Houseworming

Houseworming is a tiny Bitsy maze about collecting worms while enduring the conversational weather of a party. Arrow keys handle the wandering and a page refresh starts the evening over, leaving the joke to emerge from the collision between social ritual and determined invertebrate procurement.

What is Houseworming?

The project page offers almost comically lean instructions: move with the arrow keys, refresh to restart, collect worms, and navigate small talk. That is enough to establish a whole social predicament before the game even launches. Its Bitsy construction points toward compact rooms, walking, and character encounters, while the maze and experimental tags suggest that finding your way through the gathering matters as much as the dialogue. Houseworming was made for an Indianapolis gallery show, and its pay-what-you-can page also routes a share of individual payments to a local artist collective racing team.

What you can do there

• Walk through the party with the arrow keys
• Collect worms while encountering small talk
• Refresh the page to restart

Why we picked it

Few premises explain themselves this efficiently. The worms make the party immediately stranger, but the real hook is the pairing: compulsive collecting gives you a mission while small talk provides the maze's emotional walls. It is a neat little example of an artist using game structure as social comedy rather than building a joke around a score screen.

How to get the most from it

Open the game in a desktop browser and use the arrow keys to move. Treat each conversation as part of the route rather than an interruption, and keep an eye out for collectible worms as you work through the party. If you want another pass, follow the creator's wonderfully direct reset method and refresh the page.

Good to know

The game is free with optional payment, and the page explains how individual payments support an Indianapolis artist collective. Runtime, ending conditions, sound behavior, and touch support were not verified. The project page allows framing only within itch.io, so Houseworming opens directly rather than inside Site Stumble.

Who made it, and when?

John Flannelly is the credited creator or organization.