Our Home.
A downloadable Visual Novel for Windows, macOS, and Linux
"Our Home." is a work of fiction that explores themes of escapism, self-determination, and the importance of deciding one's own path in life. What is important to you, and what do you wish to protect? What is home? Is it an idea, or a place to go?
Emily Westenson is the oldest daughter in her family. Faced with mounting responsibilities and stress, a family tearing itself apart, and a sense of drive and creativity that have all but vanished from her, Emily faces each day with cynicism and exhaustion. Is this the way it has to be? Does she have to go it alone?
Presented by a team of about 30 collaborating visual novel creators for NaNoRenO 2017 in a month's time, "Our Home." draws on challenges close to the heart of the creative soul. It explores mature subject matter, mixing wit, drama, romance, and heart.
FEATURES
-A story over 70k words long. An involved and deep reading experience
-Branching narratives and difficult decisions to make
-11 endings. Will you find love? Get your dream job? Make your dreams a reality?
-About 1.5k lines of fully voiced dialogue
-An evolving project that will be updated over time after its initial release
UPDATES
- 1.1 > We officially have permission to upload our large game on Itch servers! There are some minor fixes on voice lines, but we have bigger updates coming down the pipeline. Stay tuned!
- 1.0 > Initial NaNoRenO release! We had to give links to external sites since our game builds were too large...
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(Spoilers)
I played this game 2 years ago or something like that, I forgot a lot of it. But I'm reading people's reviews saying they got good endings first. And all I want to say is that I got a really really crappy ending the first time. I think first I got the ending where she sleeps by the window. Then for the non-early ending I got like the worst possible one where she is getting the groceries and gets annoyed Lauren has a s/o and fulfilling life, and then goes home and her siblings yell that she's just like mom. I didn't realize it was the worst possible ending (other than suicide and window one) until I looked into the files, and I realized that some choices add to stats, and I realized I got this ending cause I didn't have enough stats for the better ones. And its a little like bruh... Idk I get annoyed in games with multiple endings when you just get a bad ending because of not having enough stats
I mean I don't remember how "bad" the ending was for Emily, really, since it has been a while since I played it. I think it still had that cutscene which comes with all the other endings, where Emily talks to herself and she's like well it may not be the best ending possible, but this is how things turned out and let's accept that (or something like that, I completely forgot). But anyway at first I felt like this ending was really really bad and she hated her life, but that cutscene kind of mellowed/neutral'ed it.
Well I just wanted to say this in case anyone else can relate to my experience and also got that ending the first time and was like Bruh is that the end of the game.
And btw I wasn't even trying specifically to get to the bad ending, I just got there naturally
Some other random thoughts on the game
I think overall it was pretty dark. Don't know if it was "dark" or just psychological, but I would classify it as "dark"
That window ending where she just dies in her bed (the image file is called sleepdead.png or something like that) and the sinister music box soundtrack playing, left a really strong impression on me. That was kind of a horror-ish/supernatural element that she actually died just like that. Idk it just left a strong impression on me how she wanted to escape so bad from her life, her desire to do that was so strong that she just straight up died. She was like taken by the dreams or something. I don't really remember but I think it was different from the suicide ending, I think here she just falls into her dreams or something supernatural like that. Don't take my word as I read this 2 years ago. Or maybe it is just like some symbolism/allegory for suicide or subtance abuse.
And also the other dark thing, if you think about it Emily's level of escapism is really hardcore insane. Like some people do drugs, but, Emily literally has her own dream family in her mind that she likes more than her real family. It's like, she doesn't just want to escape, she wants to escape into a life that is pretty and perfect and the exact opposite of her reality.
I did not expect to sit down and binge this in a few hours, but it just about made me cry. If you're reading this wondering if you should play, give it a whirl. The story revolves around Emily, who's a young woman in a very dysfunctional family trying to keep everyone together. I grew up in an eerily similar situation, and it's almost funny how accurate some parts of the story are. Specifically, the combination of caring and resentment towards the mother, the alliance-like relationship of the siblings, the perspective of the absentee dad, and the realism of the lack of support from schools.
