The notorious trope of being home alone has been used time and time again in all sorts of media to drive fear. From “Home Alone” to “Hush” this popular trope creates an atmosphere of horror because of how close to reality they often are. “At Home Alone Final” takes this fear and twists it through the eyes of a child. In this game a little girl must face the demons, both literally and figuratively, in her home wanting to kill her.

Playing as the unnamed pink-haired girl, the game starts as her mother leaves her home alone, warning her not to go open the door. After exploring the house, the doorbell goes off and the player is prompted to go check the door. After the player opens the door a third time, the game takes a turn from lighthearted to disturbing. Murders and mysterious figures appear and interfere as the game resets and you play again as the game continually becomes more and more disturbing. Due to the fact that the whole game is played from a child’s point of view, there were moments that were deeply disturbing for an older audience that can recognize the true horror of the moment.

While it is easy to become bored of this repeating style of game, “At Home Alone Final” manages to keep it interesting. It never dwells too long on a part of the game that’s already been played, while still introducing new components to maintain the player’s attention. The puzzles are never too difficult to solve but the different endings are a challenge to find;I ended up needing a guide to solve them. I was only able to get the “bad” ending without a guide, despite playing through it twice. But, I found that while the horror was more nuanced, it captured my attention more effectively than a jumpscare horror.  

The soundtrack and sound design always fits the mood. Early on it holds a childish happy quality, but as the game descends into the unsettling, the music takes a similar shift. It maintains a sort of innocent quality despite being distorted. I thought it was impressive because it wasn’t just the normal lullaby played slowly to be creepy, it was unique to the game.

The art style of “At Home Alone Final” also adds to the innocence in its 2D pixel style. It wasn’t anything too special, but it was interesting as it changes styles a few times for special cutscenes or puzzles. The controls are also simple and didn’t take any time to learn. There are a couple of challenges as the game makes the player run through mazes and makes the controls slightly more difficult to control. However, for the most part there weren’t any issues. 

The biggest fault with the game is translation issues. As the game was not originally in English, some of the translations were embarrassingly difficult to parse. I was able to understand all of the lines, but the errors were still quite distracting. 

Although “At Home Alone Final” was really enjoyable and free to download, the content warnings are not to be ignored. But if you are interested in psychological horror games and have a couple of spare hours, this might be the game for you.