Home Sweet Home is a 2017 survival horror game developed and published by Yggdrazil Group. The game features horror elements drawn from Thai folklore. It is available on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and on VR devices.

The main gameplay centers on evading the evil spirits chasing the player while telling the story of the protagonist Tim. After suffering from the disappearance of his wife, Tim found himself waking up in an unfamiliar place and being hunted by the vindictive, evil female spirit. He must survive and find the hidden truth behind the disappearance of his wife and the place that he once believed to be a “home sweet home”.

Gameplay

A central feature of the game concerns stealth and hiding. If the ghosts or demons find the player in their hiding spot, the player can do a quick time event to escape, or will otherwise be killed and the game will respawn to the last save point. Exploration is also important, which is complemented by the fact that many areas have no dangers. Instead, the goal is to find diary pages, informative articles, or puzzle items.

Plot Episode I Chadchai Tubloy (“Tim”) awakens in an unfamiliar building, unsure where his wife Jane is. Searching for her, he encounters a hostile female ghost wielding a boxcutter who can teleport through portals of blood. Escaping, he emerges from a stair cupboard in his own house. The whole thing had seemingly been a nightmare; while Jane had gone missing some time before.

Finding her diary, Tim goes back to the cupboard and he finds himself in a mysterious and dark wooden house mentioned in its pages. There, Tim encounters a colossal, one-eyed Preta. News reports found throughout reveal that the Preta was once Pichai Manapaiboon, the leader of a criminal biker gang who assaulted and robbed his own mother, but died when a steel rod impaled him through his eye during a police chase and was then reborn as a Preta as punishment. Tim attempts to pursue Jane, but they are separated by the Preta. Tim placates it with a food offering and escapes home again, finding it dark, ransacked, and Jane still missing.

Tim is transported to a haunted school via a blood portal where he again encounters the ghost girl. Through notes, it is revealed that the ghost, Belle, was an unstable and isolated student who fell in love with another student named Shane and put a lechery jinx on him to make him fall for her. However, the jinx backfired, killing her and leading Shane to commit suicide, leaving Belle’s ghost doomed to forever look for him. Using a hacksaw to cut through a blocked door and holy water to slow her down, Tim pacifies Belle by getting her to confront her deeds, allowing him to escape the school. Back home, Tim locates a penta-metal (five metal) knife described in Jane’s diary, given to her by a novice monk for protection during the paranormal experiences haunting her.

The game switches to Jane's perspective, as she wanders through an empty house with the knife. She is soon caught by a ghost in traditional dancing garb and dragged away.

Episode II Tim awakens in his house, with an eclipse set to occur. Unable to cope with Jane's disappearance, he has been drinking heavily while ignoring calls from his best friend Dew. Blacking out, he wakes up in a dark forest infested with krasue and hostile, zombie-like entities. Tim is chased across a bridge that collapses; he then wakes up in an old music school haunted by Ratri, the traditionally-dressed ghost, who can teleport and attack by possessing dress mannequins. In life, the vain and selfish Ratri made a deal with a spirit to get the lead role in a big performance; but when her honest and hardworking sister Tida got the role instead, Ratri framed her for theft, leading to Tida’s death. Refusing to honor the spirit, Ratri was killed by it and began haunting the school. Tim narrowly succeeds in defeating Ratri with Jane's knife, although Tim passes out from his injuries.

Rescued and healed by the novice monk at a temple, Tim learns that he and Jane are in a limbo-like realm called Hindrance for souls who cannot yet move on. The novice urges Tim to return home and leave Jane, citing that her fate cannot be changed. While chasing Jane again, Tim encounters Chai, an occultist collecting the souls of sinners within the Hindrance (including Tim and Jane) for use in a ritual in conjunction with the eclipse to open the gates of Hell itself and obtain incredible power. Jane's knife proves ineffective and Chai's blind but powerful minion the Executioner cuts off two of Tim's fingers and shatters the knife. At the novice’s instruction, Tim gathers the components needed to reforge it into a more powerful "nona-metal" (nine metal) knife; once completed, the novice warns that it must only be used in self-defense, otherwise it will corrupt him.

Tim goes to confront Chai again but is captured and taken to an underground temple. Escaping, Tim barely manages to evade the Executioner, deafening him with gongs and blasting him with an old cannon. Tim locates Chai and stabs him in the neck, imbuing the knife and Tim's arm with additional power. Entries from Jane’s diary reveal that she had an affair with Dew, after Tim’s overworking and drinking had caused problems between the couple.

