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House on the Hill is an indie Horror Game developed by Steppe Hare Studio.

A man hoping to provide an easy life for his wife and son is hired to break into a house and steal something valuable and sell it, and in the process, put him and his family on easy street.

With the help of Frankie, an accomplice communicating with him via earpiece and cam, the thief breaks into the house on the hill while the owners are away. Breaking into the house is simple enough, but what happens after he enters will make his escape difficult.

The game was released in Early Access on Steam on July 29th, 2020.

On January 16, 2021, the developers were forced to change the game's title to Mists of Aiden after being threatened by a Trademark Troll lawsuit by Hasbro due to the title's similarity to the title of their board game Betrayal at House on the Hill.

This game contains examples of the following tropes:

  • Abusive Parents:
    • In the Necklace storyline, the wife apparently beat her son when he disobeyed her. In one instance, she locked him away in the attic and left him there. He eventually starved and wasted away, having never been found. The husband, in a fit of anger, killed his wife in retaliation as shown in a peephole in the child's "prison," though what happened to him afterwards is unknown.
    • Aiden's father, who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. Practically every inch of Aiden's life was planned out for him by his father until Aiden managed to break away when he was contacted by a publishing firm. His father grew livid with him and took some "extreme measures" to try and straighten him out.
  • Amicable Exes: Averted. If the protagonist is after the Jewel, Frankie tells the protagonist that the wife may have possibly left the husband due to the chemical burns he sustained during the war.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: There are four different antagonists chasing after the protagonist, but you'll only ever face one on each playthrough.
    • The psycho (Father): An emaciated, horrifically burned man in a gas mask who hunts the protagonist after he steals the Jewel from his study.
    • The ghost (Mother): The ghost of the painter, who antagonizes and haunts the protagonist while he searches for the necklace.
    • The thing (Son(?)): A horrific monster lurking in the basement, born as a result of an attempted ritual to resurrect the couple's child gone terribly wrong.
    • The demon: The "Final Boss" of the game, who taunts the protagonist while questioning his motives for stealing the items in the house.
  • But Thou Must!: There are a few instances of this.
    • When the protagonist arrives at the house and is tasked with stealing the Jewel, he has to cut the blue wire to disable the security system. Just one problem: There is no blue wire and you have to cut them all to get inside the house.
    • When the ghost rears its ugly head for the first time, Frankie tells the protagonist to get out of the house and jump over the railing. The protagonist refuses to do so and resolves to pursue the ghost and find the Necklace.
  • Demonisation: in the fourth play-through, it's revealed that this is why the protagonist is looping through the house- after accidentally killing the family who lived here, he's constructing fantasies of them being monsters to justify his actions.
  • Developer's Foresight: The game keeps careful track of the many decisions you'll make across the game. The earliest example is during the opening of the game, where Frankie has you go through the motions of cutting wires. Frankie tells you to cut the blue wire. Cut the white one, and he'll lambast you for not doing what you're told. This comes up again in the fourth storyline when you have to cut a blue or white wire.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The "thing" you encounter in the basement level of the game. Unlike the demon, ghost or psycho, this thing is Lovecraftian in nature and came about when a parent attempted to bring their dead son back to life. Whether it's a case of Came Back Wrong or the ritual summoning the "thing" is unknown.
  • Eldritch Location: The "basement" of the house. Seriously, why in the hell is there a dungeon and a freaking cave system beneath a Victorian-era house?!
  • Foreshadowing: There are several hints throughout the game that relate to Aiden's struggles.
    • If the protagonist examines the photograph of the house owners upon entering, Frankie will remark that the wife resembles the protagonist's own spouse and jokes that his wife might have been seeing someone behind his back. The resemblance isn't a coincidence. That is his wife. Or more specifically, Aiden's wife Nadine.
    • While searching for a fuse to open a door, the protagonist enters a room filled with animal carcasses, looking straight out of a slaughterhouse. The first novel that allowed Aiden to break free from his controlling father featured an "alien slaughterhouse".
    • After the protagonist deals with the "thing" in the Rare Knife storyline, Frankie apologizes to him and says that "he" needs a new heart. Aiden's newborn son is suffering from heart problems.
