Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Home - A Unique Horror Adventure Game Review

The Unnamed Protagonist of Home
Tampa -- Fl, Home -  A Unique Horror Adventure Game is a side-scroll by the mind of Benjamin Rivers is an adventure game with a mystery side that can keep the player hook up to the seat for the entire duration of the game. The best way to describe Home is with a retro vein styled 1980's graphic text adventure with a 2D perspective that gives and scary atmosphere to the game mythos where he unnamed protagonist tries to uncover the clues about his whereabouts and why he ended amnesiac in a mansion h has no clue who belongs to.

Waking up in the Middle of Nowhere
The Gameplay is quite easy to handle, as there are only two basic commands, the directional arrows and the space-bar (to take some yes/no decisions the player must use the Y and N keys.) to navigate through the scenario. The scenario offer a retro old school value as everything is pixelated even the sequences from first point view where the character explores his surroundings (see adjacent cap) the world is completely pixelated giving a Maniac Mansion or Super Mario air of kind of game.


There are skeletons and not in the closet

The story of the game is quite ambiguous and not necessarily goes into the unidirectional spectrum of story telling. The basic outline goes when our unnamed protagonist wakes up disoriented in the middle of a storm in the house that is not his only to find himself in what it seems to be the possible scene of a mass murder. The story has possible endings and the player has to explore different parts of the vast pixelated world in order to unveil all the clues regarded on the situation the protagonist finds himself into.

There are different theories about what really happening around online since the game don't offer any clues itself and the player is obligated to repeat the game in order to find different parts of the mystery from the very beginning but the game revolves around a man that seems to have a criminal history and in a fit of rage  mixed with alcohol and depression  after finding his wife Rachel possibly cheating with his best and only friend a man named Norman decide deliberately to kill them, albeit the game take possible outcomes depending on what clues the player finds regarding the blank spots on the man's past.

Graphics bring an amazing value to the game itself, is one of those kind of games aimed to an older generation but at the same time is aimed to anyone who enjoy retro-games or retro styled games due the nostalgia value as well to the focus on the story itself. Maybe with today gaming industry, the industry as focused on graphics and not essence, maybe the indie developers have taken what the mainstream had left.? The point where even there is an appeal on the graphics there is also an appeal on the beauty of gaming with mimics the same as writing and painting, or any form of art, telling a story. 

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