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Something about the preview for this game really grabbed me and now I'm looking forward to playing it. I'm in love with the concept. Has anything been said of how long it would take to get through the entire house, assuming you're a completionist and want to explore everything? Will there be any value to starting a new game, randomized artifacts/events or anything like that?
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Nov 29, 2012 11:48
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How can it be a finalist for any category if the game is six months out from release? Oh well, not going to complain, I just hope it's released soon.  Not since Shenmue has my desire to pick up oranges and thoroughly examine them been met.
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Jan 11, 2013 15:53
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It looks like Fulbright Company put up a new "Riot Grrl" video preview on the frontpage some time ago. Watching the video made me a little worried that the "mystery" of the sister's disappearance will be that she ran away from her parents to be with the girl who made the mixtape or something trite like that. I'm looking forward to this game but I hope the investigation behind the family is a little more complex than how they're making it out to be in that clip. Hopefully I'm just overreacting and there will be many more surprises.
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Jun 28, 2013 17:11
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What's the turnaround between announcement/release date on these small indie games? For big titles the street date is usually set six months to a year in advance, but does Gone Home going gold mean we can see it by the Fall?
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Jul 20, 2013 23:47
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Well I guess that answers my question! The devs have announced that Gone Home is being released on August 15th, just two weeks from now. I'm pretty excited because there's been a real dearth of games that have interested me this much recently.
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Aug 3, 2013 02:17
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The first thing I am going to do is make a gigantic pillow fort out of my room. Or somebody else's, I don't care.
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Aug 3, 2013 18:23
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I'm definitely getting this tomorrow, I just don't have too much to add and don't want to hunt down every little article about it for fear of spoiling the sense of discovery. I didn't think I could ever get excited over a game where you look through an empty house and that's it, but here we are.
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Aug 14, 2013 12:38
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That was a sweet little game. I appreciate all the narrative depth despite predicting exactly what would happen between Sam and Lonnie. Besides all the other plot threads being mentioned, one that stood out to me was the cold relationship between Terrence and his own father. You don't find a single artifact of your grandfather's until you reach the basement, and it's an analytic text about Joyce -- the highest of high art -- contrasted against Dad's pulpy serial novels. The repeated line of "you can do better" in the note and also in the study just perfectly encapsulates, without using very many words at all, Terrence's professional struggles against his father's shadow, as well as the loneliness that both he and Masan experienced in their own personal lives. There's also the generational motif between the men of the family and Sam, a very talented writer in her own right who you see develop through her stories of Allegra and the First Mate. I'll definitely have to go through the house again to pick up on anything I missed. One interesting little turn in my own game was that I somehow missed the bathroom on the upper floor with the red hair dye until I was about to visit the attic, so I thought it was definitely blood until I flicked on the light. It was an oddly tense moment that left me wondering if the developers anticipated something like that happening.
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Aug 16, 2013 02:39
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Kaitlin! What did you do to my room?! *fade out to Home Alone main theme*
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Aug 16, 2013 02:55
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BJPaskoff posted:Nope, I put everything back! Even tidied up a bit. Why was the parents' room in such disarray? Especially the mother's side - draws all open, clothes strewn about. Now that the story's over the only thing I can think of is last minute packing. If you examine the calendar in the dining room, the couples retreat was rather hastily added in over the scratched out wedding date for Rick (the forest ranger dude). So it was a last minute thing. Narrative wise, it also injects a little suspense into the story at the point at which the player is likely to find their parents' bedroom.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:07
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apophenium posted:Did anyone find out where all the VHS players went? I thought they were all taken by Sam in one of those dramatic teenage desperation moves to sell them off for some money to get away with Lonnie. She leaves a note in a hallway apologizing for all the things she took.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:11
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It's established pretty early in the narrative that Katie and Sam have a pretty close relationship, or at the very least Sam looks up to Katie a great deal. I also sensed an undercurrent of jealousy as well, since Katie seems to be so perfect with all her #1 trophies on display while the more creative Sam is so frequently misunderstood by the adults in her life. One great moment that perfectly illustrates this is when you find the biology assignment for the same class three years apart. Katie does everything "correctly" and gets an easy check plus, Sam creates a long and rather humorous story about the menstrual cycle and gets a "see me" on the next page. I guess there's no definitive answer either way since Katie is the silent player character but the development of the plot is so geared toward sympathizing with Sam that it'd be difficult not to feel for her, even if you thought her decision to run away was rash. Gone Home frequently made me reflect a lot upon my own childhood and what some random person would think about me if they rummaged through my belongings when I was seventeen. It's interesting to think about what assumptions someone would make.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:47
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MacGyvers_Mullet posted:So... Oscar abused Katie's father, right? That's a really interesting take on Oscar's story, I'll have to keep this in mind when I go through the house again.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:42
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I knew Gone Home was going to turn into a love story the instant I saw the first mixtape. Everybody who's ever made one knows what that's really about.
