Home Alone

December 1990, cinema, Kevin McCallister screaming at the mirror and you know you have to have this. A year later, a box with the film's logo was sitting in the store, promising that you could play the whole adventure yourself. So I bought it. A mistake? Sort of.

Home Alone by Manley and Associates from 1991 is an action game for MS-DOS based on the first installment of the cult Christmas movie. You play as Kevin McCallister — a kid whose family forgot him at home in the pre-holiday rush and flew to Paris. The thieves know it and they're coming. Your task is to survive until help returns.

The game loop is simpler than the film would suggest. You move around the house, avoid the thieves, and find ways to handle the situation. The controls are straightforward, as they were on DOS — keyboard, no frills. The problem is that the game quickly shows all its cards and then just repeats the same situation over and over. The tension from your first playthrough fades on the second. The graphics are functional, the soundtrack from the computer speaker does its job, but you won't forget about it because it's good — rather because it was loud.

Why do we remember it at all? Mainly because of the license. The film was a phenomenon and anything with its logo sold. The game itself wouldn't have drawn attention, but as a Christmas gift under the tree — that was different. It aged predictably: what looked like a decent action title back then is today more of a historical document about how quickly film adaptations were churned out. Compared to the Game Boy version or other platforms, the DOS version has no particular advantage — nor disadvantage. It's simply average for its time.

Today I'd recommend it to one group of people: those who love the film and want to get their hands on every artifact from that era. As a nostalgic trip for a quarter hour, it works. As a game that would stand on its own without the movie's name on the box, it would probably have been forgotten long ago. You can run it in a browser via DOSBox without installation and without hassle — and that's probably the best thing that can be said about it technically. Kevin survived, the game too. Both just barely.