Home Safety Hotline
[Posted 15 October 2024]
Home Safety Hotline, released in 2024, is an analog horror puzzle game where you play as an operator of a hotline that assists callers with assorted household troubles from common pests to horrific anomalous entities. Inspired by bestiaries, you interface with a 90s-style mock operating system as you go through each of your shifts addressing the concerns of each caller, unlocking new bestiary entries and secrets for each shift. Often as comedic as it is horrifying to consider, I find the game’s bestiary endlessly charming, particularly with how many of its entries are reinterpretations of classic folkloric beasts and figures. The voice acting in some of the calls is superbly well done with a few unfairly haunting wails and screams littered through the failure consequence calls in particular. While not a particularly long game, it has immense staying power with me as I’ve found myself thinking of it often, so much so that I ended up creating a minizine with a roleplaying game inspired by it for zinetober 2024! A must play for fans of analog horror or those who are simply interested in reading through informational pages on strange creatures and entities like I am.