The Housewife Reviews

What. The. Fuck. did I just play... Do not waste your money on this game. The entire game is a shitty version of visera clean-up, where you play as a house wife for 3 chapters before you learn you are married to Dexter, who beats the shit out of you in his sex dungeon, has you clean up his blood, while waiting for supper. whoops spoilers

OMFG I'm laughing so hard. I get the point of the game is to raise awareness about domestic violence however it is the most unrealistic domestic violence story ive ever seen pmsl. for 3 chapters I was proper chilling out cleaning which i can only describe the first 3 chapters as viscera clean up home edition lmao and the final getting chained up and beaten in a basement chapter was like some BDSM experience lmao. :D just change i uyp with some yes instead of no and were all good there. Personally for the 1.99 it cost of steam during the sale was totally worth it for the laugh. As a victim of domestic abuse though I cant honestly get behind this as a message to help with domestic violence. In that sense it was utter crap.

A very strange game. On the surface it claims to be a game where you "get deep inside the functioning psyche of a victim of abuse." It is literally a cleanup simulator. If you lose by not cleaning up the mess quickly enough, you get presented a demotivational wordcloud made in two minutes. If you win you make it to the next level. [spoiler]In Chapter 4 your abusive husband anime-punches you in the face (no damage to you, except only on the inside).[/spoiler] The game's big message is that you're cleaning up the messes of others, and physical wounds others have caused you. This "heavy" topic is contrasted by the extras section, which are a set of walking simulators and obstacle courses. This whole game seems like concern trolling, but honestly, there's no morality standpoint to be made when its clear the developer has no moral conscience. There are no claims that sales of this game benefit abuse victims, or charities dedicated to providing shelter from victims of domestic abuse. Keep your dollar (this game is permanently on sale anyway). Give it to a better cause.

Bro, if you're getting lost into this game store page. Please don't buy this game I'm begging you. my feeling while i was playing this game is like What on the earth am I doing here?!?!? I was trying my best to find something that makes sense to me but i found nothing.

I find it ironic that a game all about battery at home, it's the developer that actually receives more abuse than the in-game characters portrayed needing help. It's not that gamers have a problem with serious social issues being tackled in a gaming medium if it’s done in a thoughtful manner. Instead the problem here is the way in which it was handled. Some feeling that the cheesy non related dream sequences, the over the top exaggerated tasks required to be performed and the ending which consists of a flying sucker punch and you being chained up against the wall and beaten to a bloody pulp is an unrealistic portrayal, making a complete mockery of domestic violence issues. Many have expressed, that instead of it feeling like a game where the primary driving force behind it all, was to raise awareness against domestic abuse, it more felt like a tacky add on simply to boost empathy and sales against shoddy programming. Personally I've employed a few women at my work place who over time I have become conscious to the fact that they were a victim of battery. I always personally went out of my way, when possible, to see that they got the help that they needed. One thing always amazed me though, that in most of these cases most of the women would soon return to their abusive partners even to go as far as reasoning with themselves that they were the real problem/reason behind the domestic violence and not their partner. It's the control that the emotional abuse has over them, coupled with the physical violence that makes this such a serious issue. The game tries to handle this by making you play the part of a housewife who no doubt has been battered in the past. You’re shown on the main screen as someone with a black eye. You’re presented with a series of tasks that you need to perform before your husband Eric comes home. Knowing what type of moods he gets in, you want to try your best in eliminating all the triggers that can provoke your husband. Yes, from onset you are convinced that the problem is 'YOU'. To further show that emotional abuse has already taken its toll on you, the game shows that the front door of the house is wide open, and that you can technically leave at any time, but as soon as you reach the road you remind yourself that your controlling husband does not want you to leave the house and you fear the consequence of displeasing him. Your first task seems to be to clean up after, maybe a party, there is a mess in the kitchen, your bedroom, the garage, bathroom and even the kids have not made it easy for you either. Next you need to collect the clothes and do the laundry and finally you’re given the task of watering the garden too. Fail any of these tasks within a certain allocated time frame and panic begins to set in and you will be required to do the task again. Get the task correct and eventually you will move onto your next task. It's here where the game reveals that 'YOU' really aren't the problem your husband is, because even if you have completed your tasks by 100% your husband Eric has had a bad day and is intending to take it out on you anyway. Finally you’re required to clean up your own blood before making him dinner. Each collection of in game required task, successfully completed, is broken up by dream sequences where you have to again clean up things. And personally to me it’s not the anti-abuse sentiments being the tacky add on, it’s really these levels where you have to clean up in a dream that are unnecessary game filler. I would have much preferred other levels which explored the reality of the issue at hand. What happens with the children? Does she protect them? Does she take it out on them in turn? How does she hide the scarring when visitors arrive? Unfortunately the developer tries to do more a surprise twist at the end which does not work. A game which carries the heavy burden of anti-abuse statements, fails to properly deliver the sentiments strived for 'that the victim is not the problem, even though she/he is convinced it is'. Get Help. While games like this raise awareness of the issue, in truth they do very little help in the matter. I applaud the intention, but the execution of it, severely lacked punches... Below someone else’s play through… https://youtu.be/vMrCWjhL-QU If you enjoyed reading this review please subscribe to my curator page. Thanks... http://store.steampowered.com/curator/6843548/

