GameLight Review - Home

Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/215670/
Source: Youtube Channel Benjamin Rivers

Developer: Benjamin Rivers
Publisher: Benjamin Rivers
Platforms: PC
Release Date: Jun 1, 2012
Genre: Adventure

Pros:
+ Atmospheric and eerie
+ Different decisions affect the outcome of the story

Cons:
- Granted that it's an adventure game, the gameplay mechanics were boring
- Contradicting events happen throughout the game
- The writing is so typical of mystery stories that it's almost cliché
- Text runs slowly and freezes up when trying to skip through it
- Saving work oddly where checkpoints are far apart from each other
- It doesn't matter which ending is given, they're all unsatisfying

Recommended: Maybe, it was $1.01 when I got it and a lot of other players enjoyed the game.  I personally didn't like it.

Home is a mystery-Adventure and has been called a horror game but isn't one.  The game is all Adventure, meaning there's not killing, dying, enemies, or complicated game mechanics.  There's investigating objects and making decisions.  How the game works is that the decisions that the player makes will affect the ending of the game.  Home is able to create an eerie and dark environment, even with all its pixel-like graphics with the help of environmental audio.  But beyond that, I was mostly bored with the game and was mainly concerned about having all the questions in the game answered.  When I did get some answers at the end, they were ambiguous and unsatisfying.  There can be many conclusions drawn at the end depending on what the player did throughout the playthrough.  I didn't feel compelled to play the game over again as I knew the other endings would make me feel any better about the game (I looked up the other possible endings).

Aesthetics
Art Style: Classic 8-bit Pixel based graphics
+ Atmospheric and eerie
+ Effective soundscapes that really sets the mood
+ Though not truly a horror game, the game can be quite spooky
+ Nice looking backdrops

- Some rooms look too similar making it easier to get lost
- Lots of lost opportunity to be a bit more dramatic and surprising
- The retro-style look is interesting, but it loses its novelty very quickly
Aesthetics: 6/10

Buttons
Controller: Keyboard only
+ Though somewhat slow, Simple and straight-forward controls

- Reading through texts are a pain: slow and freezes up when skipping
- Why wasn't the game a point-n-click like most adventure games?
Buttons: 4/10

Concept & Content
Core Concept: Keep moving forward through the story and make decisions
+ It's interesting that the ending changes depending on what decisions you've made
+ The story can be interpreted in many different ways

- There are contradicting events that causes the story to make no sense
- The story isn't too far off from your typical mystery novel
- Erratic text boxes breaks the flow of the game quite often
- Throughout the game, it's one question after another without a good climax
- Puzzles are more tedious than stimulating
Concept & Content: 2/10

Duration
+ The game is fairly short, any long and I'd have given up
+ The game felt slow, but at least it was consistent

- The whole mystery was intriguing, but the ending ruined it all
- Trekking through all the rooms, buildings, and field was long and boring
- Text boxes scrolled too slowly and skipping them made the screen freeze
Duration: 4/10

Fun
+ It was pretty exciting in the beginning not knowing what to expect
+ Interesting that little decisions changed the outcome of the story

- The story just got more and more boring until it got to a very dissatisfying ending
- Puzzles sent me back and forth places quite often with no real challenge
- Texts boxes drove me nuts as I tried to speed it up only to have it freeze up
- I can see this game being a lot more effective in a 3D environment
Fun: 3/10

Overall
I didn't like the game.  It got me really excited in the beginning, but the story quickly reveals itself from the very beginning to be very shallow if not ambiguous.  The game mechanics weren't fun, the story was weak, but at the very least the atmosphere was interesting.  Still, I think the game would be a lot better as a First-Person 3D adventure, or 3rd-Person 3D adventure with much better direction in story telling.  There were so many times throughout the game where events could've been so much more emphasized and made memorable.  I wouldn't recommend any of my friends to play it, but it seems that this game was enjoyed by many.  I don't plan on playing it again any time soon.  Overall: 3.8/10