Home is Where One Starts... similar games & best alternatives

Home is Where One Starts... - Trailer
Home is Where One Starts... - home-is-where-one-starts_1.avif
Home is Where One Starts... - home-is-where-one-starts_2.avif
Home is Where One Starts... - home-is-where-one-starts_3.avif
Home is Where One Starts... - home-is-where-one-starts_4.avif
Home is Where One Starts... - home-is-where-one-starts_5.avif
Home is Where One Starts... - home-is-where-one-starts_6.avif

Home is Where One Starts...

Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac • 2015

Should you play it?

Home is Where One Starts... is a short, first-person exploration game in the same vein as Dear Esther or Gone Home. It’s a story about childhood, hope, and the miracle of memory. You play as a little girl from a broken home somewhere in the American South.

What works

  • Beautiful and melancholic narrative
  • Relaxing atmosphere and music
  • Free exploration with non-linear storytelling
  • Good voice acting
  • Affordable price especially on sale

Things to keep in mind

  • Very short gameplay duration
  • Minimal interactivity and challenge
  • Invisible walls limit exploration
  • Lack of subtitles for non-english speakers
  • Low replay value beyond achievement hunting

What to play next

Top picks

Games that feels the closest overall

  • Millennium Dream

  • The Berlin Apartment

  • Know by heart

  • Open Roads

  • Rainy Season

  • Summerland

More fantastical

Games that feels like Home is Where One Starts... but with more imaginative fiction

  • The Alien Cube

  • ENA: Dream BBQ

  • Paratopic

  • The Path

  • Born Into Fear

  • The Music Machine

Choose your own criteria ->

Similarity map

How to compare these games

Compare nearby games

Each card is a nearby game on the similarity map, compared with Home is Where One Starts.... Swipe sideways to move between games. Titles already listed in What to play next are left out.

  • Cover and title: open that game’s page.
  • What works / keep in mind: the same highlights as the desktop comparison panel.
  • Bars: the main motivational differences versus this game.
How to use the graph

Similarity map

Each dot is a game placed from its motivation profile relative to this page’s game. Direction shows which motivation differs most; distance along that axis shows how large the gap is.

  • Purple star: this page’s game at the centre — everything is relative to it.
  • Direction: each axis is a main motivational difference vs this game (e.g. more / less competitive).
  • Distance on an axis: how large that difference is (ring scales show +/− points).
  • Coloured chips: click to highlight games that mainly differ on that motivation; click again to reset.
  • Dotted line: link between this page’s game and the one selected for comparison.
  • Hover a dot to preview that game in the panel on the right; click to keep that comparison.
  • Scroll or double-click the chart to zoom.

How to read the map This is a polar difference map: direction = which motivation differs, and distance = how much (same units as the sidebar deltas).

Swipe to compare nearby games with Home is Where One Starts.... These titles are not in What to play next.

Home is Where One Starts...: Less representative of its motivational profile, with noticeable differences. Motivations that often define this kind of title include Survival, Violence, Competition, Thrill. Here, the score leans higher than usual among comparable games on Idle. It leans lower than usual among comparable games on Fantasy, Strategy.

Last update: 21/08/2026