Get out of bed. Leave Home. Explore.

No Longer Home’s trailer puts on show all the makings of a typical year at university; the lazy art form characteristic of what you’d expect from too much Life is Strange, the Pink Floyd like slumber, the urge to curl up in bed and die.

You won’t find any of those listed in Humble Grove’s list of inspirations however, firstly because its design sensibilities are based off terms you’d typically find yourself Googling on a Thursday morning – Psychogeography and Scenography, for instance.

Then of course there’s the fact that No Longer Home is semi-autobiographical in nature, an interpretation of the emotional and psychological hurdles combated by the game’s lead developers as they struggled with post-graduation adulthood.

Any further attempts to describe how the game plays out are likely to fall short; Ethan of One Angry Gamer tried last year, and he called it a 2D looking game in a 3D vector box. Even so, the episodic series invites players into the minds of flat mates Ao and Bo as they happen to procrastinate over leaving South East London.

This is done by clicking, rotating and inspecting the diorama like designs of the flat’s rooms, while engaging in branching choice-based dialogue with its inhabitants that include a five-eyed bass-guitar loving…thing.

https://www.facebook.com/humblegrove/videos/2545893075636377/

Themes explored include gender issues, housing, immigration and really, that’s all there is to 29, the first chapter of No Longer Home in development since 2015. 29 will be released free of charge, with any funds you contribute towards No Longer Home’s Kickstarter campaign going towards development of subsequent episodes.

These will feature Ao and Bo eventually moving out of their flats, consist of more fictionalized characters, and continue the subject of emotional/physical displacement. Backers will be granted no-additional cost access to all future releases, even as 29 currently sits on Steam with a 2018 release label.

https://www.facebook.com/humblegrove/videos/2547088508850167/

The first chapter is 70% complete and is preceded by a prequel, Friary Road, that you can play now on itch.io. For a further study of the brains behind the series meanwhile, try the official website.