Minor spoilers below!
Polarizing yet undeniably influential, Gone Home is a work that I have a lot of conflicting feelings about. I know that I enjoy experiencing what it has to offer. I just don’t know if I am enjoying it as a game.
The actual process of exploring this odd, slightly unsettling mansion remains compelling throughout the short runtime (brevity was a crucial choice by the devs; other similar games that run longer, like Firewatch, always end up dragging). A big part of why the exploration works is how the devs completely nailed the vibe of what it was like to be alive in the 90s. This is certainly subject to one’s personal experiences, but many of the details (making cassette tapes for friends, using TV guide to find something to watch, reading physical copies of magazines, etc.) contribute to a feeling of verisimilitude that really hooked me into the setting. Base nostalgia perhaps, but it hooked me nonetheless.
From a gameplay(?) perspective, I enjoyed the core loop of gathering notes and objects from around the house and trying to imagine how the information you learn fleshes out the setting. Some people hate this type of activity in games, but I almost invariably have a sweet spot for it (this is also my favorite part of more action-oriented games like Bioshock and Dishonored). This game is quite clever in using the different tidbits you find around the house to contribute to an overall narrative. The subplot concerning the parents and their marital problems, for instance, would seem cliched if the whole story was simply told within a single set piece. But because the player is progressively piecing together different parts of the story through exploration, this seemingly trite and simplistic mini-narrative takes on a much more sophisticated emotional cadence: disappointment over the mother’s potential infidelity, relief when the player discovers the parents are away on an anniversary getaway, renewed disappointment when it’s discovered that the aforementioned anniversary trip is really just cover for a last-ditch attempt to save the marriage via a couple’s retreat. This is far from the only time the game does something like this (there’s one brilliant bit in which a seemingly simple self-exhortation on the dad’s bulletin board is re-contextualized as a reflection of deep-seated resentment between father and son). The game succeeded in making me feel clever every time this happened - the aha moments abound in a way that is rare and special.
The main attraction here, though, is the PC’s sister Samantha and her romance with a girl named Lonnie. It’s a sweet if predictable story that leans a lot on Sarah Grayson’s superb voice acting. It doesn’t entirely avoid the cliches of teenage romance stories, but it’s undeniably sincere, which goes a long way for me. It does have problems, however. Lonnie, for example, is a bit of a cipher. There are scattered hints about how she has an unsettled family life and there’s one lovely anecdote about how she defaced own her locker in solidarity with Samantha, but I never really got a firm grasp on who she is beyond her romantic relationship. Still, Sam is well-developed and sympathetic enough as a character to bear the weight of the narrative - the sisterly farewell at the end of the game leaves a bittersweet taste that really sticks for me.
Now to the point I really struggle with on Gone Home: Is this a game? Games need tension, even if it’s operating at a basic level. When you play a Mario game, however lighthearted it is, there is an elementary tension between the player’s desire to reach the end of the level and the possibility of falling down a hole or getting killed by a goomba. Having played through Gone Home a few times, I wondered for awhile where the tension was. I think it’s there, even if it’s only in the most threadbare way. The tension here is between the player’s desire to learn as much as possible about this sad and broken family and the player’s predilection (or lack thereof) for thorough exploration. Hilariously, you can finish Gone Home in less than a minute, skipping every single note outside of the one that triggers the end of the game. This is obviously an extreme case, but it’s still very possible in a conventional play-through to miss a number of very important details and / or misunderstand key subplots if you aren’t exploring in detail. Explore so that you don’t miss story content - there’s the tension. Admittedly, that’s pretty thin. But ultimately I do think this is a game. And a good one at that.
Then again, considering how much of a rant this was, you should probably try it and figure it out for yourself!
Polarizing yet undeniably influential, Gone Home is a work that I have a lot of conflicting feelings about. I know that I enjoy experiencing what it has to offer. I just don’t know if I am enjoying it as a game.
The actual process of exploring this odd, slightly unsettling mansion remains compelling throughout the short runtime (brevity was a crucial choice by the devs; other similar games that run longer, like Firewatch, always end up dragging). A big part of why the exploration works is how the devs completely nailed the vibe of what it was like to be alive in the 90s. This is certainly subject to one’s personal experiences, but many of the details (making cassette tapes for friends, using TV guide to find something to watch, reading physical copies of magazines, etc.) contribute to a feeling of verisimilitude that really hooked me into the setting. Base nostalgia perhaps, but it hooked me nonetheless.
From a gameplay(?) perspective, I enjoyed the core loop of gathering notes and objects from around the house and trying to imagine how the information you learn fleshes out the setting. Some people hate this type of activity in games, but I almost invariably have a sweet spot for it (this is also my favorite part of more action-oriented games like Bioshock and Dishonored). This game is quite clever in using the different tidbits you find around the house to contribute to an overall narrative. The subplot concerning the parents and their marital problems, for instance, would seem cliched if the whole story was simply told within a single set piece. But because the player is progressively piecing together different parts of the story through exploration, this seemingly trite and simplistic mini-narrative takes on a much more sophisticated emotional cadence: disappointment over the mother’s potential infidelity, relief when the player discovers the parents are away on an anniversary getaway, renewed disappointment when it’s discovered that the aforementioned anniversary trip is really just cover for a last-ditch attempt to save the marriage via a couple’s retreat. This is far from the only time the game does something like this (there’s one brilliant bit in which a seemingly simple self-exhortation on the dad’s bulletin board is re-contextualized as a reflection of deep-seated resentment between father and son). The game succeeded in making me feel clever every time this happened - the aha moments abound in a way that is rare and special.
The main attraction here, though, is the PC’s sister Samantha and her romance with a girl named Lonnie. It’s a sweet if predictable story that leans a lot on Sarah Grayson’s superb voice acting. It doesn’t entirely avoid the cliches of teenage romance stories, but it’s undeniably sincere, which goes a long way for me. It does have problems, however. Lonnie, for example, is a bit of a cipher. There are scattered hints about how she has an unsettled family life and there’s one lovely anecdote about how she defaced own her locker in solidarity with Samantha, but I never really got a firm grasp on who she is beyond her romantic relationship. Still, Sam is well-developed and sympathetic enough as a character to bear the weight of the narrative - the sisterly farewell at the end of the game leaves a bittersweet taste that really sticks for me.
Now to the point I really struggle with on Gone Home: Is this a game? Games need tension, even if it’s operating at a basic level. When you play a Mario game, however lighthearted it is, there is an elementary tension between the player’s desire to reach the end of the level and the possibility of falling down a hole or getting killed by a goomba. Having played through Gone Home a few times, I wondered for awhile where the tension was. I think it’s there, even if it’s only in the most threadbare way. The tension here is between the player’s desire to learn as much as possible about this sad and broken family and the player’s predilection (or lack thereof) for thorough exploration. Hilariously, you can finish Gone Home in less than a minute, skipping every single note outside of the one that triggers the end of the game. This is obviously an extreme case, but it’s still very possible in a conventional play-through to miss a number of very important details and / or misunderstand key subplots if you aren’t exploring in detail. Explore so that you don’t miss story content - there’s the tension. Admittedly, that’s pretty thin. But ultimately I do think this is a game. And a good one at that.
Then again, considering how much of a rant this was, you should probably try it and figure it out for yourself!