READ FIRST - Troubleshooting Steps, and Helpful Links

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START WITH THESE 5 STEPS:

1) Verify that your PC meets or exceeds ALL of our minimum system requirements. These can be found on our website[games.eekllc.com] or linked to from the site you used to purchase the game.

2) Please read and follow the guidance of this document on Security Software interfering with House Party. These steps can fix a wide number of issues.

3) Verify Integrity of Game Files in Steam, or whichever store platform/launcher you use to start House Party, if possible. As an example, follow this link for official Steam instructions on how to do this. A full uninstall and reinstall may also help as an initial step. See the "Important System/Asset Locations" section below for more before attempting a full uninstall.

4) In the Main Menu (or in-game Pause Menu) Graphics Settings, try toggling between windowed and fullscreen modes, then restarting, to see if this resolves your issue.

5) Ensure that House Party is the only active program running. Close all:

• Non-mandatory vendor-provided graphics, audio, and/or hardware or input management tools like Asus Sonic Studio 3, etc.
  
• Non-critical background programs, including non-Microsoft applications
  
• Nvidia GeForce Experience or AMD's Crimson ReLive + Overlay, etc.
  
• The Steam/Epic/GOG or any other launcher/client overlays
  
• Third-party programs that could display overlays or pop-up windows
  
• Streaming/recording software, DVR Apps, and any XBOX/Windows Gaming apps
  
• Apps that add post-processing or other rendering effects, such as ReShade

STILL HAVING ISSUES?

Note: for references to "Installation Folders", etc., see the "Important System/Asset Locations" section below.

Click the link below that is most appropriate to your issue, or search for it:

• T1: Story/Data Errors | Failure to Extract Stories | Red Text on Main Menu: "Latest Story File not Found" or "Error Writing Story Files..." | Cannot Start New Game | Custom Stories Unable to Install/Uninstall
  
  
• T2: Stability | Crashing or App Hangs | Intermittent Audio or Graphics Glitches | Performance Issues (FPS, or Mouse/Free Look "Lag")
  
  
• T3: Download/Network Errors | Red Text on Main Menu: "Cannot Download Stories..." | Connection Timeouts | Cannot Download Custom Stories
  
  
• T4: Input Issues | Automatic Walking | Unable to Move | Key Bindings not Working | Etc.
  
  
• T5: Steam Issues | House Party Stops Updating | Game Will not Download | Error: "Paused: Content File Locked" | Disk Read/Write Errors
  
  
• T6: Audio Issues | No Spoken Dialogue | No Music | Etc.
  
  
• T7: UI No Longer Visible
  
  
• T8: Camera Item Not Working | Bugs/Crashes when Taking Pictures

TRIED EVERYTHING?

If none of the above sections help, have your basic system specs (CPU, GPU, memory/RAM amount, and Windows version) ready before reporting a problem. Please also see this post for info on how to obtain logs for us. More details leads to faster turnaround time in addressing your issue, which helps everyone!

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IMPORTANT SYSTEM/ASSET LOCATIONS:

Do not make manual changes to these, or their contents.

Doing so will likely corrupt your game data, result in a loss of save files, or result in you needing to reinstall the game. You only need to review these folders to look for log files, save files, evidence of corruption, or if attempting a full uninstall of the game.

The following are all default locations, and may be customized by you, your Windows settings/configuration, third-party software, or the distribution platform on which House Party was purchased.
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Access these by copy-pasting the address into File Explorer (Windows Key + E) and hit Enter:

Default Folder for Logs, Save Games, and Crash Reports:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Eek\House Party

Default Folder for Debug Logs, and Photos taken by the Camera Item:
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Eek\House Party

Default Folder for Custom Stories:
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Eek\House Party\Mods\Stories

Default Installation Folder for House Party (on Steam):
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\House Party\

Default Folder for Eek!/Official Stories (on Steam):
Default Installation Folder\HouseParty_Data\StreamingAssets\Mods\Stories

You may need to replace “C:” as needed with the drive containing your Windows or Steam installation/Steam Library.

If you did not buy House Party on Steam, you'll need to find your installation folder. This folder will contain the HouseParty.exe application, a HouseParty_Data directory, Unity Crash Handler (UnityCrashHandler64.exe), etc.

