Do you feel like a helping of Edgar Allan Poe? Do you feel like experiencing a quiet, but complex storytelling? A creative developer demonstrates how much atmospheric force can be put into one pixel.
Home is a must play. Its brevity matches its ambition - it's a game everyone should play, if only to see what's possible with a creative vision and stringent commitment to atmosphere. It's not the scariest, the smartest or the most ambitious game you'll ever experience, but it's also one you're very unlikely to regret. [Issue#125, p.105]
Home's aesthetic minimalism blends with its quiet, creepy story to great effect, creating the kind of psychological horror that may not haunt your nightmares outright but will stick in your subconscious for months.
As a horror game, Home doesn't succeed fully, but the dark retro style is worth a compliment. Thanks to the fun design, potential freedom of choice but also the limited execution of it leaves players with an unsatisfied feeling.
If you think all good mysteries should offer their own solutions, Home may feel like hollow entertainment. But by allowing you room to interpret, Home keeps you intellectually engaged even when you aren't playing it, and that's a triumph worth celebrating.
If you're at all interested in the interactive fiction genre, knowing full well that there's not a whole lot of actual interaction, that's an eminently fair price.
SummaryHome is a unique horror adventure set in a beautifully - realized pixel world. It's a murder mystery with a twist - because you decide what ultimately happens.