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teethgrinder posted:Nope, but I could probably stand another game or two as long as the settings and/or subject-matter are unique enough.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:13
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Another extremely shallow one is LA Noire. You examine objects much like Gone Home, but they're really not that meaningful, most are in fact completely irrelevant, and it's extremely tedious over a 20 hour game or however long it took. (One thing LA Noire did better though is that you could examine objects "further" ... so you'd be able to take that drat cassette case insert out and actually examine the note properly. Or see what's in the binders.) edit: "they're really not meaningful" doesn't explain it well. The right clue can make or break a case in the game. But the problem is it's not obvious more often than not where you're supposed to apply that clue into the narrative. When you accuse a suspect of lying during an interrogation, you have to pick from a list of clues you've uncovered to support the accusation, and that part is somehow completely unintuitive. There's stupid trial & error video-game logic to which particular clue is going to break the suspect. teethgrinder fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 18:30
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Hey Fullbright, make your next game a detective game with Gone Home's gameplay and a Alpha Protocol style dialogue system and you are guaranteed all my money.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:44
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I do like that when you get a hold of the cases for some of the mixtapes Lonnie made Sam, it says "don't look in here" in the bottom of the case, which is surprisingly hard to see because of the physics.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:09
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I love this game.Sylpher posted:As far as the house.. There's a few things we can presume about the house that add a bit more backstory to the Greenbriar family. The house is clearly old. The floorplan includes antiquated layouts - a scullery, a music room, a larder, etc. There is also an electrician's note explaining that the wiring is overdone/poorly installed, which implies but does not prove that the wiring was installed after the house was constructed. These imply the house was built before technology changed the typical American house layout, a process that generally kicked off around 1900. Another huge tell is that the house has servant's quarters and passageways built into the house itself. Those secret passages aren't secret smuggling tunnels, though they are useful for that purpose - the passageways are servant's halls, so your maid can take care of your house without being seen. Obviously to occult-minded teenage Sam they are nefarious secret passages full of mystery and danger. But this further fixes the age of the house, as idea that servants had to stay out of sight/mind was definitely fading by the 1920s. Given that there is no connection to the kitchen, it indicates that either the kitchen area was renovated extensively at some point or the servant's passageways are just some eccentric curio. Also note that the house is called Arbor Hill, located at 1 Arbor Hill, so it's probably the biggest house in the neighborhood. Local kids also seem to know where the Psycho House is, indicating that Arbor Hill is probably a prominent local structure. All of this implies that Arbor Hill was built sometime before the 20th century. The game doesn't say where it is set aside from vaguely 'rural Oregon', but this is good enough to give us an earlier bound. Oregon wasn't settled to the extent where people are building country manors until the 1870's or so. I'd date Arbor Hill as being built sometime around 1880-1890, by someone with a real desire to appear landed and noble. As to what this tells us about who lived here before Uncle Oscar, there's not much to go on. The smuggler's note is a bit of a red herring. Smuggling was extremely common, as a solid plurality of Americans didn't give a poo poo and it was a great way to turn a buck. It's safe to say that a quarter/a third of Americans did some kind of smuggling/producing liquor at some point or another. During Prohibition, a lot of politicians even made political hay out of their flagrant disregard of Federal law. But without more information, it doesn't speak to who lived in the house, their financial state, or anything else really. It's just flavor. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 19:10
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teethgrinder posted:There's stupid trial & error video-game logic to which particular clue is going to break the suspect. If you actually pay attention to the cases a large minority make logical sense. There's no trial and error involved. I do recall a couple that weren't clear to me at the time but made sense later. Edit: Ahh I see yeah I can agree with that. Its like those tests where there's multiple correct answers but they want the "most" correct one, which I hate. ChesterJT fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 19:56
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I guess they just stuck out to me. There were definitely a few cases where it seemed for SURE whatever I picked was important, but NOPE, not exactly what the game was looking for. There were a few cases where it would accept multiple objects too. (I eventually gave up on interrogations and just used a guide for them. Literally the only time I've resorted to one in this entire generation of consoles.)
