turn on the light.

"Awakened by an oncoming storm, you open your eyes to discover yourself in a strange, dark room—tucked away in a house that’s not yours. You... "

... Listen for a few minutes.
No, apart from the storm, I can hear nothing.

Listen for a few more minutes.
It is definitely a natural "thunder & lightning" kind of storm, not the artificial thunder made by my kids charging around upstairs.

Decide I like the peace & wonder:
how much effort it will take to get this place up to scratch (The shorter the better)
how long it might take for the owner to return (The longer the better, hopefully never)
how far away from my own home I am (The further the better, maybe they'll never find me....)

Start making plans to start a new life here.....

...feel a sense of loss, turn your head left and right, but there is only darkness. After a moment of hesitation you try to stand up, moving, feeling for the room, looking for something familiar. At each step, the heart beats stronger and stronger, while the unsettling sensation of feeling something or someone other than yourself in the room increases. It 's just a feeling? It seems so frighteningly real.


Thanks!:D

""Awakened by an oncoming storm, you open your eyes to discover yourself in a strange, dark room—tucked away in a house that’s not yours. You... ""

... Try to remember if you went to that hot chick house for banging, or you were kidnapped by serial rapist/killer.

thank you!

I would use the light of the cellphone to find the switch of the light and turn it on, or check is there's electricity.

...look at your wristwatch and notice it's only a little past three o'clock. You switch to your other side and think "I'm not going to get up at this hour, there's plenty of time to solve the mystery after I've gotten a good night's sleep. After all, it's not like anything bad is going to happen anyway, seeing as I'm so comfortably tucked in and everything." Then you proceed with the snoring.

Not participating in the contest, but I've already played through "Home". Were you also asking for opinions on it or is this thread just about the giveaway?

Went back to sleep, I require my beauty sleep!

I'm curious, the site says the Steam version is DRM free, am I missing something there?

+1 for running the contest though.

I don't know about the others, but I'd like to hear some opinions of it as well.

Well, it's short, cheap, experimental and created by one designer only, so I don't want to be too hard on it, but personally I was a little disappointed despite all. It's very similar to Lone Survivor in style, but without the resource management and without a save function.

The former can also be a plus in your book, depending on your preferences, but the latter is a serious drawback in my opinion. If I recall correctly it took me between 1-2 hours to play through the game, but the fact that it forced me to play through it in one go, without me knowing how long it would take, really decreased my enjoyment of the game, as I played it at night and was getting tired, but I knew that I would have to repeat everything if I quit before finishing.

Anyway, not sure if that's a SPOILER, so read on at your own risk:
It's kind of an experiment in storytelling, in that it tries to make you decide what the story really is. After reading about that, I had expected more choices though, from what I saw there were hardly any significant choices in it, maybe 2 or 3, and it didn't make me want to replay. And I think it would have been quite easy to add a lot more choices because in the end they don't really add up to nothing. It's all in your head, up to you to interpret and nothing is resolved or explained by the game itself. After playing through it, you're invited to post on the website and share your interpretation of the story. That's a nice idea, but I didn't think it strong and interesting enough to be worth the two hours of more or less linear gameplay. If you add another two hours (but with the option to save and take a break) and play To The Moon instead, I think you get a much more satisfying experience for the simplistic gameplay, and you're still left with some questions to ponder and interpret, despite the story having an actual ending. The story of Home is just not that intrigueing and doesn't have much depth, even if you let your imagination run loose.

So I think even at that short length it is still too long for what it is and what it does. At least that's how I see it, YMMV.

If only all men were so easy to please :D

"Awakened by an oncoming storm, you open your eyes to discover yourself in a strange, dark room—tucked away in a house that’s not yours. You... "

