These students may not live in the best area or in the best flat, but they get by with the support of their friends who visit for regular barbecues. In fact, the game is very much rooted in urban British life with its various references to gentrified London and a certain emo, bohemian lifestyle. Story vignettes are shown in an isometric view as you play as both characters, manoeuvring them around the diorama-like environments of their London home. What jobs will they move to? Where will they live? Will they maintain their friendships? And, being non-binary folk, will the world accept them for who they are? The game explores all the existential crises that come with this time of life. They’re preparing for the imminent change in their lives, not least because Ao is soon to move back to their family in Japan. But No Longer Home taps into a particular time: leaving university.Īo and Bo are both non-binary and finishing their final year of art degrees at university in London. With beautiful designs, excellent characters, and a great soundtrack, No Longer Home is well worth picking up.Moving house is an event most of us will do in our lives. Of course, every player will take something different away from their experience playing, but it is an experience that I highly recommend. No Longer Home is an authentic and often unsettling story about the process of moving out and moving on. Again, I wouldn’t call any of the music in the game groundbreaking, but it perfectly fits with the rest of the narrative and design choices. I found that the music constantly added to the feelings of anxiety and eeriness but also helped make the normal interactions feel so much more, well, normal. Music almost always makes or breaks a game for me, which is why the soundtrack for No Longer Home was so important to me. That’s mostly just me being greedy, though what we get is still incredibly well made.Īs always, it wouldn’t be a review from me if it didn’t include commentary on the music. ![]() If anything, my only complaint here would be that I wish each location had a bit more to explore in them. The way the rooms change when you rotate them is also a fascinating design choice to watch in action. The way colors and lighting are used is perfect, and each location feels incredibly unique. Each character feels distinct, even if all of the people are faceless except for noses and the occasional bits of facial hair. It is a style we tend to see often in games of this genre, but it also just seems to always work. Speaking of how things look, the low poly art style in No Longer Home is absolutely perfect. Lu also basically just lies around and chills the combination of strange looks and lazy vibes really feels like they created a perfect character to represent me, which is why I absolutely love Lu. One of those supernatural elements is Lu, who looks like something out of a classic Jim Henson movie if Jim Henson was on LSD when he created it. There are supernatural elements mixed in throughout that manage to make the story more intriguing without ever feeling too extreme. No Longer Home would probably feel pretty boring if it was purely just a college life simulator, though. Those familiar feelings help make the story really impactful personally, and the way it is all packaged helps. There is also a constant eeriness and anxiety that was difficult to deal with at times, but the pacing made it very manageable. I felt some of my own personal struggles were being identified and handled throughout the game, which for some can be painful to have to relive mentally. It feels like you are in the room with real people facing real problems, which at times can be a little unsettling with how familiar it will feel for many players. The biggest thing to note about the story and the world it takes place in is that it manages to feel incredibly authentic. You can rotate the camera around to view things from a different perspective as well as interact with many of the items in the different locations. ![]() The game is a point-and-click narrative game, so you should expect going in to simply be pointing and clicking your way through the story as the lives of Bo and Ao unravel before your eyes. The setting perfectly captures what college-aged living is like, with the mess and clutter that felt extremely nostalgic for me. ![]() They are both preparing to move out after graduating from University and are struggling “to find work and meaning in post-education life,” as Humble Grove puts it. No Longer Home follows two non-binary roommates named Bo and Ao, who share a flat in London. No Longer Home is a semi-autobiographical narrative point-and-click adventure game that feels and looks extremely similar to other recent games in the genre. ![]() Invoking memories of Kentucky Route Zero, Humble Grove‘s No Longer Home is an incredibly fascinating story all about the process of letting go of the past and moving on.
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