Home Safety Hotline Review: A Job Worth Doing

What’s more horrifying than working as a customer service rep? Working as a customer service rep where you need to help callers deal with supernatural and potentially life-threatening creatures! In Home Safety Hotline, you are a new employee for the titled company (which we’ll refer to as HSH). It’s your job to make sure you help callers by giving them accurate advice, or risk unemployment. However, there’s more to the company than meets the eye in this intriguing analog horror…

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Is it a Hobb or a Mouse?

The gameplay loop of Home Safety Hotline is you taking calls and diagnosing what problem the caller might be facing in their home. Issues can range from your typical house mouse and frozen pipes to eerie creatures like Gobberts or False Artifacts, both of which can cause physical harm and/or emotional distress to the inhabitants.

To figure out what they’re dealing with, you must listen to the caller carefully, picking up on any vital information that might lead you to the truth. Small details like noises or the location in which these strange occurrences are happening are just some of the clues that’ll help you solve the mystery. With these clues, you’ll need to read through HSH’s large list of entries and see what matches the caller’s description.

Sudden cleanliness in your living room? Oh honey, that’s the work of a Common Hobb! Make sure you feed it milk or else… What’s that? Your bed has suddenly grown sharp teeth? That’s just Bed Teeth. Make sure you clean your sheets regularly and they’ll go away in no time!

Once you figure out the issue, you must submit your answer. If it’s correct, congrats! You’ve helped someone. If you submit an incorrect answer, you’ll receive a follow-up call where the customer will berate you and they continue to suffer whatever it is that’s ailing them…or in some cases, succumb to it.

As the days go by, the cases grow in severity and at times, become emotionally distressing. It’s with these rare calls you really get the best of the game’s voice acting (which was sometimes a hit-or-miss for me) as these people cry in agony begging for your help. I also found these calls the best, purely because they showcased the human struggle. These people are powerless to what’s haunting their home—a place that should be safe—and only you can help them.

I found the gameplay loop to be very fun and challenging at times, but not overly so. Your memory is tested throughout the game, as you won’t always have access to the entries so you need to report based off what you remember. However, the game gradually eases up to those moments as you’re allowed to read through the entries thoroughly while you have a customer on hold. So, it never felt you were ill-prepared for when the occasional network outage forced you to rely on memory.

There were a couple of issues I had with the gameplay though. Firstly, answering correctly didn’t feel gratifying. While doing good will net you a pointless coupon (which were funny, I’ll admit), I personally would have loved to hear some feedback from the callers about the advice they received, especially given how severe some of the cases were.

The other major issue I had was the lack of day selection. Let’s say you wanted to replay a certain day so you can see what happens if you answer a call incorrectly, you need to replay through the entire game to get to that specific day. For those seeking looking to replay the game in that regard, it is annoying you need to jump through a big hoop like that.

An Uneasy, Wacky World Filled with Scary Creatures and an Even Scarier Corporation

The game did a fantastic job at worldbuilding. Each entry is filled with intriguing lore about each creature. Some were creepy while a few were downright hilarious, like the entry for Wood Secretions where the HSH says that in order to avoid the issue, homeowners should refrain from yelling or insulting the wood in their home. It was strange entries like these that really fleshed out the world for me because it showed that there was a variety of phenomenons in the world, not just scary ones.

What unsettled me the most was the HSH itself. As the days progress, you get a sense that they may have an influence outside of your computer. You’ll get the occasional call from a concerned client about feeling uneasy or unwell, yet the police or doctors refuse to help them, referring them to the HSH for help instead.

Concerns only grow as more entries unlock and you see how devoid they are of any humanity. Some solutions ask for the homeowner to move, or to drop their problem onto somebody else instead of the HSH going in and solving the problem. Although the game may feature supernatural elements, this scenario isn’t too far from reality itself where companies prioritize themselves over the well-beings of their customers.

Accessibility Options, Rejoice!

While Home Safety Hotline aims to scare and make players feel uncomfortable, it doesn’t want to cross a line with them. The game has a phobia toggle menu, where it will disable any in-game photos that may trigger a player’s phobia.

The list is vast as it includes: Arachnophobia, Claustrophobia, Cynophobia, Entomophobia, Nyctophobia, Scopophobia, and Trypophobia. While I’m don’t personally have phobias, I know many people who do and the fact the game covers a lot of ground is fantastic and could mean a lot to someone who wants to enjoy a horror game without having to worry about their phobias.

In addition to the phobia toggles, Home Safety Hotline has your general accessibility options like changeable font size, toggle for Dyslexia font, and turning off the CRT filter.

The Verdict: Hire HSH For a Satisfying Customer Experience!

While Home Safety Hotline does fumble with its gameplay somewhat, the journey from beginning to end is intriguing and fun. This accessible analog horror has an addicting gameplay loop that never gets tedious, excellent worldbuilding and writing, and a great atmosphere. Fans who love analog or supernatural horror should definitely pick up this game.

Good

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