...I quickly turn on my PC, turn on my surround sound system and go play a horror game. Nothing beats a horror game being played in a dark room with a storm unleashing.
Then I realise I can't play since I have no clue where I am and my PC of course is not there. A bit dissapointed I start exploring the house or more appropriate, the mansion. Since everything seems too creepy, I realise I am now a part of a horror experience. Playing all those horror games and seeing all those horror movies helped me realise it before I would get killed by some monster.
I arm myself with everything that could be used to protect myself from the inevidable nightmares that are surely waiting to attack me. I now have a candle holder, a key chain with a black bunny head with bowtie, a pair of stilettoes, two different hairpins, a very old and very hard loaf of bread, handcuffs, a wooden broom, set of tooth-picks, a bottle of water based lubricant and a two-sided dildo. Not even thinking about what weird bunch of weapons I have aquired, I turn on my survival mode and start looking for clues to where I am and why am I there and of course trying to find a way out.
I see a light under one door. Since I know entering slowly is a terrible mistake I blast through the doors. In dim light there are some sort of freaks weirdly shaking. When they see me they start making a horrible noise and start moving towards me. I start yelling like a madman! Mostly because I am scared to death. I make a good hold of the broom and start doing my impersonation of Bruce Lee (RIP). I have no clue if this will kill them but I keep on slamming until they are all nicely laying on the floor and not moving. I make a loud sigh, as I have survived the ordeal which noone could even think of surviving. Damn, I was so lucky...a hand grabs my croch, making me scream like a newborn baby. Like an invisible force would take me under its possesion, I blast with the end of the broom under my left arm and impale the monster behind me. The being made a scream that could raise the dead so I joined in and ran out of the room screaming and wishing for a teddy bear to hold.
As I was frantically running I hit a jar of water. The water splashed over an electrical wall socket and the whole house went dark with only the moonlight sheding some light through the windows. Now even more scared I searched for a place to hide. My thoughts of being an action hero were long forgotten. I passed a room with bathroom on it. I went in, closed the door and sat in a corner of the room. As I looked around, it was the biggest bathroom I have ever seen. From the one dark area in the bathroom, where the moonlight could not reach, a figure emerged. I jumped on my feat trying to figure out if its another monster wanting to turn me into its next meal. In sigh of relief the legs that I saw looked human, so I walked towards the figure. But when the figure moved more and more into the light it became more and more apparent, it was no human. Its skin was green and it had some sort of cape over its head. Apparently it was still unaware until that moment I was also in the room. It made a high pitch sound and started running in my direction. Its sound was intensified over and over because of the bathroom walls making me shiver intensly. I tried to turn around so I could run away, but my body was standing still. The monster's sound must have frozen me. I tried mind-force my body into motion. With only little success I was able to move my hand just a moment before the beast would have grabbed me. I grabbed the candle holder, swung it in front of me while having my eyes closed and hoping for the best. SLAM!! I knew the thing hit me, but I did not want to open my eyes. Something warm started running down my arm. I slowly opened my left eye and looked around. The green menace had the candle holder stuck in its head and its blood was running down my arm. A deafening scream came out from bathroom walls and again being intesified by hitting the walls. I let go of the holder and ran out.
In the bathroom I realised I was on the top floor, so I sought for a staircase. When I found them I saw three figures at the bottom of the stairs on their way up. Since I was in the dark they were unaware of my presence. I looked through my weapons and picked the key chain and the stilettoes. I threw the chain towards the figures. It fell down behind them, right where I wanted it. When they turned around I grabbed each stilettoe with one hand with the sharp heel pointed out. I sat on the staircase rail and rode it towards the diablique trio. When I was just a few yards away they must have heard the oncoming train and turned around just in the right time for me to blast-kick the middle one, making it fly over the rail overseeing the first floor, and to impale the outter two with the stilettoes. Impaled couple fell down to the first floor as well screaming in agony. When I looked down at them a ray of moonlight shined onto one of the stilettoes and I saw it had the same bunny figure as was on the keychain. I was too stressed to think more about it and went down the stairs to the first floor and just past the dead creatures.
Unfortunatelly the stairs where the epic fight took place didn't go all the way down to the bottom floor so I had to find some other way to reach it and het out of this damned manison. There were so many doors around, but I was scared what might be behind them so I just passed them all. After some time I came in front of a giant doubledoor. I thought to myself, all the previous beasties were in smaller rooms, so surely they wouldn't be in a large room where I could spot them easily. Not believing my mind I entered anyway, hoping for the best... A weird but soothing music was playing. The room had large windows facing towards the shining moon so I was able to see everything quite well. Walls were nicely decorated, the furniture seemed very luxoriuos and the paintings were real masterpieces. On some paintings were completely naked, highly on-turning women. At the end side of the room where a gigantic bed was, hung a picture of a man in a red robe, but his face was in darkness. Few of the women seemed familiar to me, but I did not have the time to think or do anything else about it, since I suddenly realised I was not all alone in the room. In the middle of the room there was motion. Apparently that was not some strange carpet as I thought before. It was an enormous blanket with someone or something moving under it. And that something was making strange noise. As if I was not scared enough the clouds hid the moon, allowing darkness to consume the room. The darkness was not 100% so I could see that a figure, followed by several others, emerged from under the blanket. I thought I was safe, but again the creatures appeared, eager to ear my flesh and meat and brains. Apparently they were able to speak a little, because I am pretty sure I heard my name being said several times. One creature started running towards me with its hands extended, prepared to grab my shivering torso. I didn not have much protection with me anymore. I grabbed the loaf and positioned myself into a batting posture. When the assailant was close enough I swung hard as I have never before. I made full contact with its head. My strike in combination with the stone-hard bread was so extreme, the creatures head tore off its body and flew away for a nice home run, while the body collapsed on the floor. With all the adrenaline pumping I reached for my toothpicks and mentaly transformed into a ninja. I threw those toothpicks like they were shurikens, metal throwing stars that ninjas use. One by one the monsters were falling until only one was left, dressed in red robe. Unlucky for me, I was out of toothpicks! The creature, which I assume was the leader, started roaring and running to kill me. I only had three items left. Weird as it sounds, I took the two-sided dildo and covered it with lube. The oncoming attacker jumped towards me. I ducked so it slemmed into a wall behind me. I quickly turned around and screwed the dildo through its ear. Apparently there was not much in that skull, or perhaps I used to much lube, because the dildo popped out through the other ear. I vomited there for a few minutes. After I felt a little better I quickly moved out of the room to find a staircase or something that would take me to the bottom floor and out of this damned mansion.

