You may be as Sony just revealed that a port of 2012’s indie horror game, Home, is currently in development and is targeting a release on both PS4 and Vita later “this year.” While no solid release date has been announced Home’s developer, Benjamin Rivers, has made a post on the official PlayStation Blog indicating that the “tinkering” stage is currently underway.
At this point you may be asking yourself, “What is Home?” and it’s here where I’ll try to explain some of the game’s indie quirks that were responsible for landing the game on the map.
Home distinguishes itself as a purposefully pixelated side-scrolling adventure game where players begin with as much information as the game’s amnesia-stricken protagonist – having just woken up in an unfamiliar location, and with no recollection as to the how’s and why’s of their situation. The solution to this mystery is very simple; explore your surroundings and attempt to piece together the events that have led up to you finding yourself in your current state.
It sounds simple enough but there’s a catch – it’s short, and can be completed in as little as an hour. This certainly justifies a relatively cheap price point of three dollars ($2.99 on both Steam and Apple’s App Store) but offers countless opportunities for replay due to the number of plot threads and items one can seemingly connect or simply overlook.
In CGM’s review of Home, Brittany Vincent best summarizes her experience with this title when she writes, “Home takes some interesting risks and succeeds on a level most other games haven’t in some time. It creates a thrilling choose-your-own-adventure game/interactive visual novel that relies much on different ways to invoke a reaction.”
Vincent continues to say, “the unsettling atmosphere accompanied by nerve-wracking music work hand-in-hand together to weave a horrifying interactive graphic novel that you don’t realize is trying to grip you in its icy hands until one of Home‘s resolutions hits you.”
Given the success of other acclaimed indie titles such as Towerfall on the PSN, Home may very well find additional success upon its future release.
We can expect to see updates on Sony’s Blog regarding Home’s console and portable port as they become available.