Being Kelly Meyers seems trivial at first, as you’re tasked with holding down the right trigger to accelerate. The grey on white graphics do little at first, but sit uneasy on the eye as the simplistic elements on display repeat. As a vision of Nebraska, it’s a lonely, jarring vision, and it’s reinforced by a similar gameplay experience, that is until the story kicks in.
Three Fourths Home isn’t a game, per se, but more an interactive story, with gameplay mechanics that are inherently simple. You’re not given any instructions bar button prompts, but the game fares all the better for it.
Kelly is returning home after a day out at the old barn, a place that’s been in your family for a while. Your character is part of an average American family struggling to make ends meet. It’s a familiar picture, where Kelly’s mother is struggling to work and look after the family. Your father had a car accident, lost a leg (although he still feels it), and your brother (Ben) appears to have some issues of his own. He used to play guitar, but these days, writes short stories. They’re brilliant, but let’s come on to that later.
The game, without giving any spoilers is in two parts. Firstly, you’re driving home, and you need to keep driving home. Secondly, you’re having a phone conversation with your mother, and the rest of your family whilst driving home. In a storm. There’s nothing more to it than this, but that’s the beauty of this gem of a game. It’s simple, because the best things often are.
While you’re having this well thought out story, you’re driving, by holding down the accelerator, occasionally considering if it’s ok to stop. But while that’s going on, you’re having this conversation, learning more about your family, and becoming invested in the outcome. It’s effective, and affecting, and something all too rare in traditional videogames.
With the extended edition, there’s additional content, including another chapter, in Minnesota, where Kelly is at collage studying Photography. Her work is ok, but as her teacher says in her report (one of the exceptional extras), it seems a bit half arsed. Rushed, even. Again, Kelly has the option to have a conversation with her mother, which takes place a few months prior to the main story. You can actually choose not to have this conversation, which is interesting, but not nearly as rewarding.
The care and attention to detail in the writing is evidenced across the game and its extras, including Ben’s stories, which are compelling reading. There’s even an achievement for reading all of them, but it’s an achievement well earned, because they’re original and interesting, regardless of whether you read or not.
There isn’t too much to do, though, and the game and its additional content are oven in a couple of hours at most. But, those couple of hours are greatly enjoyable because of the emotional connection you have with the characters, and the simple construct in which they’re portrayed. Three Fourths Home is a game that feeds your imagination, compels your engagement and rewards you for doing something slowly being lost as technology takes over our lives; the enjoyment of reading, and the craft of writing.
Three Fourths Home is inexpensive, and enjoyable, but there won’t be too much in the way of replay value. However, the world created [Bracket} Games is one you’ll want to be involved in, and is offers originality enough for you to head over to the developer’s website to check out their other games – http://www.bracket-games.com/.
I really, really like Three Fourths Home, and I’d be amazed if you didn’t feel the same.