CONTINUED
After few minutes of searching I stummbled upon a small elevator. I went in and to my great relief there was a button for the bottom floor. When the elevator stopped, door opened and in front of me on the other side of the hallway, a large doorway appeared. A doorway surely leading out of this FUBARed place. I started running, so I could leave this nightmare behind me as soon as possible. Halfway towards the doorway, something slammed me and I fell down. It took me a few moments to compose myself and then I looked around trying to find out what just happened. And there I saw it! An eight-foot silhouette of a monster, that could surely squish me easily. Since it was standing between me and the doorway I had to run the other way. I ran into the first room I saw and slammed the door behind me. The room was completely dark, so I had no clue where I was. I hid myself in some hole in the wall, and hoped for the best. The door opened and soon closed. I heard heavy footsteps. Something was making me sneeze! I can't, he will hear it. I touch around the hole I was in. Metal rod in the middle of the hole, wood, dust, weird stones....I was in a fireplace!!! I quitely crawled out and head towards the door, while it was searching the other side of the room. Crap!, the door was locked. I was trapped! All I had left of my weaponry were the handcuffs. I tried to find something else to protect myself. I only found a small box of matches with one match in it. I did not know how, but if I wanted to come out of this alive, I would need to kill the beast. But how am I supposed to kill it with a match and handcu.......the fireplace! I crawled back to it and picked up a few coal pieces. Then I crawled away again. I threw one coal into the fireplace. I heard the monster stood still and probably tried to figure out where it came from. I threw another one and the monster rushed towards the fireplace. It thought I was hidding in it, so it went on its knees and crawled in and I crawled towards the fireplace as well. As I hoped it stood up, thinking I was climbing up the chimney. I quickly plunged into the fireplace as well. I cuffed his left arm with one side of the handcuffs and the metal rod in the fireplace with the other. I jumped out and pulled out the match box. I picked up the only match in it and tried my luck. Success, it fired up. I threw it into the fireplace and a huge fire set off in an instant. The screams that the creature produced were unnatural, completely alien. The scariest thing I have ever heard. I had no desire to listen or watch so I ran towards the door, but they were still locked. What now?! I could die from the smoke filling up the room. Then I remembered I also picked up a pair of hairpins earlier. Where were they? My head! I put them into my hair earlier so I would not lose them. I grabbed them and tried to unlock the door with them. All the playing with various locks when I was younger was now finally put to good use and I quickly unlocked the door and run down the hallway towards the large doorway.
No! The doorway was locked as well and there is no way I could unlock them the same way. I ran to the right, searching for a safe way out. I heard a funny sound so I stopped. It was like there was a river in the house. I tried finding the source and I stummbled upon a hole. The sound I was hearing came out of it. There was some light coming from the hole and I realised it is a tunnel of some sorts and the most important, it was heading out of the house. I didn't waste my time thinking, I just ran in. The sound was getting louder and on the tunnel floor there was water. Soon I was unable to walk anymore and had to swim. The tunnel started becoming larger and I found myself in a cave. There were two naked girls there pleasuring each other. I was totally turned on, but somehow my common sense won. I yelled: Ladies! Come on, we need to run! They screamed like I was about to kill them. They were screaming blood! I didn't realise I was covered in blood from all those fights. It mostly washed off while I was swimming, but my head was still bloody. I said we don't have time for this, there are homicidal freaks in there and we need to run if we want to live. While one of them said "Oh, its you..." I was already pulling them away and didn't think of her words much.
We ran for 2 hours probably. All of us wet. I still had a little blood on my face, while they were butt naked. Luckily we only met one guy on our way. He was whistling at the girls and threw some money at them. We were in some city which I was unable to recognise at that point. I saw a motel sign. I told the girls to wait in the darkness. I took the money that the guy threw at them earlier and went to the front desk. The manager was a bit suscpicious, asking me what happened to me and why are there two naked chicks out there. I don't know what lie did I say, but it must have worked since he took the money and gave me a key.
