HOST Reviews

HOST is the first game I've played that gets what VR can do. When you take away the health bars and ability combos and clear-cut levels of the past, what is a game but a chance to put yourself in a whole different world! The game starts on an alien world with dark tunnels, glowing lights, and a puzzling landscape. But most fun are the questions the story raises. Why did I land on this planet? How did my spacecraft crash? What will become of the planet and me? I'm excited to see what they do with all of that. The game seems to be broken up into different "levels", but it is unfair to call them that in the traditional sense. These spaces each have their own mysteries you solve to move on to the next area. I don't want to spoil the finale, but the makers of HOST are promising a story to take you deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. (Hint: Explore with your hands AND eyes, and don't rush through the puzzles. Half of the fun is the audio and visuals and the hair-raising feeling it gives you.)

Unique, aesthetically interesting and engaging, immersive, sense of place. Great short sci-fi work in VR. As mentioned under 'VR Support', requires a play area of at least 3m x 2m. Takes advantage of the full play area with simple, thoughtful design. This is a small game, small in scope, very short. It is very well done, unique, and memorable. Bought on sale for $8 and would recommend.

Cool concept, very dark and kind of gross. Fun to figure out how to play as you go; I've never played anything like this. Good use of room scale (didn't feel like I needed to actually move around my room, but nice to be able to stand up and move arms around w/o hitting anything).

Amazing! This is the kind of thing I want to see in VR: immersive environments and slow-paced, thoughtful puzzles. I think the sound design sucked me in the most. I didn’t want it to end -- definitely looking forward to more content!

HOST is a triumph of immersive VR. The game mechanics and imagery alone express the unique narrative and let us see deep into the creative's mind. A very inspiring and special experience.

$9.99 might feel pretty steep to most people. Not trying to undermine the hard work and time invested into this, just being honest about the overall value to the average gamer. It's only about 15 minutes total gameplay currently so feels more like a free prologue then a "chapter 1". That being said, the visuals are incredible! Almost everything you touch reacts to your presence which only pulls you deeper into the eerie world. Gameplay doesn’t really challenge you enough for me to call this a puzzle game and I think a more accurate classification would be an “interactive walking simulator” which is absolutely fine if that's what the dev is going for. The strange atmosphere and cinematic presence is enough to carry the game and keep you exploring, but I could see some insanely unique and interesting puzzles coming which would help extend the experience. I do recommend this but I hope the dev can find the budget and motivation to really turn this into a full experience that’s worth the money. Something about the use of purple and green really triggers some strong emotions and the sound design really creates this unsettling atmosphere but also keeps you wanting more.

Very enjoyable, with great use of roomscale. It's currently light on content, but more chapters seems to be in the works. I'm looking very much forward to them.

Rad environment design and great use of small room-scale space. If you like short creepy puzzles, check this out. For the dev: I saw in the recommended settings "Additional Notes: For the best immersive experience, change your Chaperone settings to be minimal and dark." Would be nice to see this tip at the beginning of the game since I didn't think about it until most of the way through the game and it definitely helps the ambiance and atmosphere to see less play-space outlines.

I bought this immediately when I saw it was a true room scale game with no locomotion - IMO the real value of VR. And because it was on sale. I would probably NOT have bought it at the normal full price of $10. At this point in early access it's not good. Two main parts, the first of which is just a simple push-buttons-to-open-doors circular-labyrinth VERY similar to similar true-room-scale game Unseen Diplomacy. The second is a very weird and seemingly half-broken puzzle that I managed to get past, but am genuinely unsure if I actually properly 'solved'. And then it's over. Total playtime less than a half-hour. It's MUCH darker in-game than in the trailers, to a real fault, I think. Buy this game only if you're fully aware of what you're getting - mostly just the sense of satisfaction of supporting the developer and the hope that there will be more. I'd suggest the EA price should be much lower, for what there currently is. EDIT: It's been over a year with no updates (since the initial release), no contact at all with the dev. It is safe to call this one abandoned, and so I must change my recommendation.

The game's idea is good but for me, it is not fun enough to compensate for getting tired by its room scale boring interactions. As of the video and screenshots, the atmosphere seems to be intended as a colorful version of Lovecraft / Beksiński style, organic and creepy. However, the lighting is not that good, during VR gameplay the environment doesn't look as good as the screenshots, rather, seems darker and dull.