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Requires use of the Registry Editor/RegEdit. Attempt only if Comfortable with Editing the Windows Registry:

Default Registry Key Location for House Party (for clearing user preferences like Graphics and Input Settings):
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Eek

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T1: Story/Data Errors | Failure to Extract Stories | Red Text on Main Menu: "Latest Story File not Found" or "Error Writing Story Files..." | Cannot Start New Game | Custom Stories Unable to Install/Uninstall

Being unable to load story data, or story data becoming corrupted, can greatly impact your ability to play the game. The unzip function within the House Party program needs to be able to successfully access, read from, write, and extract story packages to folders on your system.


Eek!/Official stories and Custom Stories go to two separate locations:

Eek!/Official stories go to the Default Folder for Eek!/Official Stories.

Custom Stories go to the Default Folder for Custom Stories.

• Copy all of the files from the game Installation Folder to your Desktop and try running the HouseParty.exe file from there.

• Click on the Credits screen, then after the Credits screen is visible, hit Escape/ESC

• These \Stories folders should only contain subfolders such as "Original Story", "A Vickie Vixen Valentine", "Gone Bad Party", etc. There should be NO .character or .story or .zip files in the \Stories folders. So if yours looks like this:
  
  https://imgur.com/9YMDKI2
  
  Make it look more like this:
  
  https://imgur.com/ldy8GeQ

• If you are playing House Party via any form of external launcher, try to launch via the installed executable instead of via the launcher. This includes 3rd party apps as well as the Epic, GOG, GameJolt launchers, etc. (Note that launching via just the executable file may not be possible for all users)

• If you are using OneDrive or other cloud sync software that may require you to be online and signed in order for it to read/write from files, make sure you are connected to the internet and signed into that software

• The game sometimes has difficulty reading from \Documents folders that have had their default linkage/location changed. If your \Documents folder is not at the default location (Users\YOUR USER NAME\Documents), or is being sync'd to a network drive or OneDrive-type cloud system, try restoring the \Documents location to its defaults or creating the folder structure yourself to see if the issue is resolved.

• If you tried to manually install/modify a story, you may have overwrote other story content, put the custom stories in the game's Installation Folder, or somehow in the process corrupted the story you are currently trying to play. You may need to try to back up any custom content you have installed, and fully reinstall the game.

• If you obtained the game via a .zip file, make sure you unzip the downloaded file PRIOR to attempting to run the game.

• Try swapping your region and calendar settings to US or UK/"Gregorian" calendar. See the Marked Answer in this post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/611790/discussions/0/1777136225017699305/ and reference this visual guide if needed: https://imgur.com/a/8ThgRyf

• Try shortening the file paths for the Installation Folder as well as the Default Folder for Custom Stories, etc. Folder and file referencing can break in Windows/Unity once the total size of a path goes over 255 characters

• Disable encryption and compression ("NTFS compression"/"compress contents to save space") on all files/folders and their subfolders outlined in "Important System/Asset Locations". For info on how to do this in Windows, see this image[i.imgur.com]. If you use third-party software for encryption and/or compression, refer to its documentation.

• Verify that Microsoft .NET and Visual C/C++ redistributable/components are properly installed on your PC. You can check these within your Programs"/"Programs and Features" page in Windows, via searching, or the Control Panel. For more help see Microsoft's Documentation, here[docs.microsoft.com], and here[docs.microsoft.com].

• Your Windows User Account may not have appropriate read/write permissions.
  - Ensure no files or folders outlined below in "Important System/Asset Locations" or in this document are forcibly set to "Read Only".
  - Try adjusting Windows User Account Control[docs.microsoft.com] settings
  - Confirm that Windows App Permissions[support.microsoft.com] do not include House Party in any of their restrictions.
  - Try using an Administrator account to play
  - Try using Administrator credentials to give yourself access to House Party files/folders
  - Force the the game .exe to always Run as Administrator. Go to the game's Installation Folder, right click HouseParty.exe, go to Properties -> Compatibility and select/check on “Run as Administrator”, then Apply

If you're ever in doubt that your Eek!/Official story files are intact and up-to-date, here is a direct link to our latest story downloads:

https://games.eekllc.com/Download/stories/Mods.1.0.9.zip

Some alternate links in case your connection to our server is causing an issue:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgbZw2yZ-HhmilKSQECeiMm1itBv?e=KijBYO
https://www.dropbox.com/s/psg98bna88olqx2/Mods.1.0.9.zip?dl=1

You can use your own unzip program (WinRar, WinZip, 7-zip, etc.) to extract the .story and .character files and then just use these to overwrite the existing files in the Default Folder for Eek!/Official Stories.