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Aug 21, 2013 20:01
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Every other page someone is asking for any more games similar to Gone Home and Dear Esther so: Check out To The Moon. It has a very different style and way of telling its story, but it's also a surprisingly emotional mystery game focused around exploring a character's life story and memories. Also by a happy coincidence the already cheap game is 75% off on Steam right now so you have no excuse.
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Aug 21, 2013 20:13
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exquisite tea posted:I like that the article points out some of the workarounds Fullbright used for Gone Home (the unfamiliar house and time period). I'm curious as to how other games in this vein will attempt to deliver credible explanations for why the player is constrained in a particular way. I don't think you can keep leaning on unfamiliar settings and pre-internet time periods forever. Maybe not if you're trying to make a modern game but there's thousands of years of recorded human history in hundreds of nations where you could set a personal, domestic story like Gone Home. It might actually make more sense at a time when people's possessions mostly were scraps of writing, bits of pottery and trinkets.
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Aug 21, 2013 20:38
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A Journeyman Project reboot where you spend the entire time just exploring ancient civilizations instead of trying to put the thing in the thing would be incredible.
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Aug 21, 2013 20:40
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exquisite tea posted:A Journeyman Project reboot where you spend the entire time just exploring ancient civilizations instead of trying to put the thing in the thing would be incredible. Who do you think owns the Quantum Leap property these days?
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Aug 21, 2013 20:43
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exquisite tea posted:A Journeyman Project reboot where you spend the entire time just exploring ancient civilizations instead of trying to put the thing in the thing would be incredible. Or Myst. A remake of Myst where you just explore Myst Island and the various ages spending more time piecing together the mystery of what happened to Atrus and his family instead of solving puzzles would be a guaranteed buy for me. But yeah I'd totally be up for a Gone Home style L.A. Noire. The Condemned games featured a little bit of CSI at times, but mostly those served as breaks between the bum-murdering simulation. I would love investigating crime scenes as an entire game, beyond the Phoenix Wright series of course. LordZoric fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 21:03
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LordZoric posted:Or Myst. A remake of Myst where you just explore Myst Island and the various ages spending more time piecing together the mystery of what happened to Atrus and his family instead of solve puzzles would be a guaranteed buy for me. I didn't mind the puzzle solving in Myst but Riven in my mind was the blueprint for the adventure genre as far as how to seamlessly integrate (very hard) puzzles into logic of the world itself. Anyway as much as I appreciated Gone Home's style of gameplay I hope Fullbright has some more tricks up their sleeve and will surprise us with something totally new.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:14
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One thing that games lack is a quiet sense of place, something that I really miss. A big part of the Myst series (and the better Myst Clones) and shows up in Gone Home is just being able to experience a location without explosions or interjected tension. Granted, it is really adventure games that seem to be able to pull this off well (if I had to pick a genre, Gone Home would be a non-fantastical adventure game). I guess it is something that is lost with bigger budgets and the need to justify them, causally exploring a world just isn't expected to be something that sells copies. Also, I don't know why Dear Esther gets so much poo poo in the gaming community either.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:24
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It's the whole "IT'S NOT A GAME" thing. Just some arbitrary standard that's apparently really important to their identity and self-worth.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:45
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lowwayman posted:Every other page someone is asking for any more games similar to Gone Home and Dear Esther so: Check out To The Moon. Well, guess I'll have to complete that game (already have a copy, just haven't gotten around to playing it). As well as checking out those Christine Love games someone mentioned earlier. Thanks for the games recommendation goons.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:50
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teethgrinder posted:Nope, but I could probably stand another game or two as long as the settings and/or subject-matter are unique enough. Make it a Myst-like world and I will buy it day one.
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Aug 21, 2013 22:55
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I hated Myst when I played it as a kid due to all the obtuse as hell puzzles but I would totally buy a game similar to that but with Gone Home gameplay too.
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Aug 21, 2013 22:57
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Accordion Man posted:I hated Myst when I played it as a kid due to all the obtuse as hell puzzles but I would totally buy a game similar to that but with Gone Home gameplay too.
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Aug 21, 2013 23:40
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Via one of the devs:
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Aug 22, 2013 00:15
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Hey that means Lowtax and Shmorky can totally LP the game now.
