Harlequin Diver has announced The Dreams in the Peacock House, a short narrative game that blends classic text adventure ideas with visual novel and point-and-click elements. According to the announcement, it is tied to a Steam release, though the current Steam page is still listing the game as “Coming soon” rather than showing it as live just yet. And the only timeframe we have is that it will launch next month, exactly when though, we’re unsure.
That slight timing wobble aside, the game itself sounds right up the street of anyone who likes their indie releases a bit stranger and a bit moodier than usual. You play as Argus, waking after years of isolation inside the ruined Peacock House, and the goal is to recover mystic eyes, unlock the Sanctum Sanctorum, and piece together the dreams left buried in the place. Steam describes it as a short narrative experience, with a playtime of around one to two hours.
It starts as text adventure, then slowly mutates into something else
The most interesting hook here is how the game changes form as you play. Harlequin Diver says The Dreams in the Peacock House begins as a classic text adventure, then gradually folds in point-and-click and visual novel elements as more mystic eyes are found. That is the sort of structural idea that can either feel wonderfully eerie or completely unravel, but at least it is trying something more interesting than simply picking one genre and sitting politely inside it.
Other features listed on the Steam page include puzzle-solving, an in-game television show called The Chaotic Elegance of the Bugsoiesie, and, crucially, a duck named Herbert. Which, to be fair, is the kind of detail that does a lot to sell a game to the right sort of person.
This is not Harlequin Diver’s first trip into strange narrative spaces
Harlequin Diver has been building out a small catalogue on itch.io, with previous projects including Asleep in the Deep, a short point-and-click horror game, and Fear and Loneliness in Latona’s Void, a visual novel-style release. Their itch.io page also shows a mix of interactive fiction, adventure, and visual novel experiments, which makes The Dreams in the Peacock House feel less like a sudden left turn and more like a natural next step.
There is also already a demo for The Dreams in the Peacock House on itch.io, where it is tagged as adventure, interactive fiction, and visual novel, with the page noting that no generative AI was used in its creation. So if this sort of haunted-house oddity sounds like your thing, there is already a way to get a feel for it before the full Steam release properly settles into place.
Our take on The Dreams in the Peacock House
The Dreams in the Peacock House feels like one of those games that probably will not be for everyone, which is often a decent sign. A short, surreal narrative game that starts as a text adventure, grows extra limbs as it goes, and throws a named duck into the mix is at least doing something memorable. Whether it all comes together is another matter, but on paper, The Dreams in the Peacock House has a strong whiff of the sort of peculiar indie curiosity we like seeing crawl out of the floorboards.
This isn’t the only indie game we’ve been checking out lately; we’ve also been looking through titles from the current Steam Ocean Fest. If you want to see which indie games we think are worthwhile keeping an eye on and playing, go visit our picks from Steam Ocean Fest piece.
Head on over to our news section for more updates on the latest indie game developments.