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T2: Stability | Crashing or App Hangs | Intermittent Audio or Graphics Glitches | Performance Issues (FPS, or Mouse/Free Look "Lag")

• On the Main Menu or the in-game Pause Menu, go into the game's Graphics Settings and try the following. Once one of these steps work, slowly readjust Graphics settings until you reach a balance of playability and graphics quality:
  - Turn off 4K textures
  - Set the Quality setting to the Low/Lowest option
  - Turn off/uncheck all additional graphics options
  - Set FOV to 60 or lower
  - Choose a lower resolution option

• If possible, try alt-tabbing out and then back into the game, making sure that House Party is the foreground/focused application

• If playing on the Steam Deck, try turning Proton to the Experimental setting

• Try disabling Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) if using Windows 10 or Windows 11

• Always make sure you have properly configured any newly installed GPU, CPU, or storage drive(s) per the vendor and Microsoft's instructions, and that your system devices are not showing up with an error in Windows Device Manager

• Make sure your GPU drivers are updated with an appropriate driver for your GPU and Operating System. New drivers from your GPU manufacturer are best, but Windows Update can also assist here

• Make sure other system drivers are updated (chipset, etc.). Windows Update can generally assist here

• Ensure that your dedicated GPU (NVIDIA or Radeon/AMD, if available) is set as the active GPU for running House Party. For troubleshooting purposes you can attempt to run on integrated graphics if you suspect a failing GPU.

• In your GPU's control panel/settings application (be sure to check global and program-specific settings):
  - Turn off "force Vsync/adaptive sync"
  - Turn off G-SYNC and/or FreeSync
  - Set your GPU for max performance/max power/no power savings
  - Disable “Virtual Super Resolution” (AMD/Radeon GPUs) or Dynamic Super Resolution (NVIDIA GPUs)

• Set your PC's power plan/power profile in Windows to High Performance, NOT Battery Saver, etc.

• Make sure your monitor is plugged into the video ports for your dedicated GPU in the back of your computer, not the video port that may be integrated into your motherboard. Computers with integrated graphics AND a dedicated GPU will sometimes have two sets of video outputs, and you need to use the ones supplied by your dedicated GPU for maximum performance

• If you have made use of a hardware ID/IRQ (HWID) spoofer/changer, try reverting any changes that were made

• Right click on the House Party executable in your Steam folder, select Properties, then go into the Compatibility tab, and force House Party to run with Compatibility settings for Windows 7, and if that does not work, then try Windows 8. ALSO ensure that Fullscreen Optimizations are disabled here if you are using Windows 10. Reference this picture if needed: https://imgur.com/MA7FbxF

• Disable any and all 3D settings/functions on your monitor, within your graphics card's settings/control panel, and in Windows (may also be phrased as Stereo or Stereoscopic 3D)

• Using a native DPI setting on your mouse if it has adjustable DPI (this will differ from model to model; try 400, 800, 1200, and/or 1600 DPI)

• Make sure Windows mouse sensitivity is low (or at a setting that feels smooth to you), and that the options for acceleration or "enhance pointer precision" are off

• Verify that no mouse software (Logitech, Razer, etc.) is adding acceleration or a custom sensitivity profile to House Party

• Check device manager to make sure your USB and mouse drivers are installed, updated, and working properly, and that no additional/unnecessary/old hardware drivers for mice or other similar devices are installed

• If you have extra input devices installed beyond a standard (not "3D") mouse and keyboard, like a racing wheel, stylus, etc. try disconnecting it

• If troubleshooting mouse/free look issues only, absent of any performance problems, also try setting your monitor's resolution to a higher setting via Windows Display Settings, and try playing again

