Home is Where One Starts... PC

Home is Where One Starts… is a short, first-person exploration game for PC, which presents a sort of poetic visual story with such themes as childhood, memories, and hope. Basically one man, David Wehle, developed the game. His wife narrates the whole thing and members of his closest family were a makeshift quality assurance departament.

Plot

The title of the game, Home is Where One Starts… comes from the poem Four Quartets by Thomas S. Eliot, but David Wehle’s project also has clear inspirations taken from East of Eden by John Steinbeck and The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick.

The game in question tells a story of a teenage girl, who leaves her home for school early in the morning, but misses her bus. This somewhat unfortunate event turns into an opportunity for the girl to have a lonely walk, during which she explores her neighborhood, including an old trailer turned house, and finds many objects and places that evoke her childhood memories.

Mechanics

Gameplay mechanics in Home is Where One Starts… belongs to the genre of exploration games, whose most notable representatives are Dear Esther or Gone Home. Unlike classic adventure games, this one is not so much about story or puzzle solving, as it is about atmosphere. At the foundation of gameplay lies exploration of in-game environments and discovering new places and objects, which trigger comments from the protagonist, thus gradually revealing her story and emotions. The game can be completed in a short, half-an-hour-long session, but since it is non-linear, how much you learn about the girl’s life depends only on your diligence and inquisitiveness.

Technical aspects

For a game this short, Home is Where One Starts… {PC} notably has good audiovisuals full of meaningful details, featuring environments inspired by typical of the South of the United States. The game is presented in the first-person view and offers support to Oculus Rift VR headset, which increases the feeling of immersion within the game’s world and story.

Last updated on 12 July 2016