...I was finally clean. I stepped out of the shower and dried myself. I was trying to figure out what will I tell the police next day, but nothing believable came to my mind. I wont be even able to tell them where we came from, because I didn't pay attention at all, trying just to go as far away from the nightmare mansion.
I walked out of the bathroom and the girls, still naked were sitting on the bed holding each other. They were obviously scared, since I haven't told them anything yet. I sat opposite to them and wanted to start explaining. One put a finger on my lips and said: It can wait, lets go to bed. It was a perfect situation for menage et trois, but we were really worn out, so we just layed down close to each other and fell asleep.
BAM!! DON'T MOVE, OR WE WILL SHOOT!! Me and the girls jumped out of bed and saw a bunch of police officers aiming at us with rifles, shoutguns and guns. I saw several red dots on the window and when I looked down, they were dancing on my body. Couple of SWAT guys grabbed me and put cuffs on me. They threw me into a police van and sped off...
...one year later...
I was sitting in a chair. My whole body was strapped to it. I could not move an inch. Two man in white were walking around in a small room I was in. Walls were mostly made of glass panels. I could not see outside, because of the curtains on the wall. One man pulled a rope and the curtains opened. Several dozen people were sitting on the other side, staring at me. Many newsreporters were taking pictures The other man approached me and stuck me with a needle, injecting something into my veins. All was becoming blury. Silence... Time of death, June 6th, 6pm.
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LA TIMES - June 7th
Yesterday, the Playboy Mansion massacre has finally seen its epilogue. ****** ****** who killed Hugh Hefner and a couple dozen of Playboy Playmates, has been injected with a lethal toxin. He has died at the most fitting hour. June (sixth month) 6th at 6pm.
It is still not clear what exactly happened in the mansion since everyone, except the two women that ****** ****** kept alive, were brutaly murdered.
We know that there was a party in the Playboy mansion, that lasted for a whole week. At the end, only Mr. Hefner, his Playmates and ****** ****** were left. ****** ****** was too drunk to drive, so Mr. Hefner ordered him to stay another night or two to sober up. As the two witnesses said, the ones ****** ****** saved, he went to bed and slept throughout the next day. Next time they have seen him was when he surprised them while being covered in blood and dragged them across Los Angeles to a motel with the most fitting name. Blood Moon motel.
We do not know what has transpired before ****** ****** came across these two ladies.
Police reports that came to our posetion state the following:
TOP FLOOR
-The suspect slept in the top floor.
-Four dead naked women, beaten to death with a broom.
-One dead naked woman, impaled through her chest with the same broom.
-One dead naked woman, covered in cucumber cream, impaled through the skull with a candle holder.
SECOND FLOOR
-Broken railing overseeing the first floor.
FIRST FLOOR
-Three dead women. Probably fell from the second floor, hence the broken railing. One died from internal bleeding. Two died from head trauma (each had a woman's shoe, stilettoe, impaled through their eye).
-Thirty-three (33) dead naked women and one dead man. One woman beheaded (cause unknown). 32 women had a toothpic stuck in their skulls, that resulted in an instant death. Man had damaged earholes and severe internal damage in the head, caused by a cucumber shaped artifact (sex toy - dildo) being forced through his left ear and coming out of his right ear.
BOTTOM FLOOR
-One dead man. Handcuffed inside a fireplace, burnt to death.

It is highly unlikely we will ever be able to understand what happened in Playboy Mansion. The most probable cause for ****** ******'s murdering rage is his intoxication. Psychologists think that he was still not sobber (police records indicate his alcohol levels were at 0%). His mind was not fully functional because of this, so he had probably imagined things and saw everything in some twisted way that made him go on a killing spree.
Given the police alchohol tests the above is highly unlikely, but it is the best guess we have. Perhaps we should take into account some theories that are a bit uncommon to say the least. Such say the Devil himself was on the move, since the massacre took place on the sixth month on the sixth day and ****** ****** had been executed on the sixth month on the sixth day at six pm exactly one year later.

Whatever the real reason was for this tragedy, we should pray for all the young lives lost in the event.

-Andrea Taylor for LA Times

I completely loot the minibar and take all the little toiletries in the bathroom and leave via the stairs.

About halfway down, I begin to have doubts about what I've done. Something just doesn't feel right, and I know what I must do to rectify the situation.

I go back to the room, and take the bathrobe and the towels too.