Gone Home (2013)

When I first heard about Gone Home years ago, I knew I had to play it immediately. I rarely played games on my computer (I still rarely do), and since I have a Mac, the options are usually fairly limited anyway. Yet I downloaded Gone Home and just figured that my Mac was too slow for the fairly basic game. I didn't know I needed to adjust my settings, and just played it in the stuttering format that made the game take twice as long. And yet, I didn't care. I didn't dare mess with anything, worried that I would lose my game, but also, I was so caught up in the story that I didn't mind the technical issues I was having. For any other game, I would've been extremely frustrated, but with Gone Home, I was so focused on The Fullbright Company's game that nothing else mattered. I still consider this far-too-long playthrough of Gone Home in one burst on my Mac in the middle of the night to be one of my favorite gaming experiences ever.

Because of that great experience, I was always worried about replaying Gone Home. Would it have the same impact on me with a second playthrough as I had that first time? Could this walking simulator that tries to make you constantly reconsider what this game actually is have any narrative power when gone through a second time? Thankfully, Gone Home remains a powerful, beautiful, and ingeniously-told story even after all these years and knowing where it's going.

Firstly, I love the bait-and-switch that this game presents very early on. From the cover that evokes a horror title (and even looks quite a bit like the Goosebumps book, "Welcome to Dead House") to the mysterious story where you explore an empty house, Gone Home clearly wants you to think that there are horrors hidden within the walls of this house. Yet as you find the journals of your sister, Sam, you start to question how horrifying this story might actually be. And still, it gives you enough moments where you think this could take yet another shift down into horror. Even worse, near the end, it implants the idea that this could be a heartbreaking tragedy that would be even more difficult to deal with. Gone Home is tremendous at playing with the player's preconceived notions and telling a lovely, moving story while playing with the conventions of a horror adventure game.

But what I've come to truly love about Gone Home is how it utilizes environmental storytelling throughout to tell a story of an entire family over the course of close to a century, when all is said and done. This isn't just a story about your sister who is finding herself and falling in love; it's a story about your father, who is struggling to be a writer, and the abuses he faced when he was younger. It's also the story of your mother, who doesn't know what to do in this marriage that is seemingly falling apart, with a husband who seems listless, as she contemplates finding affection from another. It's also the story of the uncle who once owned this house, who was seen as a "psycho" by the neighborhood, what happened to him, and how he fits into all of this. But what truly impresses me about Gone Home is how it tells this grand, complicated story with compassion and care, not just because we're hearing this story only through notes and small details left behind, but because this is all done in a story that takes about two hours to beat. You're getting a rich narrative that most games 50 times its length can't provide.

These are the types of games that really stick with me. I don't care about how long a game is or how much money it costs to make. I care that a great story was told to me using this medium that draws you in in a way that few other pieces of art can. I love it when a game like this comes out that's short and sweet and only made by a few people, and it has a major impact on what games can be. I grew up on point-and-click adventure games, and this feels like a natural progression of that, with a heart and soul to it that was never in the games I played as a kid. After all these years, I'm so glad I finally replayed Gone Home and was able to pore over all the game's details and hidden secrets, and it still remains not just one of my favorite gaming experiences, it might be one of my favorite games I've ever played.

A "game" with I guess quite an interesting concept for that interested me for atleast 2 minutes or so until I actually picked up the game... but for what the game Is I can’t blame it that much because at least this one tried, a little, but it’s there… Unlike the OTHER art games.

The concept is simple, it's a "game" that tells it’s story by exploring a empty house by the point of view of a girl protagonist that came back from her trip from Europe, you will explore items, rooms and etc to discover the plot and characters of the game, TRULY a lesbian story sadly it involves a cop.

Considering this type of simulation is only available in video games but it just ends up being on the same level of entertainment for me as the other art games, the game is basically modern point and click game and by being modern they mean “EASY IT OUT FOR THE MAINSTREAM”, there are no puzzles at all in fact I felt like a dumb ass when I started noting down all of the dates you see in the papers on a paper I had laying around my desk just in case I had to use them as a password when in reality all I had to do was look for obvious papers and find keys, said papers will show secret locations that if you knew them from the start you can basically skip the entire game. Wow! BUT!!! YOU CAN LOOK AT HOUSE DESIGN AND THINK TO YOURSELF “WOW THIS IS JUST LIKE GOING INSIDE A REAL HOUSE! DISCOVERING THE CHARACTERS FROM LOOKING THROUGH THEIR STUFF” Yeah well… The story is… Cliché Like in a way hollywood’s idea of issues are. The whole “twist” if by the time you’re reading this even, the twist was predictable for me like 40 seconds in. Which is hilarious to say considering YOU can beat the game very shortly if you want to in 40 seconds! (and not in the cool speedrun way) That is if you don’t like putting objects in your face. But apparently for some it’s still interesting because a video game is doing it. I feel bad for those who were expecting a horror game, some thought the ending was gonna be finding a corpse.

