Review of Gone Home by Devilfish

I cannot recommend this game highly enough. For fans of story-based exploration games and excellently paced character development, Gone Home is about as good a game as you’re ever going to get.

I started the game expecting to backtrack a lot, hunting for keys and codes as these games often have you do, but I never once had to resort to wandering and pixel-hunting. My journey through the house was a very smooth one, no backtracking, no frustration, no head scratchers. All clues and bits of story are in logical places and easily found if you search thoroughly. The focus really is on telling a story and telling it well, delving into the life and psyche of its characters, not on more traditional gameplay aspects. Gone Home gives you a sandbox to play in and explore at your own pace, and it doesn’t really require you to work hard to get to the end.

I expect the themes explored in the game will be familiar to anyone, but women and teens especially can look forward to a game that earnestly and respectfully explores those respective demographics in a way very, very few games do. (Minor theme spoiler: the game deserves all of the praise for exploring LGBT issues in a mature, respectful and heartfelt way.)

Unlike the reviewer I had absolutely no problems with the controls (using a mouse and keyboard). I never once struggled to perform the actions I wanted to perform.

The game is short, but it’s as long as it needs to be. Any more would have seemed like padding, any less would have been too little to truly tell its story.

Just an excellent little game. I highly recommend it.

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Time Played: 1-2 hours