Sure, the graphics aren't all that great, but the story and the characters completely make up for it in my opinion. I got the Super Good ending the first try (because I've lived this situation lol), and while the romance plot leaves a little to be desired, I can't honestly say that I wasn't tearing up a bit at the conclusion. I like this game very much, so thank you to everyone that worked on it.
loved the game.
got two of the dream endings( suicide and choosing the dream)
and one full ending
any ending guide availabale to help see the rest?
I cried so much halfway through but I manged to get true romantic ending on first try! I dont think I am ready to play other endings but i really really enjoyed the game this is the first time in a while that VN managed to make me cry. Emily is super relatable and despite the fact there is only one romanceable character for her it was a nice change to have a focus on something else - family nonetheless which you do not see often in VN and gave the game more realistic approach. Also voicing acting is very good and really made me get even more indulged in game !
I have gotten all current endings but i still love this game, did anyone else cry while playing this game because i did.
I only did one play through of it but I think I'm satisfied with that. I extremely relate to Emily having lived through a similar situation with my parents. I also relate to her coping methods and while i realize its not healthy its really hard to break away from. It's an amazing game and it really impacted me and made me think a lot and maybe one day I'll try to get some different endings. Thank you for this wonderful, heart wrenching experience and I'm going to be looking into if you have other games and if so, I'll definitely look into playing them.
Haaahh.... oof. I just finished the game, I'll be honest, I didn't expect to be at my computer for nearly six or some odd hours with this game on only one playthrough. I downloaded Our Home a week or so ago while just collecting any yuri games that I hadn't already played (or had lost when my drive reformatted). I went through my downloads today and after two short other games (one of which I had played before) I unzipped and opened Our Home.
And holy catline I didn't expect what the game beheld... like... wow. I began with little expectation from the fact that some of the games I downloaded there mediocre looking if not just straight up boring. I was immediately surprised with the voice acting, personally I've never liked many VN voicing and this game isn't different but I left it on and the voicing kinda grew on me.
I played an entire playthrough and unexpectedly got a "Very Good End" (iirc). I love how the ending allowed me to make decicions that aren't good in nature, but are things I'd actually do if I was in the situation, but didn't punish me heavily for each and every one. I honestly expected the game to be over all the time, but it only actually concluded after most of the plots had been followed through. And I really should say that the whole story is fantastically written, I didn't expect to be as enraptured as I was.
The art is very meh and sometimes straight up bad but the thing that I most didn't like at first became something that fit so well by the end; that being the weird eyes, which now hold a lot better after seeing the story's themeing. There are little things everywhere: Lauren's sprites are out of place tonally, she shows her navel and in general wears a weird outfit seeing as her narrative purpose, the main character's—Emily's—sprites are all over the place and I feel like her design isn't even entirely complete (the ending CGs confused me seeing as the drawing had who I thought to be Emily holding Maria's hand but instead Maria was on the whole other end of the page). But that's of less matter, the art did its purpose and the artist should be happy with their work because even with what I said, I do like the art; Maria's sprites are especially adorable.
Music seemed fitting and worked well, I don't think any tracks got too played out or overused afir. The voice acting was fine for the most part though there are miscellaneous lines missing (such as Maria's reaction to the gift) all-throughout the game which, while don't detract massively from the game, are certainly jarring and unfortunate. One note I have if whoever Alex's actor is has a very interesting accent to the point where I was constantly trying to figure out if he was hiding an Australian accent or just had a more obscure one that was a tad more subtle.
[Possible spoilers past this point]
Our Home is definitely a new favourite of mine even if it didn't live up to what I thought would come of the reason I came. Which is to say, the yuri kinda sucked... it was good, well developed and I was really backing it and enticipating more... but remember when I said "most of the plots followed through"? Yeah, there's one big one that only really got very far after what equated to the end; Emily and Lauren don't have the best romantic plot. Maybe this game isn't supposed to be a romance VN and I'm missing the point, and I'm not saying that's what it is but I did think that the romance plot was a lot larger than mild flirting and loads of fruitless foreshadowing. The set up was really large with the dreams and everything but when it came down to the conclusion, it came out short. I thought there was going to be a little time focusing on the two between Alex's larger conclusion and Elizabeth's.