    • There's also some foreshadowing in the context of the novel Aiden's writing the first storyline ends with the house burning down, the second with the wife's body burning. Which is how the protagonist actually killed them. The third storyline didn't have the enemy burning to death: either the protagonist couldn't justify killing a child, or Aiden was rushing to finish the novel at this point.
  • Genre Shift: If you follow Frankie's instructions, the game plays out like a slasher film in that you're being chased by an ax-wielding psycopath in a gasmask. In your next playthrough, you're either going to be dealing with a ghost or a Lovecraftian monster depending on which location in the house you're going to search. Then there's the playthrough after you've dealt with all three of the Big Bads.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The fourth storyline has Frankie do this, remarking about the monsters the protagonist has faced and wonders which one he's facing this time.
  • Locked Door: Some doors are locked and can be opened over the course of a storyline, but two doors in particular stand out as they open up depending on how many storylines you've completed.
    • In the hall connecting the kitchen to the dining room, there is a door that is heavily chained up with three locks. Surrounding the door are three pedestals. Each time you complete a storyline, the item you come to steal will be placed on the pedestal and the lock will be undone. Getting all three items will start the fourth storyline where you face the demon.
    • There's a door marked with four red stones in the entrance hall. Much like with the door that is chained up, this door can be opened up by completing the storylines—all four of them. It leads into the True Ending of the game and is a Wham Episode from start to finish.
  • Mission Control: Frankie serves as this for the duration of the game, speaking to you via earpiece.
  • Multiple Endings: The game has four different endings, depending on which path in the house you're taking. However, the game has two "official" endings, which are only unlocked until after the four different storylines are completed.
    • Jewel Ending: After being chased by the psycho, the protagonist (at Frankie's suggestion) turns the gas valves and causes an explosion that sets the house ablaze. The psycho is severely injured and left for dead, leaving the protagonist to escape with the jewel.
    • Necklace Ending: After defeating the ghost, the protagonist uses the camera to find the room where the wife's corpse is being held and takes the necklace.
    • Rare Knife Ending: After stabbing the liver, brain and heart of the "thing" below the house, Frankie apologizes to the protagonist and says that "he" needs a new heart. Afterwards, the protagonist is pulled into a portal that leads to...somewhere.
    • Fourth Ending: after finally accepting that he was responsible for the death of the family in the house, the Protagonist tries to finally leave the house- only to be told that acceptance can't change the past, he still killed a family, and he'll be stuck looping through houses for eternity
    • True Ending: After the operation for Aiden's son is said and done, he and his wife Nadine argue about what to do to pay off the copious amounts of loans and debts they've stacked up. Aiden wants to finish his novel and Nadine suggests he ask his father for help. Nadine gives Aiden a month to finish his novel, and the game cuts away to Aiden's decision and the actual ending of the game.
      • Aiden chooses to finish his novel, believing that while it may cause him and Nadine to break up, it will be worth it. Nadine seems to understand this as well and wishes him luck before saying goodbye, presumably for the last time.
      • Despite the possibility that Aiden may very well be once again putting his life (and possibly his son Oliver's) in the hands of his controlling father, Aiden decides to follow Nadine's suggest and leaves his study, lamenting that he didn't have enough time to finish his novel.
  • Recursive Reality. There's at least three levels here- the obvious "You're being chased through a house by monsters" level, the level where that's the guilt induced delusions of a thief who accidentally killed a family, and the level where that is just a novel being written by the titular Adien
  • Sanity Slippage: Frankie starts to undergo this the further along the protagonist travels in the basement. Not that you can blame him when the Big Bad of the segment is a Lovecraftian horror.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When after the Necklace, Frankie practically screams at the protagonist to just forget the necklace and get the hell out of the house when it becomes clear that there is something haunting the house. To his frustration, the protagonist refuses to do so and reluctantly agrees to continue helping him.
  • This Cannot Be!: Frankie's reaction when the protagonist obtains a camera that can make objects that weren't there before suddenly appear and when you enter the basement, which has a cave system ''and a dungeon.
  • Wham Episode: The last moments of the game sheds light on the numerous playthroughs the player experiences, and what said playthroughs represent in Aiden's segment of the game.

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