Whisper of the House is a sandbox design game that gives you the freedom to move

I’ve made no secret that I’m a pretty huge fan of sandbox design and organization games. They’re relaxing, infinitely replayable thanks to layout changes and unlockable items, and it’s hard to beat the satisfaction of turning an empty room into somewhere you could see yourself spending time. 

Whisper of the House, a cozy sandbox design and organizing game by GD Studio, is coming to Steam on August 27. It takes all of the pixel furniture joy that we know and love from games like Unpacking, and throws in an entire city to freely explore. It’s one of my most anticipated games of the month, and here’s why. 

Unpacking through time

In Whisper of the House, you’ve just set up business as a mover and unpacker in a new city. First, you unpack your own house, with the help of Mark the moving-bot, and then you set out into the city to help others settle into their new homes. It’s a gameplay loop that any fan of the genre should be pretty familiar with, but Whisper of the House throws in a few curveballs. 

In one of the two jobs you get to complete in the demo, you meet a scientist called Einbert. He asks you to help his grandfather move into his house, which would be pretty straightforward, except his grandfather passed away a while ago, and his house is long abandoned.

But never fear, for Einbert has mastered the art of time travel! 

Using a well-placed door to the past in Einbert’s basement laboratory, you travel back in time and help his grandpa move in. Then, when you travel back to the present, you find that your help has managed to keep his grandpa alive and well for much longer than he did in the timeline without your help.

It’s nice to feel useful, and this is an indication that not everything is going to be straightforward once the full game arrives. 

The freedom to move

In between jobs as a mover, you have an entire city to explore by either clicking around or using the WASD keys. This addition is absolutely game-changing for the genre, as you get to know the town and the people who live there, eventually figuring out where they all live and the relationships between them. 

While you’re wandering around, you can interact with trash cans, bags, dumpsters, and shopping baskets to rummage through them and discover items. If you’re lucky, you might find something useful like a game controller, but you stand an equal chance of finding a dirty plate or a moldy banana. The strangest thing I found while I rummaged was a shocking number of glycerin suppositories. 

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with them at first. You can, of course, use them as decorations in your own home or a showcase apartment, but that seems like an altogether odd interior design choice. So, what do you do with them?

Well, in the basement of your apartment (or wherever you move it to), there’s a recycling chute. Placing things into the chute, whether furniture or trash items, will reward you with a small number of Credits. And if there’s one thing you want a lot of, it’s Credits. 

Credit where it’s due

Whisper of the House has a gacha mechanic that lets you get new furniture or items from the many shops around the city. You can either buy one mystery box for 10 Credits or 10 mystery boxes for 100 Credits. Any new furniture that you get this way will be added to your storage to use in your home or showcase apartment. 

I usually swear off gacha mechanics in games, but there’s something really satisfying about unlocking new furniture this way, and it helps that Credits are fairly easy to come by. You earn them by completing story quests with the residents of the town, or by depositing items into the recycler in your house. 

Plus it helps that some of the furniture is absurdly strange, like a stump chair with glowing blue crystals or an alpaca storage stool that serves no purpose besides standing wherever you put it and looking ominous. It’s difficult to find a matching set of furniture, or even pieces in the same color swatches, but it somehow doesn’t feel like a problem. The mix-and-match aesthetic is your only choice, and it’s freeing to do whatever you want. 

Whisper of the House is set for release on August 27, 2025, so there isn’t long to wait before you can experience everything this adorable sandbox game has to offer. Even better, there’s a demo available in the meantime that lets you complete two quests and explore a small section of the city for as long as you want.