So, I remember playing the demo and following this game for a while and even though it did came like last year its only now I decided to take a crack at it for reasons I´m gonna explain below.

Made by Night Signal Entertainment, this is one of those job simulations games where you play as a worker for the Home Safety Hotline, and your main objective is is to simply provide help to each client by trying to identify house hazards from a database, and hope that you got it right according to their sometimes vague description.

The game when it first started had me sending them info about pests that would normally deal with in real life, think termites or mice, as a way to get show me the ropes of what I´m expected to do.

But once I finished a couple of entries, and had a man angry at me for misidentifying a mole problem, I now had new entries unlocked. Except, something was off…

Yep, besides we´ve got pests of the supernatural sort. Before you know it I was trying to figure whether If someone was having some kind of Gnome infestation or they simply had bats in the attic.

Gotta identify them all

Honestly, if you´re the type who has enjoyed reading game bestiaries or spend your time on the internet reading wiki pages then this game is probably for you. It starts off with a few entries which unlock as you progress. As I was playing it, I took the time to read some of these and also checking them more than once to make sure I would get it right…

But that is when the game starts throwing curve balls at you. Like for example sometimes it´s you can mistake the clients description for the wrong entry, like one time I thought i had to pick a Fake Rose Bush (a plant pest that eats kids and small animals) only to find out that it was a bunch of forest fairies that were the problem.

Again, its really important to pay attention, my tip is to replay the recording as much as needed, also there´s not timer involved unless you´re in training mode, so there is no need to hurry.

Oh, and sometimes the server has failures which prevented me from checking the entries so I had to go with my memory here and hope for the best. To be honest, I´m someone who reads bird identification entries simply to aid in my birding endeavors so I didn´t thought it was hard for me.

There are consequences, get it some wrong and you´ll be dealing with complaints from clients and hear how much your mistakes have screwed them over with sometimes fatal results.

Get too many wrong, and of course not only management will fires you but will shall we say, give you a very harsh punishment that looked like it came out of a Roald Dahl book.

I did at one point try to give them the wrong information just to see what would happen, and these would run the gambit of being kinda hilarious (like whatever happened to that poor woman´s gingerbread people), horrifying leaving to you fill in the gaps of their fates, or sometimes its both. For some reason I found them a lot more entertaining than just getting them right, which don´t even get any follow up. Then again, why would you call back a service if they did a good job?

If you are worried about getting things wrong, at the end of the game you get a game plus with a god mode option where where you will never get fired. Its really worth it to replay this way just for the dialogue alone.

Ok, so trying to send tho send the rights packages, but what else is there? If you manage to survive a week you get get a promotion!

After figuring out the ropes and keeping management happy, my last day was and odd one, I was being now tested on my knowledge of the household hazards I´ve learned so far, and the questions were even more confusing and ambiguous than normal. But I stood my ground and well management called that they want me to promote to Junior Supervisor.

And then the games ends, I´m not gonna gonna spoil much, let´s just say it ends in a dance party.

Running in the 90s

The fun part is a soon as I logged on I was present with a OS that replicated the feel of Windows 95, appropriate for the decade this was set in.

Seeing I´ve been spending a lot of time using old windows virtual machines I can really say they did a good job on it, the icons, the UI, all of it. Even the entry browser that you use to read up the house pest entries has the old-school digital encyclopedia feel to it. Those of you who got to experience the joys of such programs like Encarta will know what I´m talking about.

Now I´ve seen people claiming this game fits in the analogue horror and that is where the creators got the inspiration from, but that would be a misnomer since it fits more into digital horror since it makes use of the digital spaces for its sources scares (normally this genre makes use of cursed websites, video games etc).

In contrast to Analogue horror which simply old physical media like VHS tapes and TV broadcasts as its basis. Despite it being mostly digital there some elements of Analogue horror here and there, in the form of videos that are unlocked over the course of a playthrough like eerie ads and a documentary discussion about some odd going on with the rat population.

But they´re not here just for show, simply to add more to the world building more eagle eye players will have picked up at least some hint about the hazard involving the missing person report and so on. I do in fact recommend you watch those videos again once you completed the game as they will make sense in hindsight.

