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Did you enjoy Gone Home? (spoilers)

I actually just played through it last week. I loved it. Had me engrossed for the full playtime and all the references were just barely within my timescale of growing up. The game gets a bad rap for not being enough of a game for some people but it was a great experience and I would love to see more like it.
 
It's not a game, really, but it delivers the story it wants to tell in a really great way- better than a movie would, I'd say. The characters are very interesting, if you really explore the house and see all the little tidbits the developers put in. It's a very unique thing, and I'd encourage you to try it, if you're at all interested in narrative.
 
i'm a straight white male who finally got around to playing it last week and i was blown away. though i do have a fair degree of 90s punk nostalgia, so that's one level on which i related. in any case, i think it's a pretty universal coming-of-age story that should speak to a wide variety of people.

really, it's exactly the sort of thing we need more of in gaming. it's really crazy that it's so unusual to play something that makes you feel like the people who made it were actual humans with tastes in stuff beyond videogames.

i thought the story was well-written and perfectly pitched with just the right amount of fake-out. and it's clear that you could play it several different ways with a bunch of interpretations — i didn't find the
bottle of hair dye next to the bathtub, for example, so i really thought they were bloodstains all the way until the end.

if, like me, you find the likes of bioshock infinite enormously frustrating to actually play, you should check out gone home and hope for more experiences like it. i get that a lot of people are happy with those games' blend of action and storytelling, though, and probably won't be as into gone home. but that was my main take-away — it's a gorgeous pop song of a game that achieves exactly what it sets out to, and it's exactly what a certain kind of "gamer" has been wanting for years.
 
border said:
So, you completely already knew how the game's story was going to play out, yet you assumed a zombie or a ghost or some crap was going to pop out and murder you?

To me that would be an indication that you did not in fact know how the game was going to play out.
Click to expand...

Let me rephrase that: Within 10-20 minutes I was pretty sure I knew how the game would play out, and kept hoping I was wrong but the farther I got the more my assumptions were reinforced by the story. I absolutely did not expect combat or for my character to be murdered. The game's opening is very haunting and creepy. Before getting through the first 10-20 minutes, I thought maybe something terrible had happened to the family and that's why the house was completely empty.
In that regard, the house being empty simply because sis ran away and mom and dad went off looking for her was about the most realistic, mundane, every-day-life reason there could be.
As I said, I was let down because all I "knew" about the game was that it was purely exploration and that it had an amazing narrative. I didn't get the great story I expected, so I was disappointed.
 
BooJoh said:
Let me rephrase that: Within 10-20 minutes I was pretty sure I knew how the game would play out, and kept hoping I was wrong but the farther I got the more my assumptions were reinforced by the story. I absolutely did not expect combat or for my character to be murdered. The game's opening is very haunting and creepy
Click to expand...

I think it would be an interesting study to find out why some people understood the mood right off the bat and others were kept in anticipation until the end.

Like, you saw it as haunting and creepy. I saw it as lonely, like an empty house is in the middle of a rain storm. Ever been in one as a kid? By yourself? No ghosts ever popped out to get me, but I was very aware at how quiet the rooms were, how things were left where other people last used them, never put away. Those sorts of echoes are better ghosts than any spooky ghouls you can dream up, you know? It's a feeling grounded to reality. And Gone Home felt grounded, basically as soon as I started playing.
 
The most surprising game I've played. I came in extremely cynical and I went away cherishing it as my personal GOTY 2013. I've never been engrossed in the world I'm in since Deus Ex. And for a game that appeared only recently is quite an achievement. After my playthrough, I know most of the family's history than most open world does with their main character. I'd really like to convey more of my thoughts but it's best if people just experienced it for themselves. I personally feel this would be a good entry point for the Oculus Rift due to the narrative structure and interactivity as it progresses.
 
I would have totally enjoyed it if someone hadn't shown me that video of the guy beating it while his hot pocket cooked.

I tried to play through it, but I knew the damn door was there and I couldn't keep faking it to myself and trying to search the house.

But I couldn't have seen myself getting full enjoyment worth the original price of admission.
 