Me? Honestly I expected an alien ghost possessing JFK’s corpse so he would start being more liberal than he already is. But you can tell my hopes were not satisfied.

Get it on sale, then wish you spent the $5 on groceries and the two hours catching up on sleep.

It makes an attempt to drag you into the little details, but nothing is interesting enough to motivate you to do so. And then if you happen to anyway, all you find is a flaccid attempt to pull at your heartstrings with backstory development that might have hit hard in the 90s, but just comes across as juvenile now.

In the genre, this falls way behind both Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch, so just go play those instead.

Gone Home is an interesting narrative experiment. The developers want to tell a story only through elements of the environment, guiding the exploration but at the same time giving players some control over the narrative. However, they also rely on artificial elements to keep the story engaging, which ultimately contradicts their primary purpose.

Players will be Kaitlin Greenbriar, a young woman who has just returned from a long trip through Europe, on a rainy night on 1955, to come upon her house empty. A note from her younger sister, Sam, nailed to the door, apologizes and advises her not to look for her. The goal is to find out what happened to every member of the Greenbriar family while trying to unravel the mystery behind the note. Players will explore the house and search each drawer, desk and closet for answers.

The gameplay is simple. Players will pick up an object from the house and examine it thoroughly. If it is a letter, they can read what is written; if it’s a box of cookies, they’ll be able to see the nutritional chart. The level of detail when it comes to environment is staggering: while in some games some irrelevant information – such as articles in newspapers and magazines – appear blurred, in Gone Home everything is readable, even if not relevant.

Since Kaitlin’s family moved while she was traveling, the house is alien to her. This contextualizes the players’ disorientation: if they have no idea where the kitchen is, it is because Kaitlin does not know either. There is, however, a certain video game design permeating the place, with rooms having their access blocked by locks, for example. Despite this, and some occasional eccentricities – there is not a single mirror in the house – the art direction is effective not only in making the house believable but in reflecting the personality of its inhabitants. It is easy to understand the obsessive nature of Kaitlin’s father as you see his office full of clippings about John F. Kennedy and discarded drafts or notice the revolt and adventurous spirit of Sam by the pirate poster over her bed and the intense colors that decorate her room. Still on this aspect, the game is marked by the nostalgia of the time: there are disks and posters of bands of the 90s scattered around the rooms, next to X-Files episodes recorded in cassettes and Super Nintendo cartridges.

Exploration is essential to understanding the characters. Several notes are hidden in drawers, under false bottoms, or stored in vaults. But unlike what happens in some games – like Bioshock Infinite – this information is not just exposition or lore, often just suggesting the personality of the characters. In this way, developers outline the characters’ primary characteristics, but let your interpretation complete them, preventing you from becoming a passive spectator.

Moreover, since you can move freely around the house – with the exception of a few locked doors – the order in which you discover information on the Greenbriar family life is, to some extent, up to you. Therefore, players get some control over how the story of Gone Home is told.

The progress of the narrative is dictated by the examination of specific objects that activate audios of Sam talking to Kaitlin. Sam is the true protagonist of Gone Home. Her sensitive and touching story deals with homosexuality and the family problems that may arise from it, like the disappointment in seeing that her parents’ reaction to discovering her secret was not one of fury but of denial: “It’s just a phase.”

However, as the game should cherish narrative subtlety – since it uses the environment to tell it story – it is disappointing to come across Sam’s voice emerging from nothing after the inspection of a random object. The game tries to justify this structure by showing letters written to Kaitlin with the same words, but this choice ends up being a misguided one, which comes close to betraying the game’s immersion.

Despite this, Gone Home’s biggest flaw lies in its narrative structure, which is perfectly represented by the moment the player finds bloodstains in a bathtub and a pot of red dye at its side: the narrative is completely built with Red Herrings.

