Let's go home.
GOHOME is a third-person horror game initially released in 2019. Set in a residential area in early 2000s Japan, you play as a little girl with a blurred out face named Mosaiko Suzuki, who's been separated from her parents and is trying to get home. Unfortunately for her, death is merely seconds away at any given moment, as strange monsters pop out of every nook and cranny, and seemingly every turn leads to danger.
The game is notable for its surreal presentation, disturbing yet darkly comedic visuals, and, aside from the brief description above, its nearly incomprehensible plot. It was created by Vtuber Itimatu Ichimatsu, a self described Kotobuki doll, whose channel can be seen here.
Note; the channel is primarily in Japanese.
The game was released on Steam in 2020, and can be bought here.
As of December 25, 2020, the game was given an update that fixes bugs and adds a little bit more content to the game, although its unusual story hardly changes at all.
Due to the game's short nature, ALL SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED. You have been warned!
GOHOME provides examples of:
- Action Survivor: The player character. For being a defenseless little girl, she somehow manages to survive being chased and attacked by a variety of horrific creatures.
- All There in the Manual: All of the characters are given names on the creator's Twitter.
- Ambiguous Situation: Apparently, the goal of the game is simply to "go home". However, how exactly the player got lost, where her parents are, why she's being chased by spirits, and what precisely is going on is never outright stated. The TV in the girl's home states (in Japanese) that a 37 year old woman and a 55 year old man died in a car accident and a 7 year old girl, presumably the player character, is unconscious; the woman is implied to be her mother. However, the exact circumstances of the game remain unclear; is it the afterlife, a metaphor, or something else entirely? Of course, this is likely intentional.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: You occasionally switch between the original seven-year-old girl in the colorful kimono to an older girl with a simple white shirt and skirt. Technically, this is subverted, as they might be the same person.
- Animalistic Abomination:
- One of the enemies is a dog, except it has the face of the deformed girl that already chases you.
- The elephant man's elephant counts. It's shaped like a regular elephant, but has a bubbly texture, is neon green, pink and yellow, and certainly doesn't act like an elephant.
- Author Appeal: Itimatu Ichimatsu seems to enjoy early 2000s Japanese aesthetics combined with genuinely surreal and Uncanny Valley visuals. Seeing their Youtube channel demonstrates that nearly all of their animated videos carry GOHOME's aesthetic.
- Body Horror: So many examples:
- The main enemy is a woman who chases after you, while she has a head that's constantly bulging and swelling like it's gonna explode. Her eyes look like they're popped out of her head as well.
- The Piano Woman Kotobuki-san looks somewhat normal for the game at first, until her face melts and her body contorts backwards. She's also attached to her piano.
- Another enemy involves another woman made of bloody flesh that seems to be jump roping with an organ.
- The man riding the elephant has no head and is constantly gushing blood from his neck.
- Blatant Lies: The store page states that "There's no grotesque , so even kids can enjoy it [sic]." The enemies you can find are pretty grotesque, though this may be a case of certain terms being mistranslated.
- Creator Cameo: Two instances. The doll that Itimatu Ichimatsu represents themselves through can be seen on a shelf in the girl's home. The second instance is much more humorous, as she is found printed on the panties of the older girl seen at the end of the game.
- Dance Party Ending: After the game ends, this is what happens when the credits roll. No, really.
- Easy Level Trick: After you are first chased by the ghost girl, there is a certain area where you can go to where a griffin lifts you up and takes you to your home instantly. However, trying to do this when the town turns dark results in the griffin taking off, leaving you to get to the shrine by yourself.
- Everyone Chasing You: Depending on how you complete the return trip from the apartment to the playground, you can activate an Event Flag that causes every monster to chase after you at once.
- The Faceless: The girl we play as has a mosaic blur covering her facial features.
- Foreshadowing: In Mosaiko's house, there is a drawing of a woman with arrows running up her right arm and running down her left. In the climax, you must climb up the arms of the spirit and climb down to achieve the ending.
