Home Sweet Home is a first-person survival horror adventure game that now has also a VR version. A genre that has risen alongside 3D gaming, survival horror is nothing new and, in fact, has its origins in the NES era. Beginning with Capcom’s Sweet Home (1889), a title that would later inspire their game Biohazard/Resident Evil, survival horror has long had a place in home console gaming.
How to Download Home Sweet Home
You can download the full version of Home Sweet Home (the game was released on September 27, 2017) or its free demo from Steam. To start downloading hit the button which is located at the end of this review. And if you like horror game set in haunted houses be sure also to check out and download Rym Games’ The Conjuring House and Sad Square Studios’ Visage.
The Game Review
Much more likely to make an appearance on PCs than anywhere else, games with a horror element were regarded as mature fare back in the late 1980s and 1990s. Now they are so commonplace that it is almost quaint to consider them taboo or on the periphery.
And that’s what makes Yggdrazil Group’s Home Sweet Home such an interesting game.
Combining elements of survival horror, adventure, and puzzle solving games, what makes this title so unique is its awesome incorporation of these elements into a story based on Thai folklore.
Coming out of Valve’s Steam Greenlight program, the title is a planned series of games following general lore and aesthetic. It was initially developed in close coordination with gamers who played it through the demo program and a lot of the changes reflect their suggestions.
The Gameplay in Home Sweet Home
Playing as Tim, players find themselves transported from the real world into a dreamscape where they are being chased down by the ghost of a woman. Evading her and making your way out of this “other” world is the survival horror element of the game.
But there’s another catch: In the real world Tim’s wife has gone missing and he thinks he can find her in this dreamscape. Whether or not he does is up to you but you also can’t help but think there’s something else going on here as well.
Slightly reminiscent of Resident Evil 3’s chase mechanic, Home Sweet Home also has parts where you would think you were in a 1990s puzzler like Phantasmagoria or The 7th Guest. Unlike the RE titles, you won’t be fighting back. Tim’s only weapons are stealth and hiding from the trailing ghost is key to success.
If the ghost finds you, then it is game over. The game does a good job at pacing. The player isn’t always under the gun but when he is, it is intense. While there are some areas where you will have to escape from the revenant, there are other “safe” areas where exploration and discovery are the objectives. Here you won’t be attacked and don’t have to worry about the ghost. In this regard, Yggdrazil Group shows a mature method of storytelling that balances gameplay and contemplation.
The Bottom Line
Probably one of the most unique entries in the survival horror genre to come down the road in quite a while, the game is both intense and thrilling to play. Heavily atmospheric and very well crafted, Home Sweet Home relies upon a gamer’s own interaction with its world to offer up its scares and doesn’t force the issue in the slightest.
The result is like that of a Hollywood horror film with interactive elements that you can’t help but enjoy.