No, the most disappointing game ever. Starts as a haunted house story and then 3 hours of lightswitches and drawers simulator and a lesbian plot? Like seriously?
 
A-V-B said:
I think it would be an interesting study to find out why some people understood the mood right off the bat and others were kept in anticipation until the end.

Like, you saw it as haunting and creepy. I saw it as lonely, like an empty house is in the middle of a rain storm. Ever been in one as a kid? By yourself? No ghosts ever popped out to get me, but I was very aware at how quiet the rooms were, how things were left where other people last used them, never put away. Those sorts of echoes are better ghosts than any spooky ghouls you can dream up, you know? It's a feeling grounded to reality. And Gone Home felt grounded, basically as soon as I started playing.
Click to expand...

Maybe it speaks more toward the personality of the player. Ever the anxiety-ridden pessimist that I am, if I came home from a trip expecting my family to be there, and instead found an empty house with an unheard message on the answering machine from myself, and had no idea why the house was empty, I'd be pretty dang worried. Add the tension of a thunderstorm to that and yes, that's a very creepy environment.

Moreover, I had no foreknowledge of the plot of the game or the genre of the story, and I don't go into video games expecting realism.
 
BooJoh said:
Maybe it speaks more toward the personality of the player. Ever the anxiety-ridden pessimist that I am, if I came home from a trip expecting my family to be there, and instead found an empty house with an unheard message on the answering machine from myself, and had no idea why the house was empty, I'd be pretty dang worried.
Click to expand...

I guess it is a personality difference. It if happened to me, I'd be a little worried, yeah, but odds are they were probably okay and they're just off doing something. I mean, our character did come home really early.
 
I liked it overall. The core narratovecwas fine with outstanding voice work but it did have exposition rough edges and it did try and throw too many side elements into the plot mix - in particular the occult hints.

An interesting experiment. I wouldnt call it a videogame - not being negative it simply has zero actual gameplay mechanics at all. Rather its a visual short story that happens to be built on a 3D rendering engine.

Id be up for more if the creators really nailed down a consistent level and dropped the conflucting exposition techniques.
 
Not at all. Over priced digital novel masquerading as a game. How they can charge $20.00 for so little is beyond me.
 
Yes, enjoyed it very much. It was unique and interesting, and well worth the price. It was an interactive novel that could never have worked as just a novel, because the exploration was so important.

I rather play several small games/experiments like this for $20, then gunning down enemies in a corridor for the 100th time for 15h and $40-60.
 
I kinda liked it, the story was fantastic, except for the ending, it was a little to unrealistic for my taste.
The other strong point was the atmosphere, it sucks you in from the beginning until the end and is something very special.

The only problem, there was not much of a game there, it was more like an experience, if you don´t like the story or the atmosphere it could get boring very fast.
So I get, that people really dislike it and I get that people love it.

As I said in the beginning I kinda liked it and I would have loved it, if the game had challenging puzzles.
 
Bluth54 said:
Once again my spelling weakness comes back to haunt me.
Click to expand...

it's the strangest yet common error i spot. defiantly is a word, but it comes from 'defy', not definite. i think people hear the second 'i' as an 'a' and then it goes like this: definitely -> definately -> definatly -> defiantly

and then spell check never calls out the usage because it's spelled correctly.
 
I loved what it was trying to do. I wasn't convinced it was the best way to do it though. Too much exposition, making it feel at times like the roaming of the house was just padding. Like you read a book that you're forced to put away for a few minutes when you turn the page. It also juddered like crazy on what should've been a good enough PC.

Still, it made me feel all warm inside (I don't get people saying it had horror hints at all). From the adorable story to the amazing references to my 90s childhood.

I liked it better than the Stanley Parable, though not as much as Brothers, which I found did make a compelling case for the game structure.
 
I enjoyed it for what it was. It wasn't a game in a traditional sense. It was more of an interactive short story.

It had a fantastic atmosphere and the writing and acting was well done.

It didn't blow me away but it was a good experience and changes the definition of what a game can be. I'd like to see more "games" like it in the future with short but interesting narratives.
 
Not that you HAVE to be a child of the 90s to enjoy it, but it certainly is what made it for me.