Look... Im not going to be nice just because this game is about abused partners. Horrible game and I am getting a refund. This game feels like a bad alpha. bad graphics, buggy controls and seems map has unfinished feel.

...This could have been an important game that actually did allow you to 'get deep insider the functioning psyche of a victim of abuse', it could really have been a thought provoking, sobering, harrowing experience & it just isn't. Their story feels like it only barely gets a mention with about 3 audio clips in the first 3 chapters that even give the barest sense that there are issues in their relationship & the opening cutscene of the fourth chapter which was the first time the game really gives itself the opportunity to deal with a serious issue in a serious manner serves up something I'd more expect in a bad Unity horror game cutscene. If this game continues to get developed or if another developer takes a go at this topic for a game; can we please look to Sunset. This really just needed to be Sunset but a serious look at changing dynamics in spousal abuse relationships over time instead of love requited/unrequited relationship amidst political revolution.

In The Housewife, you play an abused housewife cleaning the house before the husband comes home. However, the biggest downfall of the game is how it is presented. The ideas are there, but how it is given falls short. The game is just doing chores, with the story just skin deep. The Housewife would of benefited from a story. How does the family get the house so dirty in one day? How did the dynamic of the husband shift to abuser? Was the husband always an abuser (how long has this been going on)? What are the 'rules' the housewife has (there's only one that is given, never leave the property, or two if you add keep the house clean)? Did the housewife ever fight back? Does the housewife have friends? Why is the front door always open (What's the point of it if you can't decide to leave? The husband is never present when you have control. It would be interesting as other games addressed gamers are wired to complete tasks, and this could of played into this)? Is the housewife's dreams tormenting her, or what? How do the kids play into this? Etc. This would help with us empathizing with the housewife, instead on how frusturating the first chapter can be. A character needs to seem real before we empathize with them, no matter how the message is frequent in society. Another thing that I was wondering is why is it in chapters if it's in one day? Why is the housewife giving up if a chapter isn't finished when she has the rest of the day to clean still? Why does the other chore items show when it wasn't there last chapter? With gameplay, the reticle brings up problems, it must be dead on to pick up or aim, and distance is hard to interpret when doing the garbage chore. However, I would like to show some parts that I noticed and I applaud the developer for. When you are putting garbage away, you can knock them out if you shake it hard enough. This will lower the process back, making you redo your process. And probably the biggest thing (since its the gameplay) The Housewife makes you hate cleaning, especially in the first chapter where it goes down the the wire. As i find the dev didn't provide any hotlines (I admit, I'm very disappointed), I link to my guide http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=753280292 as I included some towards the end.

[b]Pros:[/b] Beautiful music, very long soundtrack. 60FPS+ [b]Cons:[/b] Terrible physics. Terrible controls and item interaction. Bad movement. Can see your own legs in the game but when you walk they do not move... why? Bad graphics. No in-game options menu. No cursor speed slider. No key-binding menu. If you press ESC while in-game your cursor becomes visible and if you have multiple monitors it will go off-screen as well. Only way to fix that is to re-start the game. The game feels like an early alpha, it feels like a concept of what the final game will be. No story. Game claims to focus on abuse on women(because men totally never ever don't get abused by women) but the ending shows a psychopathic torturer. Gameplay is nothing but a cleaning simulator. Game claims to be diving into the psyche of an abused woman, there's literally nothing like that in the game. All you do is clean a house for ~30 minutes. As pointed out by others, the game is a cleaning simulator, a bad one, with a controversial subject tacked on to sell copies. Do not buy it. Not only because the game is terrible but you shouldn't support developers like this. [h1]Curator page[/h1] [i]If you liked this review or otherwise found it helpful in deciding whether or not to buy this game, feel free to follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/29162366/]my Curator page[/url].[/i]