• Migration of Steam files/Library locations, copy-pasting core House Party files to other locations, updating Windows, or moving Windows to a new drive or partition can sometimes result in resource/file reference issues. For an example of this, check here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/611790/discussions/1/1696040635916092541/

• Use Windows tools to verify that your installation and core Windows functionalities are not corrupted (using Windows DISM and SFC): Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files[support.microsoft.com]

• If you are using a Windows "N" or "KN" version (without pre-installed "Media technologies", codecs, or applications), use this Microsoft Knowledge Base to install all missing features for your version of Windows: Media Feature Pack list for Windows N editions[support.microsoft.com]

• If you have installed any custom Codec packs (K-Lite Codec pack, WinX HD, CyberLink, etc.), try resetting or reinstalling that codec pack, and if that does not resolve the issue, uninstall the codecs temporarily

• Disable desktop resizing, custom aspect ratios or set your aspect ratio to default, disable custom display scaling preferences and any resolution or scaling “override” settings, and reset or delete House Party-specific profile(s) within your graphics card's control panel

• If you have House Party installed on a different drive than your primary (on E:\ for instance instead of C:\) make sure *that* drive has an appropriately sized paging file. See this link for more: https://steamcommunity.com/app/611790/discussions/0/1760230437365453579/

• If you do extensive Unity work on your PC (your own development or with our CSC tool) or have installed or modded more than a few other Unity games on your PC before, try installing the most recent version of Unity on your system. Try playing House Party. Then, if the issue is resolved, you can try uninstalling Unity.

• Finally, try forcing the game to run in DirectX 9, or with using legacy Direct X feature sets:
  
  Right Click on House Party in your Library
  Choose "Properties"
  Click "Set Launch Options"
  Paste into text box "-force-d3d9" without the quotes
  Click "OK"
  Click "Close"

Additional command line feature set/launch options (can be helpful for performance, for legacy AMD cards, or if using Steam's Proton feature). Try one of these at a time within the Launch Options window:

• -force-feature-level-9-3
  
• -force-feature-level-10-0
  
• -force-feature-level-10-1
  
• -force-glcore
  
• -force-glcore42 -force-clamped
  
• -force-gles
  
• -show-screen-selector (after using this one, try changing your resolution and quality settings in the selector screen that appears after pressing Play)
  
• -window-mode exclusive (will attempt to use native fullscreen; you may also have to hit Alt-Enter once play begins)

Please note that "AMD Legacy cards" may never be able to run House Party due to AMD's cessation of support for these products and their drivers.

Please see this official AMD link for more info. For additional steps that may work for those using the cards listed in the link, try searching online for "AMD Legacy" and "Creator's Update", as these issues most often seem to crop up with either older Windows versions OR Windows 10 when the Creator's Update is applied.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-630

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IF NONE OF THE ABOVE WORK:

Try following the steps in T1: Story/Data Errors... as well, as some of the same fixes apply here as well, and simply present different or more/less severe symptoms for different users.

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T3: Download/Network Errors | Red Text on Main Menu: "Cannot Download Stories..." | Connection Timeouts | Cannot Download Custom Stories

These errors/issues can be caused by:

• The Eek! server that hosts the stories is either down
  
• You may have configuration settings on your router that prevent access to our server
  
• Your ISP or government is preventing access to our server

While we bundle stories with each new release, it's possible a separate issue is preventing the game from accessing them, in addition to any network issues. Therefore, try following the steps in T1: Story/Data Errors... first.

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IF NONE OF THE ABOVE WORK:

You may need to use a VPN to access https://games.eekllc.com as well as https://csu.eekllc.com/ .

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T4: Input Issues | Automatic Walking | Unable to Move | Key Bindings not Working | Etc.

