Home Safety Hotline

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Answer the phones at a 1990s pest hotline. Some pests are not pests.

Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (91% of 2,966 reviews)
Length: about 2 hours, more with the Seasonal Worker DLC
Players: 1
Made by: Night Signal Entertainment
Released: 2024

Get it on Steam Night Signal Entertainment

What frightens As a 1996 helpline operator, you match callers' descriptions of what is in their homes to entries in an old computer database; ordinary mice and mould give way to stranger, hostile things, and a wrong answer leaves the caller to suffer the consequences.
Content: insects and spiders (can be hidden with phobia toggles), disturbing images, death.

Home Safety Hotline is an analog-horror operator game set in 1996. You answer calls from worried homeowners, listen to what they hear and see, and search a vast pest and hazard database on a period computer to tell them what is in their house, while the entries, and the callers, grow stranger.

About Home Safety Hotline

Home Safety Hotline is by Nick Lives of Night Signal Entertainment, the creator of NiGHT SIGNAL and A Wonderful Day For Fishing. It came out on Steam in January 2024 and on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch in September 2024, published there by Puppet Combo, with the Seasonal Worker DLC included.

You sit at a 1990s computer as an operator for a home safety helpline. Callers describe noises in the walls, smells, damage and things glimpsed around the house. You listen, search the catalogue of common pests and household hazards, and submit your answer. The first calls are about mice, flies and mould; then the database begins to hold entries about things that should not exist, some of them locked until you are trusted with them.

The horror comes from reading and listening more than from seeing. The entries are written in the flat tone of an official manual, the photos are grainy, and the training videos and commercials on the desktop have the look of an old TV broadcast. Each wrong answer has a consequence you learn about later, and the company you work for has its own secrets.

It is a short game with a deduction puzzle at its heart and a lo-fi jazz soundtrack, and it has phobia toggles that hide images of spiders and other common triggers. It suits fans of analog horror and of desk-bound horror like Iron Lung and I'm on Observation Duty.

How to play Home Safety Hotline

Take each incoming call and listen to the caller's description, replaying it as needed.
Search the pest and hazard catalogue on the computer for entries that match what they describe.
Compare the details carefully, then submit the entry you think is right.
Unlock new entries as the days go on, and check the desktop's videos and messages between shifts.

Screenshots

Home Safety Hotline key art: a pink desk telephone with its handset wrapped in green vines, a dark spiny shape behind it

Home Safety Hotline screenshot: an old video player showing a grainy training film of a dark staircase with the words Hazards such as: Metamorphosis

Tips

Listen for small details such as smells, times of day and marks; they separate similar entries.
Read the Danger and Solution sections; they often confirm a match.
Use the phobia toggles in the options if spiders or insects bother you.