As for the photos I though sorta eerie but not to creepy, the designer went all in using mixed media with digital art photoshopped using real photos, which adds to the surreal atmosphere.

Again, i did not find the images alone too scary, or maybe I´ve become more insensitive as watcher of this genre. However what actually did scare me was the implications.

For some reasons I find horror much more terrifying that say the ones that happen outdoors or in a haunted mansion, since home is supposed to be the one place you feel safe. So some of the creepiness comes from the whole idea of having your life wrecked by a fey creature if you so much as forget to leave it a saucer of milk or a household plant who is not really a household plant can move the imagination.

And lets be honest a lot of us have dealt with some household invading critter that gave us the heebie jibbies. But in other ways the there is some humor to be had in seeing all these supernatural beings being treated no differently than you common house pest.

But now that I think about it, having a pest that actually goes out of its way to feed on dust and keeps you home clean would´ve been a neat to have in real life, would probably make for good pet.

You may have noticed I haven´t said much about the story, well it doesn’t have much a main plot to begin with, unless you count the DLC. But its does feeds some some bits of information that lets you piece together the world a bit more like the nature of the company you are working for, and I got say in hindsight it does make sense why you got a forest as your wallpaper and why the call training uses medieval art.

So its more fill the blanks with your imagination type of story, despite not being very complex It works for what is simply trying to be, a customer service sim.

I did find the ending a bit cheesy thought, but I guess it has its charm, with amateur vibeto it like ones of those movies on Youtube performed by a bunch of theater kids.

If you just heard about this game I would advise to play this one blind.

Accessibility

Before I forget to mention, this one is for those of you have certain triggers, the options menu with comes a phobia filter as well has the option to add a dyslexia font.

Still, while I never had to make use of them, it was nice thing to have. Good to see more titles these days are taking extra effort to be more inclusive.

Seasons Greetings

Now to talk about the actual reason why I´ve decided to review this, as some time after they launched a Christmas theme DLC. Unlike the main campaign where you play as a nameless mission, you play as Rebecca, a temp worker hired to work around the holidays every year.

There is no promotion in store but instead the main objective to keep up the Christmas cheer levels up by making customer satisfied and hopefully you will survive long enough to be invited to the company´s Annual Christmas Part.

Appropriate for the season the supernatural household hazards that will you have to deal with not only take inspiration from your typical holiday staples like Santa Claus, but they even take inspiration from cultural traditions from European countries. So yes, staples like the Yule Cat and Krampus will be there.

And of course you´ll probably will never look at Rudolph the Red-Nose Render the same ever again.

While you have a full list of hazards I would not worry about the non-yuletide ones much since most of the focus is on Christmas year. In the end I got a real kick in seeing make use of Christmas Horror as a genre. But as I´ve mentioned previous despite dealing with the horrors, this game doesn´t take itself too seriously. It gave me a chuckle when I saw the bad ending describing how badly I ruined Christmas in the most Cosmic proportions, as if I were some Grinch.

Of course, the good ending is even funnier with the typical shenanigans you would expect during the holidays.

That is what I loved about this title so much its mixes what be a bleak scenario in any other story and embraces the ridiculous aspects.

Taking in account the season and that most digital gaming stores are having winter sales at the moment this the perfect time to pick up this game.

Final thoughts

There is one small flaw, is that the game makes you wait a while between calls (although the game does eventually give you the option to skip waiting times on game plus).

But other than that for what is a short game, its does a good job of simulation of some of the frustrations of what is to be a call center worker with supernatural elements in the mix.

I do think if there was think I would like so see more from a game like would be more variety of critters. I know that they were going for theme here, but could cool to see either a sequel or even a DLC that deals with other types of mythologies.

Imagine if you had to deal with some Yokai as pests, something like that.

Also I found I find out this game is better with friends, no really grab a buddy and try to speculated among yourselves which entry to pick. Looking forward to any new titles that Night Signal will put out in the future.

So, Happy Holidays! And watch out for those Carolers…

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