A House for Alesa

About A House for Alesa

A House for Alesa is a horror game by A. V. Dossow, made in RPG Maker MZ and released in 2023. It plays in the browser on itch.io and can be downloaded for Windows and Mac, pay what you want. It can be played in English, Spanish or Turkish. Its maker also made Doppelpartment, Mausoleosis and Julia was Alone.

It opens with a flashback. Six-year-old Alesa, alone outside, meets Mr. Bob, who asks if she has ever had needles under her fingernails and invites her to his house to be part of his family. She escapes. Eighteen years later she wakes from that dream again, now a social worker sent to house 446 to look into a family. Inside there is a dining table of rotting leftovers that may be covered in ketchup or blood, a very creepy doll, a hall of ghosts and a cellar, and before long Alesa comes to tied to a chair while the mother pours tea and cheerfully explains that her twin boys keep young women as pets.

You explore the house top-down, solve odd puzzles, and choose how to answer; one of the options in that interview is to ask to be turned into a lamp, and the game has a grim streak of black humour. The maker promises six endings, unique death animations and permanent mutilation of the heroine, and warns of pixel blood, violence, disturbing imagery, loud sounds and jumpscares. Players also note that Alesa is drawn with exaggerated jiggle physics and that there is partial nudity, which several found out of place in such a dark story; some mention an option to censor it.

Players on itch.io rate it 4.4 out of 5 from 128 ratings; one says their heart pounded the whole way, others call it genuinely disturbing. It suits players of short RPG Maker horror who want a grotesque family and many ways for things to go wrong.

How to play A House for Alesa

1. Open the game's itch.io page and press Run game to play in the browser, or download it for Windows or Mac.
2. Choose English, Spanish or Turkish at the start.
3. Move with the arrow keys, confirm with Z or Enter, and hold Shift to run.
4. Open the menu with Q to see your items and save, and close it with X.
5. Explore the house, solve its puzzles and choose your answers carefully; different choices lead to different endings.

Tips

• Read the maker's warning first: blood, violence, disturbing imagery, loud sounds and jumpscares.
• Save in the save rooms; some choices end the game quickly.
• There are six endings, so replay with different answers.
• If a download for Windows fails, try the browser version.

Questions