JenneWithAnE: Home (PC)

I played Home last night. Technically, this morning since it was 1:00 a.m. I figured that is as good a time as any to play a horror-themed game.

Upon startup, the game recommends you play with headphones on and the lights off, so that is exactly what I did.

Home is described as "unique horror adventure set in a beautifully-realized pixel world. It’s a murder mystery with a twist—because you decide what ultimately happens. Awakened by an oncoming storm, you open your eyes to discover yourself in a strange, dark room—tucked away in a house that’s not yours." I think that is a valid description. At first, I thought it would be similar to Lone Survivor. That is not the case. Not that it suffers because of it. Both games are great in their own right.

I almost did not want to play this in the middle of the night, with the lights off. The other day, I was listening to an episode of Pseudopod entitled "Kill Screen." It is about an 8-bit horror PC game that is a bit too...Realistic. Here is a link if you are interested. http://pseudopod.org/2012/06/08/pseudopod-285-kill-screen/

Back to the game, though.

Home is very unsettling, especially since you are not really sure what to expect on your first playthrough. Do not let its appearance fool you, these old-school type horror games (Corpse Party and Lone Survivor included) are even better at being scary than a lot of the big horror titles are. It helps that the soundtrack, especially with headphones on, was done really well. You hear thunder, crickets, rustling in the bushes, water dripping from the ceiling. At one point, I even heard someone whispering in my left ear.

The controls are very simple, so if you are not comfortable using a keyboard to play games, don't worry. It consists of hitting the arrow keys and space bar. It is not complicated by any means (and that is a good thing).

As far as I can tell, you have the option to do as much, or as little, as you want. While trying to figure out the mystery, you will come across various clues and evidence. The game leaves it up to you to pick these items up or not. In all likelihood, you will have to pick some of them up, since you are required to use keys to open certain doors, but you can get away with leaving most of them right where they are (though I would not recommend doing so). You will also have to solve some very basic [simple] puzzles along your way. I enjoyed the puzzles, even though they did not involve much thought.

After finding the various keys and backtracking to the rooms they unlock, of course there are a few jump scares. What kind of horror game would this be if there weren't? If jump scares are not really your thing, do not worry. Home is mostly one huge, psychological nightmare. These are my favorite types of games, the ones that really make you question what you have seen and how much of it was real. Games like Silent Hill, Lone Survivor, Eternal Darkness and Corpse Party are all great examples of how to execute psychological horror and Home is no different.

No...You still would have been pretty nervous about
entering the forest. Trust me.

The scariest point in the game, for me, was when you exit the sewer and you are in a forest. My reaction was literally, "Pine trees? Oh f***." I do not like the woods. You are surrounded by trees, anyone can be hiding there and you would not be able to see them until it was too late. Whether it is real life, or just a video game, I do not like it. For good reason, too! Someone (or something) was watching me every time I turned my back on the gap in the fence.

I like to check every detail when I am playing a game, but I was unable to do so at one point because I decided to check a door in the factory before going in another room and jumping down a hole like James Sunderland. The door I examined led outside and I was then locked out of the factory. I would really like to know what I would have found had I jumped. I will probably play the game again so I can see how it changes based on what I do/do not examine. There was also a safe that I could not figure out the code for, so I would like to be able to open that next time and see what is inside.

At the "end" of the game, you are asked if you found what you had been searching for. I do not know what happens if you say yes...I assume it is what I originally thought would happen (and tried to avoid by saying no). Saying no gave me a pleasant surprise, something I should have expected, but did not because all the clues in the game pointed towards something else.

Based on the evidence you found, you are asked a series of yes or no questions to put the puzzle together. It seems like you can probably get many different endings, and I think that is really interesting, I would love to replay the game a few more times and see what happens if I change my answers.

Home is available on Steam for $2.99. It is a decent length, about an hour and a half if you really explore everything, plus it gives you a reason to replay the game, so there really is no excuse not to buy it.

That is all for the spoiler-free part of this "review" (I use that term loosely). After the jump, there will be a few thoughts on what is really happening in Home's story as well as the ending I received.

I stopped being worried about anything attacking me once I began to suspect that my character killed his girlfriend/wife/object of his obsession in a fit of jealous rage. If I am the killer in this game, what is there to be afraid of? (Besides those green eyes watching me in the woods.) I assumed his headaches were what occurred between blackouts, like the ones Edward Norton pretended to have in Primal Fear.