After the lead up, the sudden end was disappointing. Though perhaps I'm the only one who expected there to at least be a more solid Innate Imperfections date scene-esque scene wherein the character have a little banter beyond their--... y'know, I'm bad at explaining my idea as much as I am coming up with it. My point is that the Emily/Lauren subplot fell short of what it was seeming to lead up to. Whilst Our Home seems to have supposed to be emulating a very reality feel to it, and maybe a romance subplot doesn't fit well or something like that, but it feels like that's the one thing missing from the "Very Good End".
In the end: Our Home is a really great but long experience. The choices feel like they're well picked for being just that, choices. And the game, despite its downfalls, is really really well written. All the character are well made and feel real. I laughed and cried with Maria and Emily and the gang more than I'd like to admit and I've really grown attached to them. Thank you to Watercress and everyone who worked on this game, it really turned out well and I've thoroughly enjoyed just this first playthrough. I may not get all the endings since I doubt I'll play again until I come around and replay it like I sometimes do with my favourite games but I'm glad I got all the laughs and tears I did from this one.
Now then, I'm writing this on my phone for lack of internet connection on my desktop, thus I didn't write it as fast or as well as I would've hoped. My opinions here are a little... unorganised and thrown about but thank you for reading. If you have any doubts on whether to play Our Home, I'd say go for it, it's a ride you light just enjoy a lot.
Cheers~
This feels like DDLC all over again. I got the NF Vacation end first, then got the suicide ending. Dear god; my Heart.
What is The Discord for this? I can't Find a valid link.
Thank you for playing :)
Our Discord link is: https://discord.gg/watercress
Sorry for the late response!
Is it actually possible to get a brain damage ending? If so, how?
We're going to be remastering the whole game and uploading it to Steam sometime in the near future. When we do that, we'll make sure to create a route outline for anyone that wants to get all of the different endings. I can't say for certain if there's a 'brain damage' ending, considering many of the endings are up to interpretation. Generally speaking, choices that are bad for the family and the MC will lead to the bad ends - there are three bad ends in the first half of the game, and some bad ends at the end of the game. If I'm recalling correctly, there are 13 or so end scenes, with the very end of the game having a combination of different scenes depending on choices made (which is why there are so many end scenes). The best and the worst endings do have their own scenes that aren't made up of other scenes. If I find the time to get that outline to the public early, I'll let ya know!
~Tristan "Wolf" Barber, Watercress Studio Director/CEO
Right. I just wondered because after Alex OD's on heroine, there is a comment made that brain damage is possible. I was trying to get that end so I was a bit of a dick but not too much of one. But I always seem to be either too much of a dick (and Alex dies) or too nice (and Alex makes a full recovery)
If I'm remembering correctly, there isn't a brain damage ending for Alex. There are two other endings for the MC halfway through the game, however.
And that would explain why I can't get that ending. Thanks.
Sure thing :)
Any updates on this? I recently played this and really liked it, but noticed a lot of spelling errors and a few plot inconsistencies, such as Emily apparently having two birthdays, and her sewing machine magically reappearing in her house after giving it to Lauren. I went into the files to fix all the spelling errors, but I wouldn't want to mess with the plot too much, so it'd be really cool if there were an update to fix those minor issues.
Hi, I can't figure out how to get all the endings, and I can't find a guide anywhere on the internet. Could you make a guide?
Sorry for the late response! We'll look into making one when we remaster the game, considering how many endings there are :)
~Tristan "Wolf" Barber, Watercress Studio Director/CEO
Umm it has been a long time since I played this game so I am not sure
But if you play on Mac, and go into the files, I don't remember where or which files, but there are some files that contain dialogue, and show how choices affect variables, and they show you the variable value requirement for different endings
they are like internal files of the game I forgot which ones
I feel bad, i got the suicide ending on the first try
That's one of the early ends, there's still another half of the game out there. You can do it! I wrote that end myself, I hope we handled it well enough. Thanks for playing!
~Tristan 'Wolf' Barber, Watercress Studio Director
I will start my review of "Our home" with flaws and only after that will mention what the game did right.
