No Longer Home Preview

No Longer Home is a point-and-click game that follows the narrative of two university graduates. As someone who is a complete sucker for any narrative-led title, I was keen to try this one out during the Steam Next Fest.

The demo that was available contained a short prologue to the game, called Friary Road, followed by the first chapter of the full release. Whilst No Longer Home is expected to release at some point in 2021, there is no specific date as of yet, so I went in reminding myself not to get *too* attached. 

The Friary Road prologue focuses on a conversation between Ao and Bo sitting on two chairs as we casually eavesdrop on them from behind. The content of the talk revolves around what they are going to do next, now that they have graduated, meandering off into meaningful topics about gender, expectations and even other planets. It serves as a great way to get to know the characters and what drives them, allowing the player to choose between different conversational paths, which do in fact provide more context if you choose differently on consecutive playthroughs. 

The really clever part I think though, is the balance between who is talking. In most games of this genre, you would expect a linear back and forth between one character and the other, each one faithfully taking their turn after the other. No Longer Home however, gives you the opportunity to choose who speaks next - even if you have just spoken. It feels so much more natural, meaning you can let one character just ramble on and on for a while, carrying the conversational weight, or you can stick to the standard turn-taking approach, if that’s what you feel works best. It’s not something I’ve seen before but I would certainly love to see more of it in games moving forward. The only issue I did find was that with the similar names, I would sometimes get lost in terms of which character was actually speaking.

The scenery around Ao and Bo glides in and out around them, like they are floating in space, with theatrical staging holding in place for a moment before drifting off again. It’s a really pretty way of changing the environment and showing the passage of time, whilst allowing the player to focus on the conversation without having to interrupt it with character movement or black screen scene changes. The simple graphical style (reminds me a lot of Untitled Goose Game) definitely lends itself to this sort of feature, without distracting your attention away from what really matters. 

On to the first chapter of No Longer Home and we are introduced into the temporary abode of Ao and Bo, some time after the events of Friary Road. There is some scene-setting dialogue and then we are free to roam the flat as Bo. The camera is locked into one angle and you are able to click to travel around the room and interact with different objects or people. You can leave the room and continue to explore the small house but are purposefully funneled into a room where you discover something unusual. 

A mass of...something, hovers above the bed and interacting with it changes your perspective, literally. The ability to rotate the camera 90 degrees at a time is unlocked, and with it the chance to see things that you were unable to view before. Doors you never knew were there become accessible, and items on shelves you couldn’t see are new things to interact with. Also there are cats, so at this point the promise I made to myself to not get attached is thoroughly out the door. It’s a unique way of opening out a small location to something more expansive, without actually *changing* the location and without just overwhelming the player by dropping it all in your lap from the get go. 

There isn’t much more to the demo here and I don’t want to spoil any of it for you, but it would be a crime for me to not mention the excellent audio quality of No Longer Home. At the beginning, it is suggested that you do wear headphones for the best possible experience, and this truly is the case. The sound is mixed exceptionally well and has an ethereal, prog-rock quality to it that is just delightful to hear. 

Despite my efforts to not get attached, I definitely am. I’ll be on the lookout for a (hopefully very soon) release date.