A House of Many Doors Reviews

The writing of the game is really great and very similar in tone to Sunless Seas. However, the actual gameplay is incredibly boring. The rooms of "The House" are basically all the same and wandering from one to the next is dull and drags on for far too long until the next brief moment of story.

A House of Many Doors' gameplay is admittedly, very jank. Mostly it consists of trundling through empty rooms, on and on, to get to your next destination. The combat is worse, the mix of turn-based and real-time making it somehow both boringly slow moving and requiring incredibly fast reflexes. And all of this is compounded by the game's innumerable bugs, imbalances, and unintentional loopholes. Why then is A House of Many Doors one of my favourite games of all time? The obvious answer would be to say the game's luscious worldbuilding. Each location is described with strange yet perfectly clear imagery, the world is very well developed but it never feels like the game is simply dropping exposition on the player's head, and so much feels unique and different compared to the standard fantasy tropes that define the genre. This world building is definitely what drew me to A House of Many Doors in the first place. But if we compare it to its direct inspirations, the games in the Fallen London universe, particularly Sunless Sea, these games are just as successful in their worldbuilding -- and yet I think A House of Many Doors surpasses even these. What I think really makes this game succeed is in its cohesion and structure. The problem I have with the Sunless games is that while they are in theory at least about the player character's unquenchable ambition -- a central plot thread that the player character will pursue at any cost -- in truth, these ambitions are the least interesting parts of the games (with perhaps the exception of Sunless Skies' Martyr King's Cup, which surprise, surprise is in fact written by Harry Tuffs, the writer behind A House of Many Doors). In contrast, A House of Many Doors main quest is not only incredibly interesting, but is also mechanically and narratively tied to the game's sidequests. To progress in the main plot, you need to explore and complete sidequests, and ultimately this then positions you to make the difficult choices that the plot demands. Through exploring the House, the player gains the insight necessary to decide its fate. Everything fits together into a compelling and thematic whole. I would definitely recommend A House of Many Doors if you enjoy narrative heavy games and don't mind the slower pace. There is an overlapping audience with fans of the Fallen London games, but A House of Many Doors is a lot less bleak and unforgiving, so even if you don't enjoy those games, it might be worth giving this one a go.