Gone Home

Gone Home

Windows - World - 1st edition.

Developer The Fullbright Company Publisher The Fullbright Company Published 2013-08-15 Platforms Linux, Macintosh, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One Genres Adventure, Exploration, Graphic adventure Themes Mystery, Romance Distribution Commercial

Gone Home is a first-person story-driven graphic adventure developed and published by The Fullbright Company for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows on 2013-08-15 and later ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was developed using Unity.

It's about a woman named Katie who comes home after spending a year abroad and finds her family's house hastily abandoned; lights are left on, food has been left out, etc. A note on the door shows that Katie's younger sister Sam has run away, and the mother and father are nowhere to found, and an ominous message has been left on the answering machine. You control Katie as she walks through the house trying to piece together what happened by finding clues throughout the house.

Personal

Own?	Yes. On Steam.
Won?	Yes. Twice. I have 2/10 achievements.
Finished	May 2015.

I got this game as part of a Humble Bundle. The eerie-looking title card drew me in enough to play it, and, they engaging story held me until the end.

Review

7	7	8	6	4

Best Version: Windows

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The story is fantastic. An outsider teen who becomes even more of an outsider as she gets older never wears itself out, and the addition of having parents who don't understand and are closet-hypocrites doesn't help.
• The voice-acting by Sam is wonderful, and I became emotionally attached to her story.
• Katie's mouse-over commentary on some of the embarrassing objects is hilarious.
• The game has several creepy elements like the thunder, left-on televisions, attic entrance, furnace, dark dead-end in the basement, popped light bulb in the passage, seances, etc. These were all wonderful touches.
• It's refreshing to see some diversity. The two main characters are women.
  And one of them is a lesbian.
• The side stories of the mother and father really make them more genuine characters.
• The designers did a good job of pacing the story without giving too much away too early. The narrative grows naturally, rather than having to be piecemeal. The game has been criticized for being a walking simulator, which I don't fully agree with. While you don't have to react to anything quickly, there was always something there to keep me interested, so I still found it plenty enjoyable.
• The atmosphere of the empty house and the hints at ghosts are just creepy enough to keep you on edge.
• The incorporation of riot grrrl music, even though it's not my taste, was perfect.
• The game's Easter egg is hilarious.

Bad

• The game felt too short. I didn't feel like I accomplished much.
• Despite the fact that there were so many, several of the 3D models are reused a bit too often.
• It felt like a bit too much of the house was open initially, which causes the player to potentially miss large sections of dialogue that are more important early in the game. In my first play-through, I didn't reach the TV room until well past the halfway mark.
• The ability to pickup and rotate the objects was never used to its full potential. For example, none of the puzzles involved finding a clue on the back of an object.
• I don't care much for survival horror, so I'm glad they kept away from anything supernatural, but I still would have liked to have seen a bit more creepiness.
• The old notes left around the house were temporally out-of-place. I doubt I could find a better way to leave behind a ten-year-old note myself, but it still requires suspension of disbelief.
• I felt like Oscar's story wasn't fleshed out enough. You kind of understand what happened, but not really.
• I like how, just because there is a locked door, it doesn't mean you're going to need a key to open it, but I wish there were a few other ways of keeping the player from getting information before they should rather than doors and combination locks.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Screenshots

• 

  In the downstairs den.

• 

  The naughty diary entry that Katie refuses to read.

Videos

Longplay.

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Katie, Sam, and Lonnie are all strong characters. There is even growth for the mother.
Bechdel test?	Pass	Nearly all of the dialogue and writing is by and about women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Everyone is white.
Queer character?	Pass	Sam and Lonnie are both lesbians.

Links