Games worth discovering

Finding True Love Among Faked Deaths and Mystery - If Only I Could Go Home Early Review

16K View2022-08-25

We’ve all been there. We’ve all been overworked, underpaid, and undervalued at one point in our careers, and we’ve all needed to put in a hard day’s work at the office. And when five o’clock rolls around, nothing brings more anticipation and joy than the prospect of going home and relaxing after an exhausting day. Now imagine walking into your home and seeing your spouse, partner, or lover with a sword stuck in their back, and you’ve got If Only I Could Go Home Early.

Developed by Wushi Games, If Only I Could Go Home Early is a point-and-click puzzle-adventure that tells the story of a young man with a wife who consistently likes to play dead. Despite the oddity of that premise, it is also, in many ways, a love story. To make the wife happy, you need to find new ways to wake her up, because, as the game description mentions, “The floor is cold, and you love her.”

The gameplay of If Only I Could Go Home Early is easy to master. This point-and-click adventure is level-based, with the wife finding a new way to fake her death every time the main character makes his way home. The goal is to scour the stage and solve various puzzles to get her to wake up. Though not impossible, the puzzles get more challenging as the levels increase. I had a pretty hard time figuring out certain puzzles—not due to their difficulty per se, but the pixelated artwork made it difficult to read some letters and numbers.

I’m not ashamed to admit I had to use my colleague Jason’s walkthrough when stuck on some of the harder stages. Admittedly, it would be nice to have some in-game direction on what to do for some of the puzzles, especially in the later levels of the game, rather than simply relying on pure trial and error. On top of the obscure nature of some of the puzzles, the game’s dialogue boxes move pretty quickly, which can lead to even more confusion due to missed information.

However, I still had fun playing If Only I could Go Home Early. It managed to make me think, which is the true test of any puzzler. Moreover, the game is short, so I didn’t have to invest a ton of time, which made the completionist in me very happy.

Some user reviews have complained about glitches throughout the game, but I didn’t experience any in my playthrough. What I DID run into was a serious complication in the downloading process. If Only I Could Go Home Early is available on the iOS App Store for $1, but after downloading it for this review, I could only access the Chinese version of the game. What’s even more strange is that the game descriptions on the App Store is all in English, and English is listed as the game’s language, so it was pretty confusing. I ended up borrowing an Android phone to play the whole game in English. iPhone users, beware!

For those more interested in If Only I Could Go Home’s story, there is a larger narrative about why the wife is playing dead, and I believe the developer is trying to spread a message about companionship with this game. However, I’ll let you play it yourself and skip the spoilers here. If Only I Could Go Home Early is a creative title with some cool artwork and funky puzzles that kept me entertained.

SCORE: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Puzzles. If Only I Could Go Home Early is all about the puzzles. Give it a try if you like solving puzzles or games that challenge you to think.

• Point-and-click games. If Only I Could Go Home Early utilizes a point-and-click-based gameplay system for players to find objects and solve mysteries. If you’re into these games, you might find this one worth your attention.

💬 Did you find the puzzles in If Only I Could Go Home Early challenging or easy? And what are your favorite pixelated 2D games?

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