The game’s title art
This is the first time I post about “this kind” of completion; namely, one I will take credit for even though it’s not as accurate as the other games in the Completed pages.
What I mean by this is this was a team effort; my friends and I often (bit of an exaggeration, I wish it was more often) get together to play horror games. We’ve played a bunch already, some good some bad, and we keep going. Sometimes we take turns playing, sometimes it’s only one of us streaming to the others, which is why I mentionned saying I completed this game isn’t as accurate. But whatever, I will take credit nonetheless.
The game’s stalky monster
Homebody is a fixed camera adventure horror game developed by the Game Grumps it seems, not that I care about that. I didn’t even know they made games? Arin Hanson was listed as producer. Anyway.
It is set within a time loop, of which your character is aware of but unable to tell others about. Within the time loop you are with your friends in what is basically an Airbnb’d mansion. There’s a lot more than it seems going on in this mansion, of course, and a shitload of puzzles to solve. However, at certain hours of the night, a monster will appear and start killing everyone. You can avoid it repeatedly, of course, but eventually it or something else is bound to kill you. Certain parts of the house also change as time goes on.
Playing video games on the floor of the living room, as god intended
The loop also starts changing certain things permanently as you go along. Every time you reach a milestone in terms of completed tasks or puzzles, the loop changes a bit. Also, reaching milestones means that upon death you will see some flashbacks to get some backstory on your fucked up situation with your friends and your own mental health. However, it is at some point apparent these aren’t specifically just flashbacks; things start changing in them and you have some very limited amount of agency.
Sometimes these flashback sequences go on for a very long time, until they end and you unceremoniously end up back in the time loop. In the looping mansion are a lot of puzzles and some of them get a bit confusing, especially when you’re tired. They did not hold back on the puzzles, which I found to be impressive even if it caused brain pain.
This looks strange but I assure you it’s important
I think there is definitely something here, even if the horror aspect of the game slowly dries out as it makes way for existential dread and mental health issues. The writing between the characters is sometimes very strange, sometimes sloppy, with dialogues that can make you cringe a bit in a Life is Strange way and sentences that are very hard to follow.
It is a very strange game, but it was a nice enough time overall. As a side note, it is one of those games where if you’re pre-emptively aware of the Final Solution, you can skip the entire experience and complete it in 15 minutes. The only thing gating the endgame is a puzzle whose solution you only get very, very late in the game, but which does not change. Funnily enough it is a puzzle whose solution could theoretically be randomized, forcing you to go through the entire thing each time.