That's an untapped market, play to your aged audience.
 
H3xum said:
Not that you HAVE to be a child of the 90s to enjoy it, but it certainly is what made it for me.

That's an untapped market, play to your aged audience.
Click to expand...

Wasn't 90's enough, needed more 'Breakfast at Tiffanys'
 
I liked the story and the presentation of the story, but hated how 'empty' and 'lifeless' everything appeared. To me, Dear Esther felt more alive because you were taking in the scenery and the voiceovers at times fit what you were experiencing there. When I played through Gone Home, I opened up every drawer, cabinet, etc. and was surprised how little there was to find. What I found most interesting was
the sidestory involving the father being fired from his college
and wish that more of the game had little secrets like that.
 
It was aight. The atmosphere was pretty cool. More than anything I was excited to see something so different, hopefully the concept can be evolved further by other devs. I definitely admire Fullbright's bravery in taking the risk.
 
I loved it. I get that it isn't for the masses, or for the prototypical videogamer (which explains its divisive user reviews), but for the person who wants to see strong video game narratives, Gone Home was a joy. It's a epistolary video game ala Dear Esther that shows how some stories are best told in videogames.
 
just finished it after getting it in the sale and I have to say its very well done but there is a lack of interaction with the environment, feel they could have done more there.
 
I just beat it. I thought the game had a provocative story that was told in an interesting way. This game really highlights the strengths of the medium's storytelling capabilities. While the Sam/Lonnie plot is very straightforward, the other storylines require some critical thinking and detective work to truly understand (THE DARK SOULS OF WALKING SIMULATORS).

Story spoilers:

I've read some criticism about Sam and Lonnie's relationship, but let's look at it for what it is: a high school, first love romance. It is emotional and believable on that front. Sam's narration is great, the voice actress did a truly incredible job making Sam work as a character. I do have some qualms about their relationship having few obstacles. Yeah they get in trouble once, but I would have to imagine that the realities of such a relationship, even today, would certainly be subject to a significant amount of outside conflict.

The Oscar/Dad storyline was very haunting and unexpected. I like how the story builds upon the mystery on who Oscar was and why he left the house to the father. It also sheds some light on the dad's relationship with his own father and the subject matter of his book.

The mom's story wasn't as rich as the dad's, but it still was interesting enough to draw concern from me. I think it works well when you tie it in to the events of the dad's life and how she would react.

While Kate is the least fleshed out character and has no real conflict, I thought the game did a good job revealing her personality through the postcards and "clicking descriptions." I liked the contrast between Sam and Kate's writing of the exact same assignment.

All the stories work well when they are tied together. They all share some similar themes about overcoming personal tribulations and finding what is truly important in their lives. The story was very thoughtful and deep if you spent the time to truly examine the house and think about what you saw.

I think it is a must-play game. $20 a bit too much for a two hour adventure, but I would highly recommend it at $5.
 
One of my favourite games of last year.
Everyone should also watch Steve Gaynor's GDC talk about WHY Gone Home is a game (as dumb as this argument is).

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020376/Why-Is-Gone-Home-a

DSN2K said:
just finished it after getting it in the sale and I have to say its very well done but there is a lack of interaction with the environment, feel they could have done more there.
Click to expand...

Not sure if serious. You can pick up and examine almost everything in the house.
 
I went in blind and loved it.

Despite the dismissals, it's a way of storytelling that's only possible in a game. Though it did end up a little more guided that I'd have liked, the level of interaction made me feel like I was piecing together the various lives of the family, and I discovered from talking about it afterwords that there were a few stories I missed.

It respects the intelligence of the player by providing subtle world building while making the central theme and thrust obvious enough to not be missed. Along with Device 6, it's really inspired me to make my own interactive fiction.
 
JC Lately said:
Gone Home isn't nearly as clever it wants you to think it is.

To copy a post i made on another forum:
Click to expand...

I loathe the argument "it's not as clever as it wants you to think". Regardless of whether it's applied to movies or music or games. In what manner does the game show you that it wants you to think it's smart? Because if that's the critique, then you have to really prove that said smugness comes across during gameplay, and I never saw it once.

