Adventure Gamers - Forums

Great review, Emily!

I thought this game was lovely. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about it so I was pleasantly surprised by some of the subject matter it tackles and the smart, subtle way it’s handled. It’s as thrilling a mystery as in any other adventure game and yet all of its stunning revelations are based in character and hidden amongst the boring minutiae of an average home. It’s a remarkable achievement that a game which consists of nothing but slow, methodical exploration could be so funny, romantic, tense and poignant.

The Walking Dead topped many best-of lists last year and I’ll be curious to see if Gone Home manages to beat its record. I have a feeling it might.

I finished it as well a few days ago, and found it to be a marvelous little gem. The actual story might not be all that imaginative, but in Gone Home, it’s all about the presentation of that story, which is masterfully done. The voice acting alone is incredible.

Have you seen the hilarious user reviews of Gone Home on metacritic? Apparently, what we’ve played is “not a game”, which is why it clearly deserves a 0 out of 10. Also, there’s no multiplayer.

Yet my favorite is this:

WARNING! NOT FOR GUYS. This isn’t a game. This is an interactive book for chicks.

Jesus.

I confess, I’m a chick. Though actually, I’m a dude. I’m a chickdude?

I had no idea there are books that allow you to explore a fully rendered 3D virtual space. Huh. Must have missed those…

thejobloshow - 20 August 2013 05:00 PM

A lot of gamers feel threatened when something that deviates from the mainstream big budget combat games amasses praise from game review websites.

Kind of like how a lot of adventure gamers feel threatened when a game like Heavy Rain or The Walking Dead gets a lot of mainstream attention. Those Metacritic posts are funny though… so many of them just sound so angry. As if all these reviewers gave the game high scores just to f*ck with them personally.

thejobloshow - 20 August 2013 05:00 PM

However, there are so many commercial possibilities with implementing the environmental storytelling in Gone Home to other games (and it has already been.done before. In games like Portal, Bioshock and Falllout New Vegas).

And in fact the team that made Gone Home first worked together on the Bioshock DLC Minerva’s Den. Their job on that project was to create all of the items you discover that tell the backstory—basically the same as what they did with Gone Home. They liked working on that together and wanted to do a game where that sort of gameplay was the focus rather than a secondary activity.

thejobloshow - 20 August 2013 05:00 PM

Imagine a detective game where you could search a crime scene with this much autonomy. Wouldn’t that be so much better than what we got with LA Noire?

That would be awesome. I’d love to see this team tackle a detective sort of game. (Steve Gaynor told me during our GDC interview that in the early stages they talked about having the protagonist be a police officer or private eye, but went with the sister instead in order to give the player more of a personal connection to the story.)

You’d need good writers to pull this off, though. That’s one of the things about Gone Home that makes it stand out… the writing is all really, really good - from the narration to the notes down to the copy on random objects you pick up around the house. Writing is often seen as not that important—for most AAA shooters etc. the writer is a freelancer who’s not involved in the whole process, not a full-time member of the team—and it’s often assumed that designers can double as writers because, c’mon, how hard is it to write something? But I think a game like Gone Home shows that there’s huge value in having *great* writers as opposed to just okay ones. I can’t think of another game where I actually wanted to read every random item and piece of paper I came across.

It’s kind of funny that a small budget indie game like Gone Home can be such a better investigation game than a triple-A title like L.A. Noire; a game that is all about solving crimes.

Investigating in L.A. Noire consists of walking round a crime scene until your controller vibrates, then picking up an object and rotating it until your controller vibrates.

kuze - 20 August 2013 05:24 AM

Yet my favorite is this:

WARNING! NOT FOR GUYS. This isn’t a game. This is an interactive book for chicks.

Jesus.

You know, I thought the same thing while playing it.

But, you know, I’ve never read “Flowers In The Attic” while working at a Carwash one summer when I was 21.  No sir… Books for Chicks are for chicks, and I’m all man!

Excuse me, though, I’m right in the middle of re-reading “Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Judy Blume just GETS me.

Bt

orient - 20 August 2013 10:14 PM

It’s kind of funny that a small budget indie game like Gone Home can be such a better investigation game than a triple-A title like L.A. Noire; a game that is all about solving crimes.

Agree. It’s also a huge punch in the face for those claiming the Mystian way of revealing plot by reading journals and letters is bad design.

I hadn’t really paid this game much mind but after seeing some of the reviews it was getting, I decided to give it a go.

This is an important case study in storytelling in games. Its story probably wouldn’t have the same impact if it was just told in a linear fashion, but through the prism of this mystery exploration framework you come to gradually care about the characters and worry about them.

I kept waiting for them to blow it and go off the rails into videogame-land like games always do (I’m looking at you, Indigo Prophecy), but the last thing I expected was to find a story that was utterly human and actually touching. I teared up a little at the end, I admit it.

It’s true, it isn’t much of a “game” per se. There’s no action, not much in the way of puzzles, and relatively forgiving if you miss things (I see not everyone got into the safe or the file cabinet). But to say that this “should have been a book” or something instead is foolish, because I think it’s only effective because of the way in which it’s told.

Yeah, it does make you consider the notion of the word “game”.  People have come to expect certain things from games, and video games - I think two basic functions are “entertainment value - am I enjoying this?” and “interactivity - am I involved in this?”  I think this certainly meets those two criteria.

Bt