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Aug 22, 2013 00:19
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-Mom, Dad I'm incorporeal. -Are you sure it's not just a phase?
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Aug 22, 2013 00:43
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I just had two more thoughts as I replayed through the game. First, that Fullbright Company has in fact proven that the dream of the nineties is alive in Portland. Second, their next game should remain based in a rural Oregon house but this time they should collaborate with Laird Barron. Don't forget to include a basement, of course.
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Aug 22, 2013 02:39
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Where is the Dedication journal entry?
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Aug 22, 2013 02:45
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Al! posted:-Mom, Dad I'm incorporeal. I tried to come out as a ghost last night, but Mom and Dad just pushed me back into the closet. 
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Aug 22, 2013 02:47
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A Collection of Criticism about Gone Home, much of which I haven't linked in this thread yet.
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Aug 22, 2013 02:49
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TychoCelchuuu posted:A Collection of Criticism about Gone Home, much of which I haven't linked in this thread yet. Check out Justin Keverne's piece that focuses on Gone Home's place in the System Shock lineage. http://gropingtheelephant.com/blog/?p=4123 He does some great analysis of specific levels from Thief 2 and BioShock 2 too.
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Aug 22, 2013 02:54
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"Gone Home" and the mansion genre.
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Aug 22, 2013 03:03
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TychoCelchuuu posted:A Collection of Criticism about Gone Home, much of which I haven't linked in this thread yet. The more formalist criticisms are interesting to read but wow, a lot of bloggers on the internet enjoy writing at tremendous length about their personal problems.
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Aug 22, 2013 03:05
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exquisite tea posted:The more formalist criticisms are interesting to read but wow, a lot of
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Aug 22, 2013 03:14
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Sonance posted:Ooh, I'm number 13. I love this article, because I noticed that connection right away but he contextualizes it well.
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Aug 22, 2013 03:20
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Podcast interview with Steve Gaynor, one of the main devs of the game.
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Aug 22, 2013 03:35
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Fixed that for you. I take it as a sign that Gone Home has touched a part of people other than the "loves shooting aliens from behind cover" which I guess is good. True, however it does seem like a lot of people who couldn't relate to Gone Home are because of unresolved insecurities in their past making it difficult for them to relate to another (fictional) person's teenaged/queer/"privileged"/cool/90s experience.
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Aug 22, 2013 03:37
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Al! posted:I love this article, because I noticed that connection right away but he contextualizes it well. We see many other games attempt to do something similar by leaving emails, audio logs and personal effects strewn around to tell a story (see Doom 3, Dead Space, Tomb Raider) but they never quite seem to do it as effectively as Looking Glass/Irrational/Fullbright have.
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Aug 22, 2013 04:21
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Popular Thug Drink posted:Where is the Dedication journal entry? At the end of a hallway near the dining room. It's in a secret wall panel, but I think it's open when you find it.
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Aug 22, 2013 04:47
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Haha, Doom 3 is such a perfect example of doing it so poorly. I thought Dead Space (1) was pretty great though: the logs mostly served to increase tension. Doom 3's sin was to put information required to proceed into the logs. But the voice acting was bored and unconvincing too. Haven't played the new Tomb Raider yet.
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Aug 22, 2013 04:47
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I'm a totally cisgender heterosexual middle class white male and this game punched me right in the mouth so I'm going to take that as evidence that it is an awesome game regardless of the Twitterati opinion.cbirdsong posted:At the end of a hallway near the dining room. It's in a secret wall panel, but I think it's open when you find it. Thanks!
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Aug 22, 2013 05:03
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Audiologs are pretty common these days and also fairly rightfully mocked. I'm not sure what makes them poorly done like in those games you mentioned but I have a couple of ideas. First, they seem to be a second thought, a "hey we should put something in here as a backstory to all this shooting" rather than as a storytelling device. Second, a lot of video game environments tend to be extremely sterile even when they take place in locations where humans are ostensibly supposed to live, making it difficult to actually picture people in that place recording those logs.
