pseudorandom name posted:

Depends on how much effort they put into the port, the main reason why it performs badly on low-end hardware is that it is one level, and the PS3 is even worse than the low end.

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Interview with the developers about life after Gone Home and their next game.

Timeless Appeal posted:

Just make a narrative driven riot grrrl rhythm game, Full Bright.

Sober posted:

Morbidly curious too; if the "not a game" bile thrown out over Gone Home is like that over what I assume is the PC gaming crowd, I want to see what grammarless manifesto we'll get from the console crowd.

Jet Jaguar posted:

It's been a while since I played it, might have to go through and retry with commentary.

al-azad posted:

KillHour posted:

So, I finally got around to playing this and... "Meh."

I mean, it's mechanically a very good game. It's a novel method of storytelling that really engroses you; I just wish they picked a more interesting story. It's like someone said "I have a really awesome idea on how to tell a story!" but didn't actually have a story to tell. Maybe I'm jaded, but a story that starts with "My ~~~gay~~~ sister left me an intricate series of clues and notes that starts with her saying she's gone and she doesn't want anyone to know (and don't try to find all the clues I left! I'm serious!)" and ends with the big reveal that "she's definitely still gay and left to be with her girlfriend" just seems really .

Also, aren't her parents going to find out she left when... she's not there? And they already know about the thing, so it's not like they won't be able to figure out where she went.

And the level design just kept taking me out of it. Who designed that house, M.C. Escher?


Edit: And just to clarify, I'm not complaining that the story isn't unrealistic or that simple things can't be compelling. My issue is more that there wouldn't really be a story to tell in real life - the entire thing could have been summed up in the note on the front door. They basically gave the story away in the beginning and about 1/3 of the way in, the characters were already fleshed out. The last 2/3rds (after you go into the basement, basically) just felt like filler.


Also, this is a good point. Sam's a loving moron. My best friend went to basic right after high school, and it was pretty much just 10 weeks of him calling to complain about how lovely basic is. Then he came back and had to go to base like twice a week - basically a part time job.

Accordion Man posted:

If its not your cup of tea that's fine, but its pretty telling that gamers kept expecting all of these bombastic ideas like ghosts or murder in this game and then get all mad when the game doesn't do that.

Republican Vampire posted:

My main issue with it is that it's kind of cliche when it comes to queer narratives and coming out stories. It's presented in a pretty unique way, but I kinda wish that the sub-plot about the parents had been better developed.

Accordion Man posted:

Terry's subplot was fine, you just have to look harder for it then Sam's. The mom's is pretty short but it does have a conclusion and it makes sense why there is so little of her in the game, she's always away at work and not home, unlike Terry and Sam.

Accordion Man posted:

You definitely missed some things because everything in the basement and after is far from filler and really helps to develop the characters.

Also I know I've said this before but Sam's terrified. This is the 90's and gay people weren't as socially accepted as they are now. She was scared that her parents wouldn't accept her and worst case scenarios were running through her mind like they potentially sending her to a "pray the gay away" camp. She also knows that if Lonnie does stay in the military their relationship is screwed due to "Don't ask don't tell". The stuff that she and Lonnie did that you find out at the end was just out of sheer desperation. It's meant to be a bittersweet ending. (Also keep mind that was easier to get a decent job out of high school in the 90's then it is now so they're probably not that screwed.)

DreamShipWrecked posted:

Eh, we can't really get mad at people for not falling all over the game now. It was somewhat revolutionary in its presentation (which is what made it special), but now there is so much hype backlash and contemporary games of similar type that it gets dragged down.

Just because someone doesn't like Gone Home as much as they expected at this point doesn't necessarily mean they are idiots, just that there's a lot of baggage on it.

Crappy Jack posted:

In fairness, most gamers are really really dumb about picking up on plot threads, and we're still not even at the point where you can trust players to look up. That doesn't mean it's not a valid complaint, but I always have to bear that in mind when it bothers me.

precision posted:

I don't recall the house's architecture being "impossible", but then again, I've played Infocom games.

KillHour posted:

(Yes, I get it, the dad's trying to live up to the legacy of his father and it's ruining his marriage and his liver).

TheOneAndOnlyT posted:

I don't want to be a dick, because Gone Home isn't perfect and there's plenty to criticize about it, but if you're using this as an example of the game being too obvious about things, you've proved yourself wrong. There's more going on with Terry than just "daddy issues"; his story is pretty intricately intertwined with Uncle Oscar's once you realize what's going on there.