I played the game and never once got the idea that the developers tried to make themselves come across as "smart". IIRC, a lot of the talent came from former Bioshock-devs, so naturally they're familiar with the storytelling devices, as well as the explorative FPS level design, and honestly, I do think they use the storytelling devices to much better effect than Bioshock did.

What makes Gone Home great is the level of detail, and that really is pretty much unparalleled imo. The side stories in particular (
the father's failing author-career, the wife "cheating" on him etc.
, as well as the fact that it doesn't just use diary-entires/audio-logs, but music and other items (clothing, video games, the fanzines etc.) to help characterization.

To me it's definitely a very elegant use of an established plot mechanic, which works on many levels, with lots of nuance in the details.
 
JC Lately said:
Gone Home isn't nearly as clever it wants you to think it is.

To copy a post i made on another forum:
Click to expand...

yeah i can't really agree with you at all. the story came off as ernest, sincere and the spooky build up switcharoo to coming of age story felt natural.


i don't understand half of where you're coming from, but i think your feelings have more to do with the game's reception than the game itself.
 
I did like Gone Home but after the first 30 minutes of walking around the house I became pretty annoyed at the game. I think this was related to me trying to guess the locker combination by entering EVERY SINGLE FOUR DIGIT NUMBER ON HER PERSONAL ITEMS LIKE AN IDIOOOOT pretending that I was some sort of clever investigator and that everything was linked and relative and funny like the mind of a teenage girl or whatever but NO it was in the sliding wall panel thing.

So yeah. Gone Home? More like, Gone Homo! LOL. 7/10 pay like $5 or less.
 
With the remoteness of the house and all the hints towards the supernatural I was on edge through the entire thing, kept thinking something was gonna get me, but then it done something unexpected. And was nice. I loved it.
 
I liked it. I thought it was great with the mundane but interesting story, and some little surprises here and there.

It is slow paced, no action, and the almost mundane story of someone's family life can be boring to many people, and I would say it is aiming at a very niche market, so it always strike me on how much attention this game got. I guess it's the riding of horror indie game wave at that time that tricked people into trying the game at the first place.
 
I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. My main disappointment was that I was expecting a supernatural story and a not a soap opera drama. Game was really short for the 20$ too considering you can get so much game wise with 20$ now.
 
Just finished it. I generally had no expectations of what the game was. I knew I wouldn't interact with any other characters. After awhile I became less tense from the atmosphere of the 'supernatural' and was really brought in by Sam's story.

It was sad, sweet and the ending really caught me off guard. I knew pretty early that Lonnie was the one making the distressed phone calls and that the story would be about young love, different futures and that Sam would kill herself because she couldn't be without Lonnie.

Overall it was a solid experience.
 
I finished Gone Home today with a completion time of about 3 hours over two days.

I really liked it, being predisposed to '90s nostalgia, coming of age stories and unraveling mysteries. I'm an adventure game fan and I'm open minded about new storytelling methods in games. With that in mind, I won't decry the fact that it prized narrative over what we commonly refer to as "gameplay", i.e. interactivity, manipulating objects or action. I found the story and how it played out to be a refreshing and compelling experience- perhaps not without flaws, but commendable for what they achieved.

Having said that, I found myself hoping for a few more conventional puzzles than what we got, or for the few puzzles it did have to be presented in a slightly more cerebral manner.

It may seem like a little thing, but when you find Sam's notes about secret passages, I wish they hadn't been explicitly marked on your map and the developers instead trusted the player to find the right room themselves. Similarly, each half of Sam's locker code was explicitly referred to as "one half of Sam's locker code", which simultaneously broke the fourth wall by suggesting Kaitlin immediately knew these random scraps of paper pertained to Sam's specific locker and spelled out to the player that it was indeed the code you needed for her locker.

In addition, I didn't like how the combinations to safes were found in close proximity to the actual safes. It would have been nice to find a random code on one side of the house and think "maybe that unlocks that safe I saw in the study" (I suppose the 1963 code was clever in its story implications). Similarly, I was expecting some of the cassette tapes to contain recorded messages and I'd have to remember where I'd last seen a cassette player, but the tapes are merely nonessential pieces of mise en scene conveniently found next to the players.