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Aug 22, 2013 05:05
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Man, I pretty much got nothing out of this game. I'm all for games like this. I wish Bioshock 2 (a game I loved) had used some of the ideas this game had, and I recognize a little bit of Minerva's Den (a game I really loved) in here, with how deeply drawn-in the focus of the story is, how personal the story is, but my problem with this game specifically is that it's predominately a story about two characters and both of those characters are unlikable assholes. Sam is an egotistical jerk and I think genuinely a kleptomaniac and Lonnie isn't as bad (I mean, she might be, she sounds and acts exactly like Sam in every single note, but beyond that, you don't get much of a view into her), but she deserts on the army, who, last I checked, aren't very big on going away without leave! In fact, I think they have a term for that! A term with negative connotations! I don't exactly see "one jerk robs her parents and runs off without telling them or her sister anything useful besides "I'll be okay guys, really, I'm in wuuuuuuv  " while another jerk deserts the army after spending the last six years of her life preparing to join them" as a happy ending, I see it as "and then two jerks did some really dumb stuff that's not gonna end well for either of them". Comparatively to amazing characters like Eleanor Lamb, Augustus Sinclair and especially Charles Milton Porter, I'm floored at how much I just didn't give a poo poo about Sam and Lonnie. The progression model is whack too. The way I understand it, all of Sam's letters to Katie (You) are read at once in the attic at the end of the game, and the game just sprinkles them in throughout when you interact with an associated object, like Katie is remembering finding those objects strewn through the house as she reads the letters. But the only way to get into the attic is to find the key in the secret passage, and the only way to learn of the secret passage is to like, find a note in the basement? Why didn't she just leave the letters in her room or the guest room for Katie to find? Did she not intend for Katie to actually find the journal, and was it just a "write a letter and don't send it" kind of thing, like the beginning sort of implied? In that case, why leave behind the journal with the letters in it at all, why not torch it or take it with you? Did Sam intentionally leave out some scavenger hunt for her sister and her parents thinking "heh by the time those suckers find their way to the passage next to the stairs, I'll be loooooong gone.  " Obviously, that's a ridiculous notion within the context of the story. The obvious explanation is that Fullbright didn't expend the effort to create a realistic route from the entrance of the house to the attic with the letters in it, despite the game being pretty linear.Also, it made my laptop run hot the entire time, to the point of shutting down due to overheat twice, making me save and quit periodically so I could let it cool down before it started again. On the lowest settings. For a game with no combat, no cutscenes, bad graphics and generally nothing going on except some flickering lights, that's just straight-up bad optimization. I can look past the fact that I didn't like the two main characters at all. That's a judgment call and I seem to be in the minority there. But I can't look past how nonsensical the game's progression is or how poorly built it is, especially relative to its price point. Other games like Bastion keep a much fairer price tag, relative to the effort put into the game and the depth of the experience. And while conveying a much better character-focused story if I can say so myself. The characters I actually wound up liking were the mom and dad, the dad especially. I was kinda happy for him when I saw his book had gotten published again and that inspired him to keep writing. I felt sorta bad seeing the bizarrely harsh letter from his dad that was one big backhanded compliment. Seeing the crumpled up manuscript with the note not to give up, I'm assuming from his wife, was nice. I choose to believe that the wife didn't actually pursue any extramarital dalliances with Ranger Rick  , but she came close enough that they realized they needed help, thus, the couples retreat, which I wanna believe had a positive effect on their marriage. At least until they come home and find out their jerk daughter robbed them and ran off and their other jerk daughter ran their utilities bills into the stratosphere and threw all their stuff into the bathtubs, sinks, garbage cans and garage.  That was way more words about this game than I expected to write. I guess it did get somethin' outta me.
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Aug 22, 2013 08:49
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What did Sam take? The car, which from I understand was an old beater she bought, some VCRs, the SNES, and... What? And it sounds like you went and found reasons to dislike the characters, honestly. Those aspects were part of their story/personalities, but they're believable flaws. And can you really blame an antiestablishment lesbian for getting cold feet about joining a homophobic authoritarian military? Is there even severe repercussions for bailing out on going to basic? I though Lonnie just did J/ROTC work and bailed before going to basic training.
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Aug 22, 2013 09:17
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