ESCAPE YOUR HOUSEThe Archive of Houses
An archive case file with red stamps on a desk, next to a rotary phone

The Archive of Houses · the open cases

The case files

Every case file is a house where something stayed behind. You play it in the app, on your phone, inside your own home. You start with the prologue: nine minutes, free, already open. The other six case files are ready and open one at a time: join the list and we'll tell you first.

The case files are played only in the app, on your phone: there's no PDF to print. Today the prologue is open; the six cases open one at a time, and those on the list hear first. The printable kits are something else, with different stories, and they're already free.

In Italian, for nowFor now, the app's cases exist only in Italian, voices included. Translations will come, but we don't have a date yet. You can already try the prologue, in Italian.

Case file 1 · coming soon

The Marchetti Case

A police inspector asks for your help with a woman who vanished in '94 from a house like yours. In the end, you'll be the one to tell her who she is.

November 1994. Elena Marchetti leaves a flat just like yours and never comes back. Thirty years later an inspector reopens the case file, and she needs your doors, your mirror, your fridge. Rain, a moka pot, lino floors, a doorman who never sleeps. Nobody dies.

Genre
small-town psychological mystery
Age
12+ · families from age 8, on Relaxed
Length
about 58 minutes (70 without the timer)
Players
1-6
Price
coming soon: today the app has the prologue. Expected price 1 key (€2.99), for the whole group and with every level
Tell me when it opensComing to the app

Case file 2 · coming soon

The Whispering House

At 03:12 an old man calls you: there's something in your house that matters. You have until dawn to give him the right count, and not every voice on the phone is his.

The valleys above Lucca, the Linchetto from grandparents' tales. Coarse salt, a shoelace, the shutter pulled down. Nobody tells you the fear: you make it with your own hands.

Genre
Tuscan mountain horror
Age
12+ · families with the Vigil mode, lights on
Length
about 60 minutes
Players
solo, as a couple, as a group of 3 to 5
Price
coming soon: today the app has the prologue. Expected price 1 key (€2.99), for the whole group and with every level
Tell me when it opensComing to the app

Case file 3 · coming soon

The Signal

For three quarters of an hour your house is an antenna, and your phone is the only instrument that can hear, see and answer.

One evening at eleven, a radio astronomer on the plains picks up something from an old satellite, Sirio-B. The message is a single word. In the noise there's a face. A dark kitchen, a pan standing against the wall, and one question: who is calling?

Genre
intimate science fiction
Age
10+ · families from age 8
Length
about 45 minutes
Players
1-6
Price
coming soon: today the app has the prologue. Expected price 1 key (€2.99), for the whole group and with every level
Tell me when it opensComing to the app

Case file 4 · coming soon

Christmas Eve

On the evening of the 24th, a parcel sent in 1985 is still looking for your house. You have until midnight to find it, work out who it's for and make it play.

No darkness, no scares. The snow boot, the kitchen calendar, the extra place at the table. A very precise lady from the post office, a recorded tape, and an ending to sing together.

Genre
a family Christmas story
Age
ages 8+
Length
about 45 minutes (50 without the timer)
Players
as a family; also as a couple, as a group or solo
Price
coming soon: today the app has the prologue. Expected price 1 key (€2.99), for the whole group and with every level
Tell me when it opensComing to the app

Case file 5 · coming soon

The Inheritance

An aunt has split her will into pieces nobody can read alone. To put it back together you have to talk to each other, trust each other, and find out which of you is lying.

A notary, a safe, papers passing from hand to hand. The emotion doesn't announce itself: it comes from the household objects you touch. And one of you has a task the others know nothing about.

Genre
family drama, group thriller
Age
12+ · families from age 10
Length
about 65 minutes (55 solo)
Players
3-6 on a single phone; also as a couple or solo
Price
coming soon: today the app has the prologue. Expected price 1 key (€2.99), for the whole group and with every level
Tell me when it opensComing to the app

Case file 6 · coming soon

The Heist

An old safecracker calls you «partner»: tonight you plan a heist in your own home, pull it off by ear, and in the end you decide who to betray.

A village bar, the radio on, a Fiat 600 that won't start. You build the plan with the cards you earn, then lay the phone on the table and it becomes the dial of a safe that clicks. You laugh, you hold your breath. Fear, none.

Genre
heist comedy, Ferragosto 1963
Age
12+ · families from age 8
Length
about 57 minutes
Players
1-6, made for couples and groups
Price
coming soon: today the app has the prologue. Expected price 1 key (€2.99), for the whole group and with every level
Tell me when it opensComing to the app
Waiting list

Tell me when the case files are available in English

The six cases are written, recorded and being tested, in Italian. People on the list get an email when the first case is ready in their language, before the public announcement. No payment now.

We'll write to you only about this, unless you tick the second box.

The rules

How to play

The same rules in every case file.

Three levels

Relaxed: no timer, with hints close at hand. Investigator: the game as it's meant to be played, with an hour that acts as your score; if it runs out, you carry on. Archivist: time becomes a gate: when it runs out the case file closes out of time, but you can carry on without a score. The lengths on the case summaries are estimates, not the timer, which doesn't stop if you switch apps or lock your phone.

Four modes

Solo, as a couple, as a group or as a family. In a group everyone has a role: one reads, one searches, one carries the light, one writes.

Four rules you never break

Never real fire. Never climb on chairs or ladders. Never water near sockets. Never leave the house at night. Everything else, yes.