Press on, employee.

My friend Larry has been acting a little weird lately. He keeps standing in the corner staring at me, telling me we should play Home Safety Hotline in a voice that's not his, and there's this really horrible smell like rotten eggs that's been filling up my apartment. I don't know if it's related, but Larry - who has taken to crawling on the walls and ceiling - showed me the trailer and explained that it's created by Nick Lives, who previously worked on Hypno Space Outlaw. I was intrigued and then partook in a large feast of cornmeal that had been curiously laid out on the dining room table, as the voices in the walls demanded.

Home Safety Hotline sits the player down with a bestiary of common home hazards ranging from bees to Boggarts, house flies to Dorcha, which the player must refer to in order to properly diagnose the problems of callers who are currently in various states of duress. True to the real-world experience of working in a call center, the loop of taking a call and finding a solution can be a bit rote, and much of the challenge is borne from callers providing inaccurate or conflicting pieces of information. On some level, it almost feels like a Loveline simulator. Lot of calls about kids getting eaten tonight... Must be a full moon.

Caller: It... It... It stole me...! It stole me!! I'm not me anymore, I'm... it took me! I can't see myself anymore, I'm gone! Help me!! Help me get b--

Adam: Alright, I'm putting her on hold. Sick of her already... Drew, how many times do we get calls like this and the answer is always carpenter ants?

Drew: All the time.

Adam: Helen? Get yourself some Raid, babydoll.

Those expecting the heavy puzzle solving and obtuseness of Hypno Space Outlaw might then be a little disappointed with how straight-forward Hotline is, but it's really more a vehicle for some very imaginative and entertaining writing, and the excitement of seeing new entries in the bestiary unlock during each subsequent shift dulls how samey most nights are on a mechanical level. You won't hack into a bunch of weird databases or decipher codes here, and Hotline's central mystery doesn't leave many unanswered questions by the end of its short 3-4 hour run, but that's fine. In fact, after biting into several incredibly long games over the last couple of months, it's preferable.

My only real complaint is that the game only leverages audio queues once, and calls rarely share the same answer, which trivializes the late game through a simple process of elimination. Otherwise, I am so into what the game is going for that it feels like targeted content. It's hard to dig into specifics without spoiling some of the more inventive entries or giving away the plot, but I do appreciate how ranged and varied a lot of Hotline's creatures are. You'll frequently diagnose problems caused by benign beings like toilet Hobbs, which enjoy cleaning your bathroom and can be placated by providing them a single egg at night. You'll also have to deal with more abstract and frightening entities like memory wisps, which essentially give their victims Alzheimer's. No cure for that, you have to let them run their course. What can you say other than "good times?"

Maybe I'm predisposed to whatever kind of weird horror Nick Lives is putting out into the world (Night Signal looks interesting and I'm way into the premise of Please Insert Disc), reviews on here appear more mixed, but I do think this is worth checking out if you want something short, simple, and backed by some really fun writing. I have to go now, the soil is calling me...