KillHour posted:

If your story requires that the "reader" absolutely see every little detail, maybe you shouldn't make it interactive. And that's the thing - this story didn't even need that. You could miss half the story, and it would still make sense. There was just so little story there to begin with, they had to make sure you got all of it or it wouldn't seem fleshed out enough (it wasn't). And the whole "finding things out by reading crumpled up papers conveniently left in order" feels contrived. The signal to noise ratio is way too high to feel believable.

poptart_fairy posted:

It basically uses fairly common videogame elements (c'mon guys, we've had environmental story telling since Wolfenstein 3D) to tell a story which is uncommon inside videogames. I found it decent enough but the level of hype and defense it gets is really weird, and kind of self-vindicating.

Max posted:

It's interesting to see how this game hits people depending on their age. I really liked it, but this game got to me because Sam's bedroom looks almost exactly like the bedroom of a friend of mine's back in the 90's. That really struck a cord with me at the time.

As far as the parents storyline actually interacting with Sam's: I feel like Sam was at an age where you really stop paying attention to your parents. You live with them and rely on them, but their personal life just isn't on your radar, so the only time they all actually interact is when they chastise her for her relationship to Lonnie.

This isn't surprising since the mom was checked out for a while due to her job and crush, and dad was just sort of spinning his wheels. That sounds like the "whatever" generation to me.

Max posted:

Edit: I played through this recently, and I forgot how well they set up the horror vibe for the first little bit of the game before it comes down to earth. That dark hallway with the emergency signal on the tv blaring, and the fake out with the red hair dye in the bathtub is pretty good.

KillHour posted:

I picked up on the connection, but that doesn't make him any less of a cliche.

KillHour posted:

But if you're going to make a video game about a story, make sure you know how to write one, first.

Wanderer posted:

Cliches aren't bad. There's a reason why they became cliches.

You seem to be mixing up two different criticisms:
1) The game is too obvious with its storytelling;
2) The game is telling a story I've seen before.

As Crappy Jack said, interactive narrative in a 3D space is still very much in its infancy and developers have had to evolve a new visual storytelling language to compensate: color-coding important elements, subtle environmental cues, waypoint markers, etc. Thus, in the current space, a story like Gone Home that provides no such cues must operate on the assumption that a prospective player will not see or understand everything in the game, but still deliver a satisfying conclusion if and when that player makes it to the end.

If you search more exhaustively than the average player, then you may end up feeling like your hand was held or that the themes were shouted into your face, but you must then temper that with the knowledge that you did search more exhaustively; you got more of the story than most people did. Even then, there are elements of the story that are so subtle that they're easy to miss, like their mom almost having an affair with the new hire at her forestry office. I'd go so far as to say that Terry's history of abuse is in that territory as well, since it's hinted at more than it's ever shown, and a lot of players have reportedly gone through the game without realizing it's there.

As for the "cliche" argument, frankly, I don't think you have a leg to stand on there. You could argue that Gone Home relies so heavily on its interactive/experimental nature to tell the story that it ends up as a detriment to elements of the story itself, which is fair (i.e. the mother's near-absence from the narrative, or how Terry seems very important early on but becomes less so as you reach the second floor), or that the story it thinks it's telling isn't the same as the story it is telling (i.e. Sam and Lonnie's romantic "escape," which will land Terry in debt and Lonnie in jail).

Writing elements of the story off as "cliched," however, says more about you than it does about what you're criticizing. It says you're cynical, and possibly that you're really young; it says that you have not yet realized that everything is a cliche if you've consumed enough culture. Gone Home is an experiment in how to tell a story, not how to make new stories, and if you're accusing it of cliche, you're asking for something from it that it never promised to deliver.

Wanderer posted:

Also, this:


Don't be this guy. There's nothing in Gone Home that would deserve a dose of this kind of junior-high vitriol, particularly on SA where you have a better than even chance of one of the developers reading the thread.

poptart_fairy posted:

It basically uses fairly common videogame elements (c'mon guys, we've had environmental story telling since Wolfenstein 3D) to tell a story which is uncommon inside videogames. I found it decent enough but the level of hype and defense it gets is really weird, and kind of self-vindicating.