Overview
if you played the game, got all achievements, and have no clue what did just happen
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credits: big thank to @micaityl, who made a full walkthough of “At Home Alone II”
“At Home Alone” serves as a demo-game (an introduction) the the full game that inconveniently titled “At Home Alone II”
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“At Home Alone II” is a full story, that is given, as expected, in a bad English with lots of dubious, misleading and plain weird scenes and dialogues. making sense of both demo and full game is hard, and so that guide is here
guide contains the whole story of the game, including At Home Alone II – read at you own will
noone knows where Demon came from, but ancient tribes were well-known of his presence and treat him with both fear and respect. for what is known Demon appears in our world in a form of crow and, supposedly, uses people’s energy (spirit/soul) to feed himself. Demon devours people’s soul, but not in a traditional way (with a fork and spoon) – he drinks its sadness, tragedy, numbness and agony. he seeks a way to secure a soul and trap to feed on its helplessness forever
Demon has two apprentices that serve him – a Killer, who lives among people and kills whoever be good to Demon’s taste, and an Architect, who creates illusory world to trap souls of people for Demon’s appetite. both Killer and Architect are, supposedly, immortal, live for long time and have no physical bodies
in the story Killer looks like an orange-hair adult man and Architect looks like a young girl with a yellow hair (it is not their true forms, they just look like this). Killer represented by red color, Architect by blue color
for a long time Demon used the souls of adult people to feed himself, but at some point decided to use the children. Killer started to seriously doubt and oppose Demon’s agenda, but being his subordinate cannot truly do so (apparently demon is able to destroy Killer on his will)
Heroine lived with her mother. one day she has noticed a cute-looking girl with a yellow hair with whom she wanted to play together, but was afraid to talk with her. she also has noticed a weird-looking man with orange-hair, who creepily stalked her
it was Killer, and he has done a job he was told to do – he killed Heroine at 13 of some unnamed month (he didn’t “escape” – it is just a bad translation)
Architect trapped Heroine’s soul in a trap, making her to feed Demon with her sadness and agony. meanwhile, police arrived, arrested and tried to get Killer into a custody but their car crashed and all passengers (including Killer) were dead
being supernatural being, Killer was expecting to be reborn as a new person (as usual), but it didn’t happen and instead of that he has appeared inside the Heroine’s trap. it happened because Demon no longer trusted him and was thinking about a way to get rid of him or teach a lesson
Demon was shocked when he have found that he is unable to devour Heroine’s soul. apparently her subconscious was struggling so hard against Demon’s influence that he couldn’t to do anything with it. he has appeared toward Heroine, who was tremendously afraid and scared, and proposed her a deal – he will return her back (a false promise), but in return she has to “kill it” (her will, subconscious, anything that messes with Demon’s intentions). struggling to understand what Demon wants from her, Heroine agreed and this is where a game starts
Heroine was locked in her own little world, created by Architect
everything she sees inside that world is her own projections and parts of her mind:
- a girl with yellow hair – a projection of true world, a real memory and a real “happening”
- a boy with orange hair – a projection of her soul
- a boy with blue hair – a projection of her mind, that tries to find an exit and prevent bads from happening
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both cycles are more and less the same. everything that is going on can be seen in metaphorical and non-literal sense. Heroine is lost and doesn’t know what to do. she is trying to play with Orange-boy only to be scold by Blue-boy. the latter is trying to protect everybody from bad happenings but fails every time. Orange-boy (which represents the most fragile part of her – her soul) dies in that trap over and over again. and whenever Orange-boy dies – a Heroine will die too, because they are each other, both parts of the same
also important that Heroine sees a Yellow-girl here and is trying to take her into her world (a created trap), but cannot do this – sad but Heroine is too-dead to be a part of a real world anymore
this is where things are happened differently. lifeless and emotionless Heroine start seeing Orange-boy as a instrument that should be killed (or sacrificed) to the Demon, according to their agreement. she begs him to join “them” (Demon’s victims) and tried to kill him (or be more metaphorical – kill her soul for a demon)
things gone wrong when her soul start feeling that everything around is fake and is trying to escape from it, but fails miserably
Demon is displeased that Heroine cannot kill her soul for him (or rather her soul is too strong to be consumed by him); he laments that in future need to find easier ways to feed himself (because using children’s souls is not that easy as he thought, their stubbornness is outstanding)
meanwhile, Heroine is stuck in her own world, cursed to relive the same things over and over. it is turned into one highly twisted, bizarre and glitched world she is forced to live in, until she gives up her soul to Demon
few crazy cycles later soul was completely exhaustion and no longer tried to protect herself and Heroine finally destroyed it (gave up to the Demon). after that the world turned black-&-white and Heroine lose any will, and ability to speak. she is destroyed and vanished, Demon ate her soul
in that decayed state Killer appeared and explained his part of story and a struggle with Demon, he agreed to give part of soul (or whatever he has left) to Heroine to let her live further in that Trap and prevent Demon from destroying her. he begs her to find a Door and escape that trap
Demon figured out what Killer has done and sent Architect to prevent Heroine from escape. Architect took the form of Yellow-girl in order to trick and seduce Heroine in staying in the trap. she is trying to be extremely polite, kind and charming
however at some point she took a sinister turn and bluntly told that Killer is a liar and wants to confuse Heroine and she shall not seek that Door. Heroine didn’t believe her, found it, broke and escaped
at the end Heroine confronted Demon just to be scold by the latter, like what she is going to do? yes, she escaped from a trap and now stuck with Demon in his world, is it better? yes, she escaped from her illusion, but for what point? Demon acknowledged Heroine’s will and promised to trap her little mind in a better place with her mother; after all she is dead and there is no way to escape. it is better for her to acknowledge a situation and deal with it
in other words – she is trapped forever in her delirious world. fin
a second depth and meaning of the story is revealed through ambiguous Killer’s monologue, that could be interpreted in a way, that the whole game and story is just a Heroine’s post-death fantasy of a soul who cannot accept her own death, and who is lying to herself that she still has a chance
Demon is not something malicious, but more a Styx-like figure, who is trying to calm her down and make her to accept her death. all those crazy talks and visions, all those backstage intrigues are just her own mind and nothing more. “Demon” has tried until the last to put sense into her, but she is stubborn and highly hallucinating, while being stuck in a limbo
the ending could be interpreted in both way: as she managed to accept her demise (because she walked away with “Demon”) and as being still stuck in her own little twisted world (judging from “Demon”‘s final words)
if you want to thank me……then check my guide about fixing various game issues: launching, crashing, optimization, stuttering, gamepads, etc. the guide is huge, but the topic is broad to begin with
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