Have you heard of analogue horror? For those unaware, it’s a style of horror that purposefully uses the look of VHS tapes and old technology to make a strong, haunting atmosphere. It’s been a huge thing online for a few years now, helped by the popularity of works like Local58 and Gemini Home Entertainment. It was only a matter of time before this style would wind up in games, and we have a game here directly inspired by those two series (as revealed in the art book you can unlock after finishing the game). Heck, there’s even a handful of YouTube-style analogue horror videos you can unlock in the game itself, where the Gemini Home Entertainment influence shines through incredibly strong.
Home Safety Hotline is a horror game played out via a faux desktop and call center program, as you play a hapless employee of a safety hotline taking calls and using a supplied encyclopedia to supply callers with information on a threat to their home. It’s a simple idea, and honestly not too fleshed out. Puzzles are pretty simple, and the game is fairly short once you understand what to do. There also isn’t a lot to gameplay, amounting to skimming through the encyclopedia program for answers, with the odd time where it glitches and you have to figure out the threat on memory in the later parts. Despite that, it manages to stick out from the crowd for it’s unique tone, eschewing a full on horror experience for a detached sort of deadpan comedy sown in alongside familiar spooky happenings.
This is in part due to the actual supernatural subject matter, which is a very unique choice for horror in general, and one I won’t spoil for you (though if you understand what you’re looking at in the game key art, you can probably make a strong guess). There’s an inherent dark humor to the scenario that grows thicker the more the game opens up, pushed further by the way the game frames your character as someone working at a hotline, with very limited ways to interact with people. This also makes the truly horrific parts stick out more, as you occasionally get the odd reminder of how serious the stakes are. The true weight of the horror really comes out in fail states, where callers will call back to complain, sometimes in a funny and hammy manner to jab at your failure – or to hear something truly horrible or bizarre as they meet a grim end.
It’s a short experience, but Home Safety Hotline is a really fun blend of audio design, clever artistic tricks, over the top acting, and genuinely effective scares that ends with a true ending best described as fitting and smile inducing. It both has a strong understanding of its genre influence, and brings something unique to the table, helped by the game’s creative lead’s unique past (including a role at a certain sketchy fantasy theme park). You may not be impressed with its gameplay, but its charming craft might just catch you off guard.
