YOU'LL COME FOR THE HORROR BUT STAY FOR EVERYTHING ELSE

I’m currently obsessed with horror, so I was excited to try Go Home Annie, a newly released first-person, horror adventure game available on Steam, Epic and Gog. After playing, I'd have a hard time calling this a true horror game. There are a few jump scares and some mild gore, but it never generated any feelings of dread. It was, however, packed with plenty of other things I love - amazing creepy visuals, awesome audio, a wide variety of interesting puzzles, platforming, exploration and a good story.  

Developed by Misfit Village and published by Nordcurrent Labs, Go Home Annie is set in the SCP universe. Don’t know what that is? I began with a superficial understanding at best, and as the story here is completely original, I don’t feel my lack of knowledge impacted my enjoyment of the game. All you need to know is that The SCP Foundation is a fictional organization that arose from a single story on imageboard website 4Chan. Over time, user contributions created an entire universe filled with paranormal phenomena, called anomalies, along with a company to deal with them. An acronym for Secure, Contain, and Protect, the SCP Foundation is tasked with finding, capturing and containing these anomalies in the name of protecting humanity.  

ANNIE, ARE YOU OK? 

You play as the protagonist Annie, and you are definitely not ok. And neither is the division of the SCP that you work for. It’s gone rogue, and instead of just containing paranormal anomalies, it decided that replicating and modifying them is a really good idea. As a low level employee of this secret Replicant Division, your job is to test anomalies and document your findings. Your boss, though, seems oddly interested in you and your possible connection with a specific replicant - a small house. You’ve apparently been asked to test this house multiple times, and the amnestics they give you after each round have clearly taken a toll, leaving you with limited memories. The objective of the game is to figure out who you really are, why your boss is obsessed with you, how you ended up in the Division and what’s up with that house.  


NORMAL IS AN ILLUSION 

You begin in a car on a dark and rainy night, driving down a deserted road while listening to a macabre podcast. The car pulls up to a deserted house, parks in front and you exit. From this point, you take control. This opening really sets the dark tone for the rest of the game, and is your first introduction to the most important anomaly.   

Once you finish here, you find your way back to Division offices where some of your memories begin to return. You start to realize all is not as it should be, and with the help of some NPC friends, you begin your quest to discover who you really are. The twisted walk down memory lane begins here at the Division. There's plenty of SCP lore around to read, so consider taking the time to seek it out. While reading it all doesn’t feel necessary, it definitely contributed to world building for me. 

Your journey will take you to multiple locations as you progress. Of note, the inspiration for the beautiful outdoor settings you'll see in the game is the Žumberak Mountains which are located in Croatia, the home country of Misfit Village. You’ll want to explore all areas as the views are incredible, it’s fun and there are game achievements that depend on it.

Your path continues to be charted for you via objectives which direct you to move around, locating items and conversing with division staff and replicants. The majority of your time, however, is spent solving puzzles. You’ll need the items you’ve picked up along the way for these, including a very pixelated camcorder that serves two functions. You can play tapes you've found which give clues to your past, next steps to take and puzzle solving hints. The device also has the ability to scan your environment. This is the mechanism for interacting with the anomalies. Scanning not only reveals them, but can potentially bring them from their home in The Void Between into your world, a key goal of the Replication Division.   

As you progress, additional memories are triggered or unlocked, revealing your history piece by piece.  




THE GOOD 

While Go Home Annie disappointed in the scares, it surpassed my expectations for audio and visuals. Want a beautifully unsettling atmosphere? You’ve come to the right place. Everywhere I turned were water scenes from nightmares, desolate landscapes, and an alternate universe that wouldn’t be out of place in Stranger Things. Accompanying these visuals is music that elevates the mood. As someone who still gets goosebumps when I hear the soundtrack to The Exorcist, I appreciate how powerful good audio can be, and here it was done well. Last, but definitely not least, is the voice acting. It was fantastic across the board, and while I’d have a hard time picking favorites, I particularly enjoyed a couple of argumentative replicant bathroom fixtures.

The game is filled with multiple interesting puzzles, each different from the last. Some are simple, requiring only a bit of manipulation of game elements. Some are physics based, including a fun one that has you using a gravity altering device. There are mazes to find your way through using observation skills. There are even puzzles incorporated into platforming and a nerve wracking high speed drive. The latter takes place on a very unsafe bridge, spanning black water that does not look like you should be taking a dip in it. There are some general issues here, however, which I get into below.

I don’t necessarily require a good story to like a game, but Annie’s was one I bought into, and I absolutely wanted to get her home. There are some stand out conversations with characters you meet in the game, and the dialogue really contributed to my connection with the story.

THE BAD, AND THE UGLY 

The game started out great, but somewhere after the halfway point it lost its way for a while with objectives that seemed to repeat, giving me the feeling they were added to add length. But as some of my favorite visuals and puzzles were here, I forgave the game and continued on.  

I often felt like I was given too much direction, resulting in very few times when I needed to work out on my own what to do next. The same amount of help was given for many of the puzzles. There was no question how to solve them, as I was fed very specific clues. Regardless, they were all clever and interesting.  Even though I didn’t have to work out what to do, the execution was often challenging enough to be rewarding. 

Included in the too much direction category is inventory management. Or lack of, as the game mostly took care of this for me. Once I obtained a keycard, restricted areas opened automatically. Likewise doors with keypads opened the second I discovered their code, no entry required. Then there’s the camcorder. I never needed to think about when I should equip and use it. It would automatically appear in my hands, letting me know it was time to look for an anomaly. Annoyingly, there was no way to un-equip it as the game decided this for me as well. Unfortunately, it then became a visual obstruction when I wanted to look around.

Finally, there were a few bugs along the way. I really like to explore, and there were times when I wandered too close to the edges of the map and then got stuck. Not show stoppingly stuck, but it took some time and physical gyrations to get unstuck. Hint - don’t attempt to follow the tractor into the cornfield. Nothing good happens in a cornfield.

THE VERDICT

Go Home Annie has its issues, but did I enjoy the journey? Absolutely, including the surprise ending. I’m still not completely sure what happened there. Was it worth the price? I received a key for free in order to review the game, and while I think there should be a little more content for that price, I'd have paid the $20 to spend 5-ish hours on that twisted trip.