Gaymers, this one’s for you. Coming on July 30, a brand new game No Longer Home introduces you to the world of Bo and Ao, a couple of queer, non-binary friends and roommates. 

In the game’s storyline, the pair are graduating from university and preparing to leave the flat they’ve shared together for the previous year. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they face being unwillingly separated as Ao must return to Japan. The game sees them struggle to accept their uncertain futures, and deep under their South London apartment, “something grows”. Very mysterious!

No Longer Home finds the extraordinary within the ordinary as players wander through the characters’ intimate living quarters examining their belongings, having barbecues, playing games, gossiping – all of the typical day-to-day activities of queer enbys.

The story is semi-autobiographical and has been created by the minds behind Humble Grove, a two-person games collaborative. Development duo Cel Davison and Hana Lee were similarly forced to opposite sides of the world after university, and decided to stay in touch through working on this game. No Longer Home served as a means to express and explore the emotions attached to saying goodbye, and it aims to study how playful navigation of a place can tell a story.

According to VICE, the game (formerly known as 29) is “a reflection on those precarious few months surrounding the end of university, channeled through a point and click aesthetic in the vein of Kentucky Route Zero.” 

In its review, The Guardian crowns it as showcasing “the magical in the everyday domestic drudgery.”

The game is being published by Fellow Traveller, an indie label specialising in unusual projects with narrative at their core. It will be available to play on Steam, and its prequel, Friary Road, is currently available on Itch and will be included in the released version of No Longer Home.