"The little girl's mother went out to work.
Leaving her alone at home.
In an empty and quiet home,
What interesting things are we going to do?"
Leaving her alone at home.
In an empty and quiet home,
What interesting things are we going to do?"
—Description on the official Steam page
At Home Alone is a deceptively cute Psychological Horror game, developed by SkyLineGames and published by 0Cube. You play as an unnamed little girl whose mother has left her alone at home to go to work. During the day, several visitors ring the doorbell- a red-headed boy named Kangtai, a blue-haired man, and a blonde girl with a dog. The girl decides to play with them and have a fun time.
But things go south when Kangtai goes missing, so the girl ends up having to look for him. And what seems to be a missing child case turns out to be far more complicated and sinister than what it seems.
The game is available on Steam
for free.
At Home Alone provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: It's very difficult to determine what exactly is going on in this game. The surface plot of a girl being home alone and inviting strangers into the house to play with her is obviously meant to be a cover for something much more sinister, but just what that is is largely up to interpretation.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Once you have gotten one ending and started a new play through, you are asked by the game if you want to skip any scenes that you've already seen in the next playthrough so you don't have to go through them again and can instead jump right to the new scenes.
- Apocalyptic Log: The protagonist's diary takes note of a strange red-haired man who has been watching her house for some time. The last entry on July 12th says that the man has seen the protagonist and how much she wishes her mother would come home soon. The news article about a girl's death during a burglary states that the killing took place on July 13th, implying that the diary details the protagonist's last days before the burglar came into the house and murdered her.
- Big Bad: The Birdman is the entity responsible for abducting Kangtai and keeping the protagonist and the others trapped in an endless loop so he can consume their souls.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: Eventually, you will find yourself in the position that you have to sacrifice Kangtai to the Birdman by getting him to hang himself, despite every indication that this is clearly not a good thing, in order to progress with the plot. Much later on, you have to do the same with Mr. Fox.
- Deal with the Devil: The demonic Birdman is shown to make these with at least two characters, if not more.
- One deal with him sets off the entire plot. The protagonist Persia, having been killed by the burglar Kangtai, wants nothing more than to see her mother again. The Birdman promises to revive Persia so she can see her mother again- if Persia performs an elaborate and symbolic ritual to essentially give him her soul as well as Kangtai's, which she does. As a result of this deal, Persia is trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop while her soul slumbers in his grasp, and the Birdman becomes quite displeased if she tries to defy the deal.
- In the blonde girl's story, the Birdman does this again with Mr. Cat- after having engineered his death, he demands Cat sacrifice Mr. Fox to him in exchange for giving him his doll back.
- Death of a Child:
- The newspaper article pinned to the house's garden wall talks about the murder of a little girl during a burglary.
- In almost all of the game's endings, Kangtai is attacked by an unseen person and seemingly commits suicide by jumping off the balcony to get away from them.
- Food as Bribe: Kangtai doesn't want to play with the protagonist at first, but changes his mind when she offers him a piece of cake.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Every time Kangtai dies, the day rewinds with no one remembering what has happened. This is because everyone is stuck in a purgatory by the Birdman. The only way to break the loop and escape is for Persia to successfully get Kangtai to hang himself, allowing the Birdman to take his soul.
- Guide Dang It!: The game does very little to explain the mechanics apart from basic controls and offers no advice whatsoever in the way of unlocking paths or finding secrets. If you want at least a little more clarity, you'll have to experiment.
- Gainax Ending: One of the endings has the protagonist hunt down and repeatedly shoot Kangtai with a gun. In his last living moments, Kangtai begs for his mom to come save him, but the letters are no longer in his usual red but in the pink of the protagonist. After Kangtai falls from the balcony yet again, the protagonist retreats back into the house. The camera slowly pans down to show - the protagonist's corpse lying where Kangtai's should be.
- Translation Train Wreck: The game's English translation is atrocious, containing multiple grammar and spelling errors and often cramming words together that should be spaced apart. It can make understanding what's going on in an already pretty confusing game a lot harder.
- Wham Line:
- "The extra key is missing. You get a gun." note
- The last entry in the protagonist's diary, written on July 12th, has her express fear over the red-haired man that has been watching her house the past few days. The burglary in the newspaper article that took the life of a young girl took place on July 13th. Additionally, this heavily implies that Kangtai, the red-haired boy is really a representation of the burglar.