In a central chamber, Tim finds the bodies of sinners gathered for Chai’s ritual, including Pichai, Belle, and Ratri. Tim frees and briefly reunites with Jane before Chai, fused into the Executioner's body, attacks and mortally wounds her. Tim defeats him once again and shares one last goodbye with Jane before being forced to flee as the Temple begins to collapse. Chai's disembodied head pursues Tim, but he escapes the Hindrance at last with the novice's assistance. Returning to his house, Tim finally answers a phone call from Dew, appearing overcome with rage as power from the knife surges through him.

Development

Concept Home Sweet Home was developed by Thai production house, Yggdrazil Group Public Company Limited The company’s vision is to enhance Thai CGI on an international scale. Saroot Tubloy, game director and the co-founder of Yggdrazil Group has a vision that digital media will become more influential henceforth. He decided to create interactive media apart from the company’s field of profession in VFX and CGI

Therefore, Yggdrazil Group has formed a development team called Ygggame to specifically develop games and improve their expertise separated into 2 subteams by the engine used; Unreal Engine and Unity Engine especially for mobile games.

The horror game was chosen according to the company’s vision to represent Thai culture and create a unique game. Moreover, The development team was formed almost at the same time as the release of Silent Hills: Playable Teaser, giving the inspiration to create a game to be compared equally in terms of graphic quality. Home Sweet Home is also influenced by Clock Tower and Resident Evil.

Saroot said that the advantage of creating a horror game is that it is not necessary to create an embellishment scene, but the challenging part is how to play with the psychology of horror and persuade the player to be emotionally invested in the game. He has to specifically study more psychology to create the game.

At the early stage of development, the director (Mr. Saroot Tubloy) wanted to create a game that simulated the player in a haunted house with a goal to escape by solving puzzles while ghosts try to jump scare the player. However, the development team decided to add a story to make the game more compelling.

Home Sweet Home took more than 2 years to develop and was redeveloped 2 times. From the start, the game has been remodeled 2 times. The first development took 7 to 8 months and was intended for smartphones and tablets, but it was canceled after due to many limitations, mainly its graphic quality. So the PC version was selected instead. The second development took 1 year and 3 months before Home Sweet Home was voted in Steam Greenlight which is the system for users to decide whether the game should be released on Steam or not. The amount of pressure and the complaints from the voters made the development team scrap the existing project again.

The developer wants to bring out Thai ghosts’ uniqueness in horror and disturbing nature. So the gameplay was designed to hide instead of fighting against the ghosts. The developer also made Home Sweet Home available in multiple languages to evaluate Thai games on an international level and to reduce the amount of negative reputation from Thai people which the developer thinks limits the opportunity for Thai games to succeed.

Visual and gameplay design

Home Sweet Home has the inspiration from Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Clock Tower, which are the origin and inspiration to many horror games.

First Person perspective is chosen by the developer because it gives the immersion of the main character to maximize the fear and scariness. The developer also blurs pictures within the game that include playable characters to make players immersed in the game.

The location in the Home Sweet Home takes inspiration from real places, for example, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. faculty of the art building and Kasetsart University Building. Many characters in Home Sweet Home were inspired by real things such as Phee- Naang-Ram which was based on the story of the bathroom shrine at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang.

The developer chose Unreal Engine 4 as the game engine which has a big overhaul from the last version. Unreal Engine 4 improves the editor to make it easier to use. Furthermore, the lighting engine has been upgraded to match the 2014 graphic standard with lower graphic cost and improve building speed which speed up the process.

Development team Roles Member Game DirectorSaroot TubloyConcept ArtistKittichai ReaungchaichanKrisda Taimsuwan3D ModelerAntiwitcheirz ZethenyttheKawin PaopooreeTheerasak NathasiriKreinkrai SangpetSekson KeawpaitoonSuebmongkol ThongnarkSupachock NuamthongGame DesignerPongtham NantapanProducerUnreal Engine DeveloperChutpisit SpawasuRati WattanakornprasitThanut PanichyotaiBood AtsatarakunTechnical ArtistNattapol YodjitAnucha TuntiyawongsaSathit LimumpaimatNutawut YameeAnimatorThanadej SeehawongAnocha SamrongsapSound and Music ComposerPuripat SutthideeFoley ArtistGame MarketingTunyatorn Sangpunyaruk

Promotion and release