Hello, this is my second guide ever so if picture placement or word style seems off, it's due to the fact that I am still learning. The reason I've made this guide is not only to aid players, but to assist in guide designing for myself and create a repoire with the gaming community on Steam.
Home is Where One Starts... is a short, yet beautiful and carefully crafted environmental exploration game. It features about 5 to 20 minutes of gameplay and needs at least 2 playthroughs to achieve everything the game has to offer. If the length worries you on both an entertainment and economic standpoint, I can tell you that the final product is a real gem among games in the genre and can be artistically appreciated. Its settings also offer extremely nice screenshot opportunities for social media or desktop backgrounds. Especially now with the HD update.

Home is Where One Starts... includes 8 Steam Achievements, many interactive items and audio tracks, and some secrets that make the story more immersive.

The Achievements and Items are set up as follows to make the guide have an understandable path:

1st Run - Standalone Achievement
1. Apathy - Waiting 3 Minutes For The Bus

2nd Run
2. Bliss - Climbing the Hay Bale
3. Sown By The Mountain - Staring At The Stencil
4. Dakota - Witnessing The Dog Run Away
5. Best Intentions - Discover The Thrown Flask
6. The Sun Will Rise - All Narrations Heard
7. Sentamentalist - All 17 Interactive Items
8. Now Fly - Unlocking The Shed and Getting The Bicycle

Since the Apathy Achievement can be attained right in the starting position and not moving for 3 minutes I figured I would list this first. To my knowledge you can still look around. However, I believe any steps taken will invalidate the achievement, forcing you to restart. This is an achievement that requires its own separate playthrough and will close the game after the narrator's dialogue ends and the screen fades to black. It doesn't sound like the most exciting start, but the resulting narration adds to the beautifully tragic feel to this ending of the game.

Thanks to the community, we know that it is exactly 3 minutes or 180 seconds, about the length of most songs, so cue up a favorite and have a little jam session while you wait.

Bliss is the Achievement closest to the starting point of the game.

Across the street there is a small pond surrounded by hay bales. Referencing the order of this guide, this is where you'll receive the 2nd Narration, but 1st Memory. The narrator will say how she loved fishing and how she conquered climbing a hay bale in her childhood. There is no "jump" ability (Stanley feels your pain), but your reticle will change at the back of the hay bale (where there's a line of flowers), allowing you to climb up. You'll get the achievement once you're on top.

Sown By The Mountain is achieved by staring at the Stencil against the wall of the abandoned shack in the back of the field past the lone standing chimney and well.

I believe the time limit for the achievement to activate is a few seconds to a minute, possibly a little longer.

As you approach the boxes of dog biscuits you'll here a sound of barking and the narrator tells you of how she remembers the neighbor's dog. There actually is a dog here, but he runs away and is visible for mere seconds. This area is behind the shack, following the fence passed a few downed branches and bramble. There is now a spot of light on the ground to distinguish this area.
The achievement Dakota should trigger about half-way through the narration.

The Best Intentions achievement is gained by discovering where the narrator threw her father's flask in the woods. There are 2 really great ways of finding it.
1). You can walk from the East of Eden Novel and head diagonally and you'll find it. You can see the Wooden Fort in the background here to help with the location.
2.) You can walk from the Locked Shed (where your bike is kept) until you find it far back in the woods. This is how it should look coming from the shed after a small hill.

Either way our girl has a hell of a throwing arm.

The Sun Will Rise Achievement is the longest of course since it requires all narrations in a single play of the game. There are certain landmarks and objects that act as triggers for these narrative tracks. You will naturally discover the 8 Memories through playing the game. These will guide you to the eventual "Brave" line of dialogue which makes the player character remember the Key item.
The only narrative track that is not necessary is the one at the end of the Apathy Achievement, but that would be paradoxical for this run anyway.

In similar order to how we've been going:

1. Starting Sequence

2. Pond

3. Abandoned Shack

4. Dog Treat Boxes

5. The Forest Fort

6. The Graveyard

7. The Path From The Graveyard

8. Discovering the Flask

9. Entering the Trailer (Either Door Will Prompt)

10. Entering the Narrator's Room

"11." As previously mentioned, after you have the 8 Main Memories Collected, the narrator will talk about being "Brave" and remember the key. For my run, this was right after The Narrator's Room Memory.

12. Riding The Bicycle To The End

This is a section dedicated to the Sentamentalist Achievement, or all the interactive items within Home is Where One Starts.... Finding and examining all these items leads to the special ending after riding the bike where the player ends up riding in a field of flowers instead of the screen simply turning black and rolling the credits.

I'll start with the obvious starting point and travel in the clearest most comprehensive line to aid in the best clarity for everyone, the same pattern that I've tried to do for the rest of the guide.

Items 1-11 are found in the outside areas, while items 12-17 are found inside the trailer's rooms and a closet. Besides these items there are several interaction points with the same change to the reticle, but they do not affect the Sentimentalist Achievement.

1. Elephant Backpack
2. Letter
3. Fishing Pole
4. Baseball Bat
5. Spray Can
6. Dog Treat Box
7. Soccer Ball
8. East of Eden Novel
9. Flask
10. "Glass" Slipper
11. Duck
12. Music Jewelry Box
13. Wooden Bunny
14. Electronics Do's and Dont's Book
15. Bible
16. The Middle Parts of Fortune Book
17. Knife

The Now Fly achievement is the technical "Beating the Game" achievement of Home is Where One Starts...

You must have discovered at least the Main 8 Memories in order for an audio track to play that tells you how the narrator felt "Brave" and then tells you about a Key in her father's room in the trailer. This track must play before you can access the key's location, otherwise the drawer will remain locked.
There is no Hud or Inventory to show you have the Key, but it will allow you to unlock the padlock on the Locked Shed. Head there now.
Once you enter you will see a pink bicycle. The reticle will change over it and you can now ride around. This is the end of game trigger and all the invisible walls around the map disapear, however, this sequence lasts around 15 seconds, but it is extremely fun to ride down the street past neighbors' houses to no longer be "locked up" the same way your bike was.

The achievement should trigger once the credits begin.

This currently is the 7th version of a video guide that I have done. I'm not very happy with the video quality and I'm going to look into re-recording a video for this section. As of right now, this will be in place of a hopefully much better video. I hope this can do for the time being.

If you get all narrations, all items, and start riding around on your bicycle, instead of the normal fade-to-black ending, you will end up in a field of flowers, surrounded by trees. If you're facing the other direction, you'll see a windmill in the distance...then the fade-to-black ending.


I hope this guide was clear and concise for everyone. Any uncertainties, issues, problems, or mistakes, please let me know immediately so I can fix or clarify any of these errors or inconsistencies.

Thank you so much for checking out the guide and be sure to check out others that I have made. To all the community members who made other guides and contributed discussion posts before and after me to aid more players, thank you and keep on building a great community! Thank you so much to David Wehle and his team for this game, it's been a really amazing title to play and explore again and again.

Take care and as always,
Game On.

-Jonathan.