Moving Houses Review. A Cheerful Game About Moving! (Spoiler Free)

You have to move on. Please.

Developer/Publisher: Gord Games

Platforms: Steam, Itch.io

Socials: Twitter

Price: $12.99

From the get-go, in the description and trailer, there is a looming feeling that something else is up with Moving Houses, and I am here to say, there is! Behind the veil that’s being covered by the friendly looking cartoon box mascot, cartoony and colorful art-style, and silly physics-based house moving tasks, lies a nightmare.

I’m Moving Houses!

The game has the player picking up a box, opening the box to throw or place household items inside them, or picking up the item and throwing it directly into the truck if they’re too large for the box. While the gif shows that players are able to throw it into the box, which I was able to do a couple of times, I mostly shoved it in myself. Might’ve been a skill-issue on my part.

It’s a simple loop that can get tedious. I found myself getting slightly irritated at the repetition. Get a box from the pile, take the box to the spot, shove the stuff into the box, run down to the truck, repeat. It gets worst when there’s stuff that just won’t go into the box, so you have to run down all the way to the truck, then back up, and repeat. It’s just like the real thing. I hate moving, the packing and such, so the game did an excellent job showing how tedious it can get. At least you don’t have to worry about things breaking.

As the player progresses and completes task, they’ll unlock abilities, such as kicking or sprinting, or improve themselves, such as being able to walk and run faster, increasing the box storage space, to being able to throw farther and kick harder. They’re basically stat bonuses that facilitates the players packing struggles.

This Is Never A Place I Could Stay.

Within all the struggles of moving that we’ve all gone through at some point in our lives, lies something else in this game. As you’ve probably noticed, as with the marketing and the description of the game, it’s just a very normal game with nothing else going on, right? As previously said, there is a veil covering this game, which is hiding the game’s narrative.

It’s sublet, but the text in the player’s tasks sound a little bit off, almost as if has another meaning. The tasks aren’t only telling you to pack your stuff, it’s telling you something else, and as the player progress through the story, there are shifts that occur in the game. This is what drew me in, the need for context, as it’s obvious by the second or third task that something else is going in.

Sometimes, odd things happen around the house, almost as if a ghost is inhabiting it. But, who really is the ghost? Though, the horror is very tame, as nothing too horrifying happens, but because it does a good job at lowering your guard, it will probably get you, just like it got me.

And It Is Going Great!

It’s a short game that shouldn’t take the player more than one to two hours to fully enjoy and experience. The storytelling is a little abstract, and plenty of assumptions and connections have to be made to make it make sense, but as someone who likes to figure it out, it was enjoyable.

The spooks and the scares aren’t frightening, but it was an interesting way to talk about that specific theme that did get me a couple of times. The game does get tedious, so if you’re someone patient that can get over the repetitive gameplay, it can be a neat experience with a build-up that’s worth it.

Though, the other unlockable game modes don’t really add anything to the story, but make it even more tedious, so I wouldn’t recommend the “Extra Packing” mode, unless you really liked packing, and the “Cut Content” mode doesn’t really add anything either, but it was nice to see how the game improved.

Also, the song slaps, so I will always remember this game.