Less game, more experience.

Allowed me to reflect upon a time in my life, early 20s, when my problems seemed monumental and life seemed scary. But through my current lens of a settled 3X year old it makes me realise that I was living in a bubble and things weren't so bad or so scary. The reminder served to make me more grateful for what I currently have and where I am now at this point in my life.

As a game, 1 star
As an experience that makes you grateful for life, I suppose it'd have to be 5 stars.

Welp, this was a sad one; I'd describe it as "the saddest game Ive ever played in which nobody dies". In all honesty, no events of note happen in this game. The entire thing takes place over a few hours in the lives of a couple of students who are set to move out of their house in a few weeks time. Some friends come over, and then they go to bed. That's it. And yet the artistry, atmospheric music and especially the writing make this one of the most emotional experiences I've had from a game.

This is also clearly a deeply personal game to the developers; the two lead devs have openly based the main characters on themselves. And I think this approach is a bit of a double-edged sword. Basing this game so closely on the devs' lived experience definitely helped make this game feel more real and hit home harder. But at the same time it can feel a little indulgent and overly specific, and can feel a bit less relatable as a result. The dialogue ocasionally goes off on little tangents about the characters' politics or beliefs, or comments on their pasts and struggles that aren't relevant to this era of their lives. These things are all perfectly valid and interesting points of discussion, sure, but they don't always fit in here and just make the messaging a bit unfocused.

Other than that, I'd say my main point against this would be its pacing. No Longer Home is just barely more than a Visual Novel, and I already find that genre to be excruciatingly slow-paced... but NLH also loves to take long forced pauses after each speech or interaction, with long pans or slow zooms which are supposed to provoke thought. But I just found them to be frustrating slow-downs in what was already going to be a very slowly paced experience, and it became quite frustrating at times.

But the more I played, the more it drew me in and I started ignoring these little annoyances. Like I said, this really is a very emotional experience. It's well-written and hauntingly relatable, and I would say its worth a play through.

No Longer Home is a simple game about letting go of the life you've built due to circumstances beyond your control. You get a close look at the lives of Bo and Ao and you learn about their dreams, frustrations and fears. This is an Interactive Story, point-and-click, where you wander through the home shared by the main protagonists and their flatmates.

No Longer Home is fine for what it is, but feels like it could have been so much more. The writing is really well done and the characters feel real and well thought out, and the game really hits that "life in your early 20s" vibe that's a crossroads of frustration and uncertainty, but at most times it feels like its dragging on in conversations that are not interesting and not contributing to the story at all.

Overall, I did really find the characters and storyline interesting. I genuinely wanted to know more about them and where their story would lead. You know, how the situation between them would change or if it would stay the same, how would the characters evolve and improve themselves, but then the game was over, without any further progress on the story or characters. No finalization of anything. I also find it sad that all those metaphorical symbolisms remained unexplained and vague.

In the end, No Longer Home is a decent story based interactive game with LGBTQ+ main characters and relatable story, but it falls short with the storytelling and the story progression finding it's end. I would recommend the game, if you find it on a really good sale, but at full price, the game is not worth it, therefore I will not recommend this game. I wish there was a neutral option for steam, but sadly no.