izigame.me

TL;DR: If you're a fan of Welcome to Night Vale, Gravity Falls, Do Not Feed the Monkeys, Harvester, Not for Broadcast, Papers Please, or any obscure, horror, indie sort of vibes, this game is well worth the grab. This might be niche, but if you know those fantasy books back in the day that had character sheets, enemy sheets, and a map? If you dig that, you'll dig this. It's very Scooby-Doo. Lots of story-telling, reading, imagery and audio snippets. Imagine a really effed up version of Pokemon, GBA style. "Oh a new Pokemon!" *horrific manmade sound* "It's awful. I love it."
For the sake of this games success I just want to throw a good review into the void.
No, it's not scary-horror like some other reviewers have pointed out. Don't walk in expecting to leave shakin' in your boots. This is a horror game in the sense of monsters, unusual scam calls, and being a new hire in a shady, very mysterious business. This isn't a game where the dev holds a flashlight under his face near a cozy campfire. This is a cool but sticky summer night with the windows open, hearing sticks snapping outside the window placed uncomfortably behind you with nothing but a blinking red analog clock to illuminate your dark room. For horror fans, it feels nostalgic.
Home Safety Hotline is about a call center that handles mysteries ranging from rats in your walls, termites, and clogged pipes. "It kind of sounds like eek-eek-eek?!" The caller will say (and yes, there is great voice acting), and you'll have to listen to audio samples on each page to match it. Sometimes it's a vague description, "there's coffee grinds mysteriously appearing in my kitchen!" the caller states, and you'll have a glorious "aha!" moment as you flip through the pages and find one snippet that matches what the caller is saying. Then right when you're getting comfortable, the next call could be a magical--sometimes deadly--creature that's tormenting the caller. Don't worry though, it's not timed, and you can take as long as you need.
You are not a valued employee. In fact, you've been thrown into someone elses' workflow and you start from what seems to be the middle of a story that gradually uncovers. Callers who were told wrong answers by your ex-employee now need the correct answers. They will gripe at you like it's your fault the previous employee told them wrong, just like real life! Guess right this time, or else your caller will suffer the consequences of your negligence, and you too will be fired! (AKA, you get a pop-up that says "you oopsie-poopsied one too many times, you're fired!" and your day just resets. Thank you game dev for not forcing us to start from the beginning every time.)
For $15 (or less!) you get a plethora of creatures to unlock and learn. I personally had such a great time leveling up my "trust" with the company and unlocking more monsters every day. In my first play through of the game I vividly remember upon my first failed day complaining, "I won't remember ALL of these pages, this game is impossible" and I'm now on my 5th play through eating my words. This skyrocketed to my top 5 games of all time. As a writer myself, I genuinely am floored by the creativity and uniqueness that the dev put into each and every creature. The dev could write novels on the world building done in this game.
Don't mistake that for replayability though. It does not change and at this time there's no alternative modes aside from story mode. There are some secrets where you can give callers a wrong answer and suffer consequences without your game ending, but aside from that, it's pretty linear. You kind of wish for more, but at the same time it feels like a perfectly balanced meal. Not too full, not too empty, just perfect. Buuut, if the dev walked in with dessert... I wouldn't turn it down.
There's not many more ways I can say it. It's just such a fantastic and unique game that scratched that itch for the perfect balance of immersion, horror and comedy. For $15 you absolutely get your moneys worth and I eagerly await to see what this dev has planned next!