The first flaw. The game railroads a player in some scenes. For example, if you decide that Maria should NOT take part in the intervention the game forces you to include her.
The second flaw. Maybe I was missing some hints because I was focused on the family so much, but it was complete surprise to me when in the ending I discoverd that the heroine has romantic feeling toward her friend.
The third flaw. Missed opportunity to show how the family would react to Emily confessing that she's a lesbian.
Now, what this game did right.
1.At the least my choices were such and such that I didn't even feel railroaded. The key choices that the game wanted just arose naturally on my the very first playthrough from my free will. And because it was my very first playthrough I even had illusion of freedom, that ALL events of the game unfolded as consequences of my free choices and I was very impressed by it. It almost looked like real life. My the only mistake was to play the game more than once because additional playthroughs allowed to explore mechanics of choices and destroyed the illusion of freedom.
2.The game tempted me to play it only once. It's good thing considering that further playthrough destroy its illusion of freedom. I was tempted because I got second best ending. Again, the ending too looked like it was from real life. In the real life we don't achieve perfectly good outcomes, there is always some bittersweet taste left. In my case it was lost chance for Emily to get married to person whom she loves. Besides, the characters became too alive, attempts to get different ending looked like sociopathic manipulation of a time-traveler (Like "What if I go back in time and will respond differently? How will this person react then?").
3.It's slice of life, without any supernatural or fantastic elements. You managed to make the game interesting without resorting to fantastic elements.
4.The characters behave more-or-less realistically. The only one who behaves strangely is Elizabeth, but she's probably just mentally ill.
5.Although there is element of romance, the game doesn't focus on it too much (although probably it gone little overboard with defocusing on romance here because, as I already mentioned, it was really a surprise for me to discover that it even existed) because what this story definitely don't need is Yet Another Cheesy Romance.
6.The story is very specific and as story unfolds you learn more about the characters. It makes it much easier to feel connected to the characters.
I agree I didn't expect the romance either
It is criminal that is only $0.00 and there's not even a "Name your own price" option. This was an incredible effort for only a month's work (and helps I got the Super Good End on the first run). I'll be "buying" My Girlfriend is a Demon for extra to make up for this.
I got most of the endings, but I'm missing 5 and 10.
Thank you so much for the support! We had donations on by accident, and turned them off because it was a volunteer project. We donated the $101 we got from it to charity. Thanks for donating, it's extremely helpful to us. I'm glad you liked the game too!
~Wolf, Watercress Studio Director
Now this is a story, captivating as it is realistic. Bitter and sweet and all the emotions in between. This is a story of morals and "what ifs". This is what a book looks like in a Visual Novel format. Superb job.
Thank you so much! It definitely hit close to home for a lot of us, and is a story I personally really wanted to tell. Thanks for playing it!
~Wolf, Watercress Studio Director
Really long game,captivating story (although needed some backstory,but it's okay since it is a jam game),well written code and well... Great well made game,thanks
Thank you so much for your support! Glad to hear you enjoyed it :D
~Wolf, Studio Director
I recently played this and I have to say, it was fantastic! The art could definitely be a lot better, frankly, but the voice acting and the writing were very superb! I'm going to write a full review of it when I get more time, hopefully soon (which I'm going to link here, hehe). Thank you so much for this game! :")
Thank you so much for the review! We're working on replacing a lot of the art (dear god the BGs, they were SUPER rushed), and making sure it is a bit more polished for Steam release. We'll have a whole new spriteset and the ability to choose between the two as well.
Thanks for the feedback, it means a lot to us!
~Wolf, Studio Director
Well... I really like this game.
It has only one sigle small defect. The graphic style. Well... It's not as good as it should be... But it's only a little detail. And it's easy get used to it.
Music and sounds are good. Voices are very well done. And I really like that you putted them in game.
But the best part of this game is plot. And dialogues. It's real masterpiece. Seroiusly one of the best (and maybe even the best) of the plots I've seen in game. It's very serious and deep. A bit sad but also gives the player a chance to reach the happiest and best ending for all the bad things that happened in our protagonist's life. And I'm proud of myself I've got the heppiest plausible ending :D .
Characters are very great. All of them have their own, different personalities, roles in plot.
