to see, or until you examined all elements to reach the end.

The gameplay reminded me of Nested, where checking an element gives you details you can look out, each if checked will give out subsequent details, and... Except, unlike Nested, TLH doesn't loop back to repeat ad infinitum if you take one specific path.

As for the whole, it felt a bit voyeuristic, especially in the descriptions of each details of the house, as, even if it is abandoned, you sort of see yourself opening the door or looking out the scenery from the window. You wish you could be inside the house, but you can't. You're on the other side of the fency, gazing with envy at the house. It's pretty eerie...

Also: +1 for including a walkthough! -1 for not being able to pet the dog (/jk)

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A clever twist on haunted house games, November 24, 2023
by MathBrush
Related reviews: less than 15 minutes

This parser game for Ectocomp was written in 4 hours or less.

This game really surprised me. I started it up, liked the writing, and decided to start poking around. I found a lot more things implemented in the first room than is normal for a speed-IF, which intrigued me, but I had trouble doing things.

Once I realized the twist, though, I found it to be clever, reminding me of some enjoyable games from the past. Just when I thought I couldn't do any more, I reached the ending, which was a satisfying conclusion.

So I'm not saying more because of spoilers, but I thought this was a good game and a good choice for the scoping and size issues that usually come with having a time limit for writing, like Ectocomp' Petite Mort division does.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

The Loneliest House on IFDB

Polls

The following polls include votes for The Loneliest House:

Microparsers by Tabitha / alyshkalia
The discussion in this thread, from which I've borrowed the term "microparser" (thanks Pinkunz!), led me to want to collect small parser games. I'm thinking of ones that fit what's described in the thread--generally taking less than 30...




This is version 7 of this page, edited by JTN on 17 March 2024 at 3:42pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page