This document will be used as a reference for the production of This is Home, intended for the team.
This is Home is a narrative-driven exploration game that uses environmental storytelling to revisit a childhood summer. Set in a rural town suspended between memory and reality, it explores how familiar places shift as time moves on.
For publications: In a rural town suspended between reality and memory, This is Home is a narrative exploration experience where you wander familiar spaces that no longer feel the same, now grown strangely quiet. Retrace moments from a childhood summer as the world gently unravels, revealing how time and distance have changed your sense of home.
The player’s goal is to gradually acknowledge and complete the town’s unfinished memories. Through the eyes of a child, the player explores a town shaped by memory, engaging with emotionally significant spaces that slowly reveal an unspoken past. By acknowledging these moments rather than fixing, the player reaches a quiet conclusion where the child’s soul is finally able to leave home. The experience is designed to evoke calm, empathy and a quiet sense of acceptance rather than tension or mastery.
This game is intended for emotionally driven players, who value narrative, reflection and personal meaning over challenge or mastery. They may also be interested in introspective themes. Audiences of indie narrative games, such as What Remains of Edith Finch, Gone Home or Florence may enjoy This is Home. The target age range is late teens to adults, as This Is Home will include themes such as mortality, grief, family relationships, regret and impermanence. While controls are simple, the emotional content assumes a certain level of maturity and lived experience.
The game’s clarity of intent, restrained mechanics and distinctive visual language reduce production risk while strengthening its emotional impact, making it both approachable and memorable. As a result, This is Home positions itself as a viable, low-barrier experience that players are willing to pay for due to the depth of feeling it offers within a short, contained playtime.
Emotional, Narrative, Story Rich
This is Home takes place in the mid 2010s, a period of which many young adults feel nostalgic towards.The environment, props and decoration will reflect the time period that the game is set in. It can be inferred that the player character is looking back on past events though it is never explicitly said.
As of writing (February 2026), the player navigates the world in third-person. The world, constricted to a small town bordered by mountain and sea, it is a single-level area (restricted open world). The area is designed as a town, littered with obstacles and unlockable areas. Otherwise, the player is able to move freely around it.
The player assumes the character of a child’s persona, think of how children draw imaginary characters or themselves. As of writing, the player character is designed to be a mid-poly stylised white rabbit, with a large patterned yellow scarf and cheeks adorning a yellow symbol either side. The game is single player.