Red Herrings are false clues positioned in the narrative to divert the attention of the player / reader / viewer from the points that really matter. In Gone Home there is an insistence on making the players believe that something supernatural is taking place in the house.

The atmosphere of the game is so well built that it reinforces this element. The only sound accompanying the players through the rooms is that of the storm rumbling outside, with the occasional thunder causing spikes of tension. The room lights are always dimmed at first, and even flicker now and then. Players will find Sam’s notes about hauntings, apparitions in the hallways and televisions suddenly turning on. They will encounter an Ouija board, a pentagram drawn on a table and even macabre secret passages.

The story of Gone Home, however, could not have less to do with the supernatural: it deals with a girl discovering her own sexuality. All the tension and urgency provided by the narrative has no greater purpose, merely serving to catch the player’s attention in a deceptive way.

The developers must have faced a deadlock: if the players would control Kaitlin and the story would be about Sam, there would be no conflict surrounding the character: she would only be discovering what has happened to her sister. What they do to overcome this is suggest that something else might be happening in the house; an artificial solution that not only frustrates attentive players, by promising something that they do not intend to fulfill, but also continues without inserting any real conflict in the story.

---> Come to know us! Read the full review at: http://litonthespot.com/gone-home-game-review/games/review

In recent years, we've really started seeing a growth in what games can be and do with the rise of the interactive story genre. With a focus on gorgeous graphics, a moving score, and story-driven "gameplay", these video games have elevated the art form in a multitude of ways.

Gone Home is a fantastic new addition to a blossoming modern genre and is best experienced without knowing much about it going in. However, if you are the type of person who needs a little context before diving in, I've got you covered with the basics.

The main thing you need to know is that this isn't really a game. At least, not in the truest sense. There are no puzzles, no combat, no time limits, and no health bar. This is immersive exploration at its core. Your main goal is to help the plot unfold by uncovering diary entries throughout an old, creaky mansion.

Speaking of old, creaky mansions, the atmosphere in this game is amazing. If stories that begin, "It was a dark and stormy night..." are favorites for you, then this will be right up your alley. However, it might interest you to know that this isn't a horror game. While the game does a great job at creating loads of tension by pulling from classic mystery and horror tropes, there are no creepy things waiting to jump out at you or monsters hiding under the bed.

But the hairs will still be standing on end with every clap of thunder or groan of the floorboards adding a unique dissonance between the feel of the story and the actual narrative. I won't give anything away, but it is a fantastic experience.

The art design of Gone Home is absolutely stunning and the house really comes alive with the familiar details of the everyday, mundane items. It truly feels like a living, breathing home you could build a life in and the 90s setting will have you nostalgic for a simpler time before social media and "Netflix and chill".

I can't end the review without gushing for a moment about the scripting and voice acting. Gone Home gives an authentic, mature voice to very real subject matter, and the voice acting is so full of emotion and gravity that you feel like you gain an immediate connection to the main character that lasts long after the credits have rolled.

In the end, you really can't go wrong with this game. Gone Home clocks in at an average of about two hours, but you can play it as fast (insert achievement for completing the game in under a minute) or as slow as you want depending on how immersive you want your gameplay to be. But if one thing is for sure, it's that giving this game a go will truly be money well spent.

Played this last night in one two-hour session and enjoyed it. It seems pretty clear that Firewatch owes a debt to this game, both in terms of tone and execution. Gone Home's scope is smaller, but it works for the story. Unlike some adventure games, I didn't need to Google anything or endlessly backtrack to find whatever random magic object I missed the first time... the story unfolded for me organically.

I doubt I'll return to it... Gone Home and Firewatch operate at what is probably the far end of my "emotional heaviness" tolerance for my leisure time... but I'm glad I played it.

This game has a totally creepy atmosphere, but it's not a horror game. I kept waiting for the moment when things would be revealed and some horrible thing happened, and was so so so happy and relieved when it never came. But I am not a very big fan of horror as a genre, so I can image some people were disappointed.

It is beautifully done, however. The story is slowly told in pieces and music, and the voice acting is fantastic. I loved this game.

The completion time is for my second playthough. I don't actually know how long my first play through was. maybe a bit longer since I didn't know exactly what to do the first time. Or maybe a bit shorter because on my second play through I made sure to grab the two audio logs I missed the first time.

This was my game of the year in 2013