And it's very long like for visual novel and indie game
Thank you for the input! We're going to be releasing it with updated graphics on Steam sometime later this year. We only had a month to develop the entire game from scratch, so we had to cut a lot of corners. Again, thank you so much for your kind words!
~Wolf, Studio Director
It keeps getting deeper as I continue this let's play series. Emily envisioning her brother as a good, guy in reality he....
This game is amazing! I went through it in one go, the story is quite sad but I got a satisfying ending :)) i love this game
Thank you for playing it! I love our bad ends too :)
~Wolf, Studio Director
dus dees got sum yuri en et
ye, but not the focus fam
~Wolf, Studio Director
I may or may not have stayed up until 2 AM playing this and I cried so much. Thanks for moving me.. :')
Thank you! I'm glad we stayed up to 2 AM to get the game out on time :P I hope you enjoyed it!
~Wolf, Studio Director
I have no words to describe how this game is great.
No words are needed :)
~Wolf, Studio Director
Hello Watercress! It's been 56 days since I last made a video on this.
I apologize! You guys have worked really hard on this game and, I can't believe time went by so fast before I picked this up again! This is the second part but, there is plenty more for me to record in this. It's so emotional already and, I know I have just scratched the surface of this! I know you told me a month ago you were updating things. Hope progress has been going well!
All's good, take your time :D
Yeah, we're still working on it. We'll let you know when we're done :P
Thank you for playing it!!
~Wolf, Studio Director
Wow, this is truly a great game, definitely one of the best VNs I've ever read!
Thank you!!! It'll be better once it hits Steam :)
~Wolf, Studio Director
This game was really good!!!!! Honestly one of the best visual novels I've played in a while!
Thank you so much :)
~Wolf, Studio Director
Just wanted to ask, you can make choices that affect the game right? Because I recently bought a visual novel which for some reason had no choices to make, and was just a straight story set in stone, with no interactions for the player to make. Just wanted to make sure I'm not making the same mistake again. Thanks.
Sorry for the late response! This game has 11 different endings, and the choices you make very much impact the ending you get. Some choices are 'fluff' choices, but most of them are weighted.
~Wolf, Studio Director
Thank you so much!
~Wolf, Studio Director
Great Voice Acting in an original novel. Well done!
Thank you for doing a play-through of the first fifteen minutes! It's always nice to see youtubers play our games. It also helps us catch some of our mistakes (and for a month long jam game, there are plenty of them). Expect a fully edited and improved script in the future! Thanks again.
~Wolf, Studio Director
Hello Watercress no problem on the play through! I will be doing more than 15 minutes of this game but, for now the first 15 was a blast! Thank you for developing this game!
It's our pleasure! We'll be sure to send you a Steam key once we put it on Steam (for free, but you'll be able to play it early, with all the updated art and scripting). I look forward to more playthroughs by you, no matter the game!
Wolf, Studio Director
I'm flattered you would watch even if not your projects! It really means alot! You really have a great game probably the first i've seen with so much voice acting. Each character plays their role so well! Excited for the updated scripting keep in touch with me for that! Thank you once again Watercress!
Your welcome! See you then :)
Thank you for taking the time to play our game! I'm glad it resonated with you so well, it means we accomplished our goal :)
~Wolf, Studio Director
I should have been asleep 4 hours ago, but I had to keep playing this. I don't even have words for how much I enjoyed this game - this story. This was an experience; a well-written, believable, and relatable one. The characters and the world feel real in every way. I became easily invested and found myself nearly in tears several times. I only finished two of the endings and look forward to exploring to find more. I am very impressed with this project! I cannot believe it was made in a month's time. It has so much heart. Thank you for sharing!
We're very, very happy that you like it so much! Feel free to join us in our discord (https://discord.gg/DmxMKHY) to discuss it with us there! We'd love to hear about your experience, and which endings you've gotten so far! Thanks again for playing our game :D
~Wolf, Studio Director
so this is only GxG and there is only one RO?
Sorry for the late reply! It is only GxG with only one RO. The focus of the story is on the MC and her struggles; the romance isn't the main focus. Hope that helps :)
~Wolf, Studio Director