Almost Home Now (PC) Review

 

Almost Home Now is a short Horror Game about a little girl walking home late at night on her own.

Let's start with the positives. I really liked the concept of the game. Walking home alone at night through an empty city and a dark forest is probably something everybody can relate to and the developers managed to create an intense atmosphere. The soundtrack is ominous and the visuals quite fitting. The city and park/forest areas look like something you could actually experience anywhere. The visual style is very reminiscent of PS1 and N64 games and in combination with the tank controls, immediately gives you some flashbacks to Silent Hill or Resident Evil. The Lore of the game is also probably quite realistic. The girl seeing mysterious things on her path, could easily be explained with her imagination playing tricks on her. Who hasn't seen threatening shadows or heard daunting sounds in a lonely forest? Even a Game Over could easily be explained with having a panic attack.

Unfortunately the game doesn't manage to live up to its potential. For one, the game is super short. You can easily beat it in less than 5 minutes. Almost Home Now is also not frightening enough. Despite the intense atmosphere there isn't anything actually really scary going on. Part of the reason for this is, that you can not interact with anything going on in the background. Essentially the game is just a Walking Simulator with closed boundaries. The walking speed of the protagonist is also definitely too slow. She walks like she is both the most calm person ever and at least 85 years old.

 

Result:

Almost Home Now could have been a really good Horror Game, if they had kept working on it. Extending the length to at least 10-15 minutes, implementing some alternative routes for the protagonist to take and letting her actually interact with some of the Horror elements, and we could have had a nice Horror Game. Despite that, the intriguing concept may be worth a look for some, but Almost Home Now remains a game of wasted potential.

 

5/10