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Aug 16, 2013 11:06
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Did anyone recall when the Allegra manuscript in the hidden panel was written, the one where First Mate is reborn as a woman?
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Aug 16, 2013 12:26
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Yeah, there's a voice over line where Sam says she's known since She-Ra, which would be about age 8 or 9 for her.
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Aug 16, 2013 13:00
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A wishlist modifier that could be cool in a NG+ kind of way would be an object randomizer for some of the documents and artifacts you find. After finishing the game for the first time I started to wonder how switching up the order at which you would normally discover certain items could change the narrative.
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Aug 16, 2013 15:47
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One of the cool things about Gone Home is that its narrative is uniquely suited to being a game. Like the Walking Dead (a very good game) could conceivably work as a standalone movie or a season of the television series without too much effort, and if you wanted I suppose you could tell the story of the Greenbriars in an adaptation of Gone Home, but so much of the gameplay relies on the house being abandoned and you, the player, piecing together what happened. Any other medium would explain too much and ruin the sense of discovery.
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Aug 16, 2013 16:37
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No, it's more likely that you haven't visited all the rooms in the east wing of the house yet.
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Aug 16, 2013 19:55
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Strategy: Break into rich dude's mansion when they're away, rifle through belongings for clues.
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Aug 16, 2013 21:46
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On Sam, I got the vibe from some of her journal entries and TV clippings that her parents were considering or she suspected they were planning to send her to one of those ex-gay camps, which also explains why she considers staying at home to be "impossible" right now.
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Aug 17, 2013 01:15
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Gotta Wear Shades posted:I highly enjoyed it even if I am worried that the girls are in way over their heads. The sexuality angst tugs at my heart strings but they're still high school lovers who shoplift and steal from their parents. Tremendous game/program/experience, though. I don't regret the 20 bucks I spent. One of the great things about Gone Home is how all the principal characters are flawed in some way without being truly unsympathetic, which makes them all seem very human. Often times in stories like these, especially ones where teens are questioning their sexuality, one character will become sort of a Mary Sue for the author and everything mean and oppressive will be endlessly heaped on her without any pushback. I thought it was great that Sam begins to rebel against her parents (and the patriarchy) in a realistically bratty kind of way, and how Lonnie brings that rebellious side out of her. I think anybody who's had an older sibling, especially one who seems as perfect and accomplished as Katie, can relate to feeling like the rebel outcast of the family. I agree with you that the future of the girls is really uncertain. It end didn't on a happy note for me at all, but rather a very mixed and complex one. It reminded me of A Doll's House, where Nora's arc is complete but you wonder how long it can really last. Nonetheless I think it's important that the reality of the game ends there. Although my logical side would have appreciated it, I'm glad they didn't tack on a happily ever after epilogue because it leaves you speculating what will happen once your parents return and all the family secrets have been uncovered. Maybe in Gone Home 2 you will head down to Salem hot on the trail of your missing runaway sister.
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Aug 17, 2013 13:46
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Well, I'd say their relationship isn't without its disagreements. The "Getting Lonnie" passage in Sam's journal highlights how their personalities clash. No disagreement that their relationship is somewhat idealized, but we as the audience want to root for them and seven months isn't a lot of time for serious problems to arise, even in high school terms. Gone Home doesn't operate within a vacuum as well and it comes after a sequence in LGBT fiction in which the lovers are always star-crossed, tortured, and doomed to failure. I think it's important to also portray relationships that are healthy and uplifting..
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Aug 17, 2013 16:05
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My feeling on Gone Home is that the story ended right where it needed to, although I wouldn't object to a sequel later on down the line. I don't think that will ever happen, though, and good stories are meant to leave you wondering what becomes of their characters. If Fullbright Co. made Gone Home 2 I think it would have to be set far in the future, like twenty or so years, so that the player would still have to piece together what happened to the Greenbriars within the intervening years. Very much looking forward to the next Fullbright Company projecy to see where they can go from here.
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Aug 18, 2013 00:26
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Any similar games set after Gone Home would require some contrivance to explain why you couldn't just look it all up on your cell phone.
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Aug 18, 2013 00:57
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cbirdsong posted:For anyone looking to clear out the journal, the ones I just tracked down were: Between that entry and the TV Guide clipping you find underneath the folder, I thought Sam felt like her parents were considering sending her to an ex-gay camp instead of Reed College for the summer.
