on the itch.io website.Your uncle Howard has come to visit. But something isn't right. Can you keep up a conversation at dinner and save your family before it's too late?
Something Strange About Uncle Howard contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: The father and mother become more and more verbally abusive toward each other, you and sister the stronger Howard's influence gets.
- Affably Evil: As creepy as Howard is, he never actively does anything to harm the family, with it being implied that their own refusal to address their problems is what does them in in the end. He doesn't try to stop the protagonist from fixing the family's issues either and just wordlessly disappears once you manage to save all of them.
- The Alcoholic: Father is one and denies that it's a problem, leading to most of the family's other issues. If you manage to save mother and sister, the three of you will finally confront him about this, leading to him breaking down in tears and promising to do better.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not exactly clear if Howard is really there and if the supernatural events that follow his arrival (the house getting more and more freaky and eldritch, the family disappearing) are actually happening, or if the protagonist is suffering a mental breakdown due to the stress of living with a seriously Dysfunctional Family who refuses to talk about their problems. The fact that none of the family members except you ever address or acknowledge Howard and that Howard just disappears if you break the family's stubborn silence doesn't help.
- Anti-Climax: If you manage to save your family by successfully talking out all of their personal problems with them, Howard just... disappears, with no sign he was ever there in the first place.
- Blatant Lies: Howard is very obviously not your uncle. In fact, he's not even human.
- Creepy Long Fingers: Howard's fingers are disturbingly long, crooked and bony. Not made better by the game's animation that has them constantly twitch and curl like snakes.
- Dwindling Party: Over the course of dinner, each one of your family members starts to disappear one by one until it's only you and uncle Howard. You can only prevent this by addressing their issues and force them to talk them out.
- Dysfunctional Family: It's obvious right off the bat that the family has a lot of unresolved issues that they refuse to really address. It's also heavily implied that them being so dysfunctional is what attracted Howard in the first place.
- Evil Uncle: "Howard", the creepy guy who shows up during you and your family's dinner time. Downplayed, as it's very obvious he is not actually related to anyone there.
- Featureless Protagonist: The game is played from the point of view of your character, leaving no hint as to what he looks like. The most we can deduce is that he is male, due to his parents sometimes addressing him as "boy".
- Golden Ending: When everyone in your family survives, and Howard just vanishes without a single trace.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: If all of your family members fall victim to Howard, he muses how many times you'll be willing to do this, implying that this is not the first (or the last) time the events in the game take place.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is Howard actually an Eldritch Abomination feeding off the family's misery or is he a Mental Monster that the protagonist dreamed up to deal with his family's growing dysfunction? Do the family members really disappear one by one or is it all part of the protagonist's stress-fueled delusion?
- Mental Monster: A possible explanation for Howard. He is the embodiment of the ugly truth the family refuses to deal with and gets stronger the more they pretend he doesn't exist. From the protagonist's point of view, "Howard" is slowly killing his family until he's all alone. The only way to defeat him is to finally speak up about the various issues the family has, breaking his hold over them.
- Must Be Invited: Howard implies this at the start of the game, telling you how excited he is that the family finally "let [him] in".
- Never My Fault: Discussed by Howard. He muses on the old saying that those who can't do teach and how people tend to blame others for their personal failings, such as parents in a failing marriage who tend to project their frustrations with themselves onto their children.
- No Name Given: Except for Howard, none of the characters have names, instead just going by "mother", "father" and "sister", while the player character is only referred to as "you" or "boy".
- Slasher Smile: Howard sports a terrifying grin that shows his jagged row of teeth and makes him look all the more inhuman.
- Surreal Horror: The game is about a strange entity who claims to be your uncle joining your family for dinner. The more tense the atmosphere gets, the more twisted and creepy the surroundings become and the family members disappear one by one as they sling verbal abuse at each other and refuse to talk about the issues bubbling underneath the surface.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: No one at the dinner table barring you seems to mind or even really take notice of the obviously supernatural Howard and/or his strange demeanor. Or that with every lightning flash, someone at the table disappears.
- Vague Age: It's not clear how old the protagonist is. His parents call him "boy" which would suggest that he's a child or at least young, but his vocabulary is rather advanced, hinting towards him being older or maybe even a young adult.