• Try setting your keyboard region/language to US-English

• Check your device manager and control panel for input/joystick/USB drivers that you are not currently using, and if possible, remove or disable them

• If you are using a "3D Mouse", 3D Navigation, or other highly specialized type of mouse or input device, try swapping it out with a normal three-button or commonplace "gaming" mouse

• If your webcam allows any sort of facial/object tracking or has the capability to accept or convert any form of motion data whatsoever, disable it and its drivers/software

• Try individually unplugging all USB or PS/2 devices from the PC except for your keyboard and mouse (do not unplug your monitor, power cord, etc.). Also disconnect any Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth-based input devices

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T5: Steam Issues | House Party Stops Updating | Game Will not Download | Error: "Paused: Content File Locked" | Disk Read/Write Errors

Be advised that the issues in this section are all related to Steam or your system's interaction/failure to interact properly with Steam. Eek! Games is not required to troubleshoot Steam issues directly, as Steam is a product of the Valve Corporation

Check out this Steam Article first:
Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

If the Steam Client isn't letting you to Download or Install House Party, click here:
Failed to Download or Start Game (Missing Executable)

The following blurbs are courtesy of various online resources:

Game constantly re-downloads and re-validates

Sometimes a game on Steam will non-stop update and validate itself, and when trying to launch it, it will update and fail with reason "Corrupt update files" or something similar.

This can be caused by your anti virus or similar software deleting the update files before steam has a chance of copying them to their intended location to update a game.

Try temporarily disabling your anti-virus (or similar) software and see if the problem is resolved. Check your anti virus (or similar) software logs to see if they did in fact interfere with Steam or your games.

The solution to this problem is to do a full reinstall of the game:

• Right click on the game in Steam Library and select Delete Local Content...
  
• Once the game has finishing uninstalling, install it again.
  
• Please keep in mind, that reinstalling a game will remove all user content, so backing up your content is highly recommended.

Disk Read or Write Error or Content File Locked

If when installing or updating a game on Steam displays one of these messages:

• "An error occurred while updating [game title] (disk write/read error)"
  
• "An error occurred while installing [game title] (disk write/read error)"
  
• "An error occurred while updating [game title] (content file locked)"

Causes:

• A file Steam needs to access is locked and cannot be opened or edited. This usually happens when the game in question is currently running, or any of its files are opened on another program.
  
• File is opened for scanning or quarantined by your Anti Virus software by real time filesystem scanning. This is also known as a false positive.

Possible solutions:

• Close the game that fails to update with the error
  
• Usually restarting Steam or your PC helps too.
  
• Exclude game's or Steam's folders from your antivirus scans.
  
• Temporarily shutdown your antivirus completely.

Also, here's an official Steam Support article about this issue:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9709-FKCB-4230

A game is stuck on "Preparing to launch"

Possible fixes:

• Restart Steam
  
• Restart PC
  
• Disable Steam Cloud
  
• Make sure nothing blocks Steam from accessing the Internet.
  
• Make sure nothing blocks Steam Cloud servers.
  
• Try again later ( in a day )

For more information see this article from Steam Support:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6218-USFX-5568

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T6: Audio Issues | No Spoken Dialogue | No Music | Etc.

• Make sure you are not playing a custom story. Custom stories do not support spoken dialogue at this time, and may not utilize music.

• Turn up your sound device's volume, gradually

• Check in the in-game audio sliders; press ESC while playing to access these

• Ensure that the device you are currently listening through is set to be the primary sound/output/communications device in Windows

• Ensure that the Windows Volume Mixer has not reduced or muted the volume for House Party

• Try disabling other sound devices other than the device you intend to hear sound through

• If you are using another program to launch House Party (like the GameJolt launcher), make sure that you have installed the game to the same location that the launcher is in.

• Update your sound device drivers

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T7: UI No Longer Visible

The only in-game hotkeys that could affect the House Party UI are below. Try pressing them one at a time, each time carefully observing your screen in order to ensure your UI displays properly again:

TAB: by default this hides certain on-screen meters and the Player crosshair and accompanying text. Does not hide dialogue, responses, menus, etc.

Left Shift + Left Ctrl + U: toggled ALL UI elements on/off

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T8: Camera Item Not Working | Bugs/Crashes when Taking Pictures

Try the steps in T1: Story/Data Errors..., as many of those fixes can apply to issues with the Camera item.

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IF NONE OF THE ABOVE WORK:

The camera item actually saves pictures to the following directory, and therefore your user account and the House Party game itself need access to it:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Eek\House Party\Photos

Double check your Security Software configuration and Windows User Account Permissions.