I understand that this was probably 1) an effort to streamline the delivery of story and reinforce its primacy over puzzles and 2) reduce the feeling of artifice that puzzles bring about, but considering the game did deign to include "pseudo-puzzles", I thought this facet of the game was slightly underdeveloped nonetheless.

I suppose the difficulty lies in striking a balance between maintaining the verisimilitude of the house setting while evoking the gated exploration of a Metroidvania. The aforementioned locker puzzle was the closest it got to exposing its status as a videogame, as there isn't a satisfying explanation for why Sam would hide the code behind random wall panels, unless we accept that she wanted Kaitlin to find them in a very specific order. Also, the very conceit of finding two way conversations on pieces of paper around the house sometimes strained credulity, but at least you can account for it with the '90s setting, before mobile phones and text messaging.

Ultimately, the red herring of the missing library bell was probably a commentary on videogame puzzles themselves; that some things don't necessarily have solutions and not everything needs to fit together like clockwork.
 
I'd say that I appreciated it more than I enjoyed it, per se. It also scared the shit out of me. I kept on expecting the sister's ghost to appear at any moment, haha.

Vamphuntr said:
I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. My main disappointment was that I was expecting a supernatural story and a not a soap opera drama.
Click to expand...
That's really selling it short.
 
Dany M said:
Just finished it. I generally had no expectations of what the game was. I knew I wouldn't interact with any other characters. After awhile I became less tense from the atmosphere of the 'supernatural' and was really brought in by Sam's story.

It was sad, sweet and the ending really caught me off guard. I knew pretty early that Lonnie was the one making the distressed phone calls and that the story would be about young love, different futures and that Sam would kill herself because she couldn't be without Lonnie.

Overall it was a solid experience.
Click to expand...

wel yeah, you "knew" pretty early because they telegraphed it one way and then pulled a brilliant switcheroo
 
So, I just completed the game and even if I understand all the praise it gets, something didn't work for me, especially in the story.

All the troubled-teen-years thing I think it's a bit overstimated. There's anything struggling in this: Sam met this cool girl in high school and guess what? She's a lesbian too and she likes her. Except some argument with her family it's all pretty straightforward. Even when they decide to leave, there's any second guessing, even if in this case this rushed choice probably come with being a teen.

The love story is basically on a fairy-tale grade, maybe realistic, maybe credible but not enough engaging to hold up in a game or in a narrative.

I liked, by the way, how the othere family members's life was flashed out. I wish I could know more about them anyway. I even opened the vault of Uncle Oscar, but you know what he did in the past?

About the gameplay, even if it's good written and VA really makes the difference, I think the game it's based too much on vocal diaries. Putting on some of the VHS with interesting recordings would have been nice but I think the budget didn't allow it.

In the end, a question: do you thing the game would have got the same praise if the story would have been a straight one instead of lesbian?
 
i tried to watch some footage on youtube and got bored after 10 minutes, i can't imagine it's that different playing it directly.
 
AlucardGV said:
i tried to watch some footage on youtube and got bored after 10 minutes, i can't imagine it's that different playing it directly.
Click to expand...

At the beginning the player it's supposed to believe that there's a
ghost story
involved in it. But after some minutes you realize it doesn't work that way. The entrance in the house and the
weather forecast on TV
were a bit unsettling to me, but it's only at the beginning of the game. As a said, you lost this after some minutes into the game. Probably they could play better, for example, in some notes you find out that the home has some
issues with the energy system and stuff causing sometimes blackout or something
I was expecting to see something like that later, but never happened.
 
Didn't really like it all that much. Kind of interesting as an experiment but nothing more. Perhaps the media also just hyped it up a bit too much so my expectations were too high.

Also in hindsight it was a bit weird how the dad's side story evolved chronologically through the house
 
It was okay. I appreciate what they were doing, and as an experience it was interesting if not as mindblowing as some games media thought it was. Maybe its just that I was weaned on first person adventures though

All of the voice-overs gave the entire thing a "fun-house" feel and I'm not sure if that aided or hindered their design intentions
 
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