- Gainax Ending: More like Gainax Climax. As Mosaiko runs back to the shrine, she is suddenly teleported to a bridge. As she runs along, the bridge begins to fall down. She climbs up to the top of a stairwell, and suddenly is teleported to a new bridge, where she runs along. Then she must try and stay on a floating piano and fly through the empty faces of giant women, and then she climbs on the arms of the giant spirit who's been chasing her to escape the segment. It's not exactly clear what the heck is going on there.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Since the December 2020 update, running back to the playground after leaving the apartment will have you put in a boss battle with some octopus-like monster that will continually chase you until it starts crying, which is your opportunity to stab and kill it. Then things continue as usual.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: The end credits have Mosaiko having, for lack of a better word, a dance party with the enemies that had been chasing her throughout the game.
- Humanoid Abomination: Every enemy aside from the dog spirit is this.
- Japanese Spirit: While the enemies in the game are based off of the creator's dream, many of them are vaguely similar to creatures from Japanese folklore, at least in terms of aesthetic.
- Onryo: The strange woman with a swollen head is this, at least subconsciously; She has long, stringy black hair, pale skin, a terrifying face, odd way of walking, and tries to hunt you down.
- Mind Screw: Basically the game's modus operandi. There's no part of the game that can be explained while still looking sane, and virtually every aspect of it is up for interpretation. Special mention goes to the bridge level. Up to that point, while still incredibly strange, the game was still set in a small, early 2000's Japanese town. The bridge level outright teleports you to another dimension where you're surrounded by endless ocean, have to dodge jumping fish, climb up a staircase that's constantly collapsing, fly through the hollowed out heads of giant women on a floating piano, and so on.
- Mini-Game: Added in the December 2020 update, where you can play one in Mosaiko's room, which has the swollen-headed spirit be the playable character in some 2D platformer where you end off by killing a flying octopus, which is somehow a bit stranger than the main game.
- Mood Whiplash: All over the damn place. The enemies may be grotesque and frightening, and when they chase you it's rather nerve-racking, but the extremely loud music that plays while they do so, along with the sometimes funny way that they walk, can quickly make it darkly comedic. Some of the deaths (such as getting hit with a car or having a corpse fall on you out of nowhere) can be so abrupt that you can't help but laugh.
- Musical Gag: When the dog spirit chases you, a version of Csikós Post plays, but with dog barks instead of music.
- Proper Lady: Somewhat. The player wears a rather ornate kimono and traditional accessories. The Piano-woman also wears a very elegant dress and hat. Of course, this may only be an aesthetic trait for the latter, considering that her face melts and she tries to attack you. When the player grows up, she loses the finery and wears a simplistic white shirt and grey skirt.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: The songs that play when the monsters chase you are variations of Csikós Post, a song by Hermann Necke.
- Rule of Scary: You're being hunted down by a creepy ghost lady whose head is constantly swelling and very loud music plays whenever she gets too close. Why? For a game like this, that might be the least of your questions.
- Sensory Abuse: When you get chased by an enemy, their chase music blares through the speakers. Each monster's music is different- The swollen head woman has a surprisingly bombastic music, the dog demon has the same melody but with barks, the piano-woman has piano music, and the jump-roping flesh woman has her screaming wails and a "boing" sound effect. Also, when you die, the game over screen has this in the form of what sounds like edited screaming.
- Surreal Horror: Surreal barely covers it. The plot is somewhat up for interpretation, and the ways you can die are usually spontaneous and disturbing. The main creatures that try to kill you are a deformed woman with a constantly swelling head, a demonic dog creature, a strange woman in a fancy dress melted to a piano, a jump-roping woman made of flesh, and so on.
- Temporal Duplication: While time travel isn't explicitly referenced, approaching the apartment complex wherein the protagonist lives will suddenly kill the protagonist as another is jumping from the rooftop. If the body is looked at closely, it is shown to be the protagonist's adult self committing suicide. This event does not seem to occur if the game is completed, as the adult protagonist appears to move beyond their grief.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Death will come frequently and abruptly. Two standout examples are "Getting run over because you didn't wait for the traffic signal" and "Getting killed because another person committing suicide fell on top of you".
I just want to go home.
