Welcome to the Mini review series, where I share bite-sized, structured thoughts on games I’ve played.
This first one is about the game Whisper of the House, which was released back in August.
Welcome to Whisper Town — a cozy and heartwarming game about decorating, organizing, and uncovering little stories.
You’ll step into the role of the town’s all-around housekeeper, taking on charming, quirky tasks: moving into new homes, tidying cluttered rooms, preparing new shops, sorting through treasured keepsakes… even tracking down cats! Complete each task to earn rewards, collect furniture, and freely design a space that’s entirely your own.
As you help others put their lives in order, you may unknowingly change the course of their stories, and slowly discover the unusual secrets hidden in this charming little town…
Game: Whisper of the House
Release date: August 27, 2025
Genres: Casual, Indie, Simulation
Studio: 元气弹工作室(GD Studio)
Publisher: 元气弹工作室(GD Studio)
Available for: PC, MacOS
In Whisper of the House, you move to a town where you help the locals move, unpack and organize their belongings. As you complete various tasks, you gradually uncover strange mysteries lurking beneath the surface.
Gameplay
The game begins with you getting your own studio apartment in Whisper Town, which serves as your customizable home base. You then start receiving requests from the locals, like helping them unpack, clean up and settle into new homes, setting up a bakery, or organizing an instrument store, to name a few. Later in the game, you also unlock a quest board with less specific requests that give you more freedom to decorate (for example, setting up a room for a streamer).
By purchasing mystery boxes from the local shops you unlock new furniture, plants and other decoration items that you can use for these requests or to decorate your own base.
World and characters
Soon you start noticing that things are not quite right in this town. There are weird glitches scattered around that you can interact with to fix, and you’ll see mysterious happenings while completing residents’ requests. These things hint at something darker going on, and at times it can even be a bit unsettling. Adding to this unsettling feeling is the fact that you start getting some weird letters from an anonymous sender.
The locals mostly interact with you through request letters, cutscenes or calls, and you get to know more about them as they share their ambitions with you. You are accompanied by a cute robot assistant.
Visuals and sound
Whisper of the House has beautiful pixel art and both the look of the town as well as the interiors and decorating items are super well crafted. The game’s assets are on the small side, which gives it a cutesy style. The animations and transitions that you get when interacting with certain objects are a nice touch – for example, a piece of clothing will change if you try to hang it.
The music in the game is pleasant but it doesn’t stand out. It wasn’t distracting but also doesn’t make you want to come back to listen to it later, at least that’s how I felt listening to it.
It’s worth mentioning that it appears a developer contracted by the studio copied assets from another game, but the studio acted fast when this was reported and removed all assets from this person. Read their statement about this on X.
My thoughts: Enjoyed some of it, but it’s not really for me.
I had fun with the unpacking, organizing items and decorating mechanics and absolutely loved the art of this game. The small animations and details are stunning.
I wish that there had been better warnings about the disturbing content, as I was expecting a cozy experience more like Unpacking. Some of these darker elements felt unnecessary, as the story itself lacked depth and wasn’t particularly memorable. Also, the game required getting a certain number of achievements to complete the story, which made the ending feel really drawn out.
Despite the lovely visuals and solid unpacking/decorating mechanics, the game’s issues with pacing and unengaging story make it hard for me to recommend unless these things don’t seem to bother you.
-Luna
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