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Aug 18, 2013 01:13
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Flashing Twelve posted:I'm interested though. Out of the people here who really enjoyed it, how many are queer? The story strongly reflects the personal experiences of a lot of queer people, which is why I think it's hitting some people much harder than others. I am not LGBTQQ++ Omega Gayngster Edition, but I do work very closely with urban high school students who are and it's their perspectives combined with memories of my own childhood that really made Gone Home resonate with me. I get to see my students figure out things like school, first love, and rebelling against their parents on a daily basis. I thought about how closely some of Sam's audio logs were to conversations I've had with my own kids.
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Aug 18, 2013 12:56
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Calico Noose posted:So i assume that all the VCR's were missing because Sam took them to sell for quick cash Yes, and also the dad writes electronic product reviews for a living, so it's possible a lot of the ones are just rentals that they have to mail back.
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Aug 18, 2013 17:20
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The sequel to Gone Home will take place a decade later, wherein the events of June 7th 1995 have turned Katie into a meticulous burglar who breaks into homes and extorts the residents within for their family secrets.
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Aug 18, 2013 17:28
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I think it would have definitely taken away from the sense of urgency if you could totally ignore what happened to your family and just play SNES in your missing sister's room until Mom and Dad got back. It was pretty awesome playing Space Harrier on your Sega Master System in Shenmue though. I feel like Gone Home is the spiritual successor to Shemue in many ways.
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Aug 18, 2013 21:11
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Something else I liked in Sam's room was her latest draft of Allegra and First Mate. If you read it allegorically it kind of broadcasts what has happened up to that point and what Sam is going to do. There was still the suspense of a potential suicide pact going on in the background, but once I read that part of the story I kind of figured that Sam was going to get away, much like how Allegra always escapes impossible perils in search of broader horizons. In the basement the drawings on S&L's zine had them with much shorter hair, which left me wondering if it was their own Riot Grrl stylization or if they had really cut their hair that short. For Lonnie at least she probably had to do away with the bright red dye once she prepared to ship out for the Army.
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Aug 18, 2013 23:54
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Comrade Fakename posted:I enjoyed this a lot, but I've got to say I cannot fathom how it's bringing so many people to tears. There's nothing in the main story of this game that isn't in a hundred teen dramas like Dawson's Creek or something. Well, I think while the story is not particularly unique, what makes Gone Home resonate with a lot of people is the novel way in which players uncover the plot, something that you can't really accomplish in a non-interactive medium. I'll say the characters are also more credible and realistically written than an episode of Dawson's Creek, this is at LEAST My So-Called Life level here! As for the game's ending, I feel like it's totally fitting and proper that the conclusion is ambiguous. You want the characters to make peace among themselves and be happy, even though it's unlikely that they ever will. It was a similar feeling to how I felt at the ending A Doll's House or a Raisin in the Sun, where even in the face of logically insurmountable odds, you hope in spite of everything that the characters succeed. The reality of Gone Home vanishes after that moment, so unless a sequel is ever made the aftermath is only a guess. It didn't make me cry though, I'm a cold-rear end bastard for everything but the last two minutes of "Rudy."
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Aug 19, 2013 00:26
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Sendo posted:Was the second answering machine message ever explained ? At first I thought it was the mother, but it's Lonnie at the payphone trying to call Sam. I think in her final journal entry Sam mentions that she missed the last three messages because she's been in the attic. I didn't get that either until I restarted the game.
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Aug 19, 2013 01:23
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Can't wait until it's revealed that there is a huge subterranean Lovecraftian city hidden underneath the Arbor Hill estate.
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Aug 19, 2013 02:49
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Szmitten posted:That 24th entry is pretty great. Anybody who felt left in the dark after finishing the game, listen to this entry. It ties up all the loose ends in one neat little bow.
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Aug 19, 2013 13:15
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I guess I must be too much of a music snob because when that NYT article about Gone Home mentioned Veruca Salt as one of the game's "lesser known" bands I was like pssh, everybody's heard of them.
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Aug 19, 2013 21:05
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Superstring posted:I don't even get how the story has been done before is even a criticism unless it's paired up with the notion that the game did not do justice to it. Books, movies, plays, and other media are not criticized simply for retreading a familiar story. This is actually an important step to show that video games can tackle the same subjects in new and different ways. I think there is some resistance towards games attempting to branch out into the personal and mundane. Many people simply want their hobby to remain various iterations of Space Invaders forever, and that's fine. The irony of people who have played Saints Row I-IV on release day proclaiming Gone Home to be nothing original is not lost on me, though.
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Aug 20, 2013 12:48
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For me playing though Gone Home for the first time recaptured that sense of exploration I had with Shenmue 12 years ago, except if it were to cut out all the boring stuff like the fighting and mystic prophecies and focused instead on driving forklifts and examining a bowl of oranges in your home.
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Aug 21, 2013 02:30
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I just took it to be the name of their highschool or some administrator they didn't like with an easily mocked name.
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Aug 21, 2013 11:35
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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.
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Aug 21, 2013 17:45
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