80) Home Safety Hotline (2024)

Inspired by his love of reading through the fictional bestiaries of Dungeons & Dragons, developer Nick Lives began work on Home Safety Hotline in 2020, going so far as to create a prototype that was later abandoned. After discovering the analog horror genre and inspired by Hypnospace Outlaw, Lives resumed working on the concept, deciding to lean into the 90's era media formats. Set in the year 1996, we play as someone who has been recruited to work at the titular Home Safety Hotline, a service which responds to calls concerning ordinary household hazards and offering safety instructions for their clients. The game takes place over the course of our character's first week on the job, and while things seem normal at first, they escalate rather quickly.

The game is played in much the same way as Hypnospace Outlaw, with everything being presented as a computer desktop circa the mid 90's. Each day begins with checking emails and logging into the companies system. We're greeted by our supervisor via a short audio recording that welcomes us to the team and will evaluate our performance. We have access to a directory detailing common household issues, such as mice, cockroaches, and carbon monoxide exposure, giving us a brief description of what each problem is, what signs to look for, ways to deal with said problems, and usually a photo or bit of audio used as examples. Each day consists of taking client calls in which they'll describe the signs and nature of their problem. From there, it's essentially an open book test as we find what best matches their problem and send them the information. There is no time limit, giving us ample time to check our answers.

While this sounds simple enough at the outset, things get incrementally harder with each call and each new day. Each day sees us gaining access to new entries in our database, with the problems shifting from the mundane to the more supernatural. In addition, the clients description of their problems become vague and oftentimes misleading, with details that are irrelevant or perceived incorrectly by the client. On top of that, we receive a few very odd calls meant only to be bizarre, as the caller hangs up before we can even try to research their issue. Finally, from time to time there will be technical issues that prevent us from accessing the database, meaning we have to try to memorize key details that can help us make the right call.

The game culminates in an odd closed book exam, truly testing our knowledge of the weird creatures and manifestations that we've spent the past week learning about. The game is relatively short, but the writing and audio visual design are top notch. Every image and audio recording is suitably chunky, lending to the 90's aesthetic nicely. I enjoyed my time with the game, but have trouble fully recommending it. It's barely a game, feeling more akin to mythological creature test that rarely feels as though it has any teeth. The implementation of a time limit or having multiple issues to solve simultaneously seem as though they'd be the natural evolution of the concept that, regrettably never comes. Still, it's a fun and well crafted experience that stands out by sheer novelty that I can only hope has a more fleshed out follow up some time in the future.