[b]What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse. - Isabel Allende[/b] Made in Unity, [i]The Housewife[/i] is an indie art project which aims to be thought-provoking about the subject of domestic abuse rather than being an actual game. I wholeheartedly congratulate the developer to pick this burdensome issue to work with, in which any kind of awareness would make a step forward towards a society with both empathy and understanding. Sadly, this is a sentiment completely separate from my outlook to the project as a game. Even though its objective is noble and praiseworthy, the project itself fails to deliver its intended effect and weight with its given medium here. The topic isn't anything groundbreaking, but quite real for thousands of women throughout the world. We are a housewife and a mother of two children who is supposedly also a victim of abuse. At the start, everything seems tediously normal, if not a bit frugal. Yet, as the game progresses, we keep facing ridiculously basic yet incredulously consuming chores as a simulation and by the end, it just becomes disturbing, fitting to its context. The game consists of 4 chapters, and in each chapter, we are given a list of tedious tasks to complete before our husband comes back home. It seems easy enough, with its mediocre goals and quite basic environment, yet such is not the issue. The game dynamics are carefully arranged for these chores to become unnecessarily hard, starting with physics and unrealistically limited deadlines. The abuse part of the game doesn't reveal itself, or present any hint to its presence rather than a persistent time limit and a sense of dread bounded to that time limit until the 4th and final chapter of the game. Now, this description that I have presented in the prior paragraph is the intended effect. What it actually ended up being so is something a bit different. We have WASD for movement, 1-2-3 for different cleaning actions and some cleaning items we must drag everywhere, like the bucket, the trash can etc. Yet, considering the game dynamic lets us carry one single item at a time, we are gonna have a meaninglessly bad time while trying to run against our time limit. What we do for 3 chapters is cleaning the house as going through monstrously long cleaning animations, watering plants - though we can water one single plant at a time - and pick up clothing, trash etc. - AGAIN, ONE FRIGGIN ITEM AT A TIME. Seriously? Who carries one sock at a time to the washing machine while doing the laundry? It is ridiculous. For each chapter we are given 3 minutes or so to go through a complete list of chores and the physics dynamic is such a catastrophe that there really should be no realistic expectancy that you'd manage to go through all this while your bucket gets stuck in doorways. The dusting animation takes forever too. Oh, and by the end of the 3rd chapter, there comes a cinematic animation and a disturbing in context final 4th chapter. Now, the animation used for all these are so bad, it becomes funny rather than disturbing. Thus, it completely fails to deliver the message, which is the main issue here. Oh, as we were speaking of animations, display isn't the strongest quality of the game either. The whole design of the environment is pretty weird, as if you have cut out 4 sections from completely different houses, and just laid them next to each other, making a patchwork of one big, empty and pretty surreal house. The house contains no personal items, no clues to observe about the relations within the family, no actual relatable living space. There is no logic to any kind of item occurrence, or even an explanation for the kind of filth that we have to deal within the house. "We have 2 kids", sure we do but I see no reason that kids would basically spray mud all over the place! What happened there? Who did what? Why? No back story, no dialogue, no character depth, nothing. Also physics, textures and animations are all so horrible and sad, it really basically ends up being funny. And that "funny" label in presentation kills the gravity of the subject, directly degrading the value of a good idea. There are some additional play sequences - called as dreams - which you can try any time you want too. I actually liked them better than the original "story" part of the game. Their presentation is basic, yet somewhat successful in being symbolic. Again, their gameplay is similarly tedious though, this time without the time limit. The last verdict? I do salute the developer for the idea, yet I sincerely suggest for him to adorn his game with some more context and an actual story next time, alongside a bit more relatable gameplay dynamic. It doesn't have to be easy, but the dynamic itself shouldn't be unrealistic to make it intentionally harder. The games focusing on artistic presentations or contemplative, social ideas should present a relatable enough story, rather than being an empty simulation. Grab it if you feel like giving a good idea, really badly executed a try - on heavy sale, of course. Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ladystoryteller#curation]here[/url] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!