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apophenium posted:Did anyone find out where all the VHS players went? Sam and Lonnie stole them to finance their super awesome life as lesbian runaways.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:10
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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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Keep in mind in 1995, vcrs were actually worth an amount of money and you could still get a movie ticket for five bucks.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:15
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Holy poo poo. From the beginning I was dreading a suicide plotline. Everything was building up to it in my head with each journal entry. I'm so glad it had a (mostly) happy ending. I had such a sense of dread after seeing the pentagram and hearing Sam talking about sleeping in the attic. What an amazing game. I'm really glad I experienced that and that this was made. I can't imagine ever playing through it again but it will definitely stick with me. I really hope Fullbright gets to do this again.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:16
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Someone tell the APB guy that unless the thing he's afraid of revisiting is homosexuality or runaways or somewhat troubled marriages he can go ahead and play the game without fear.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:19
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It only took me about an hour to get everything I want out of this game (I know there are a few minor things with oscar that I missed) but it was one of the best hours I've had in a long, long time.
long-ass nips Diane fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 03:21
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A game's story hasn't made me feel this happy since, ever really. What a nice story.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:27
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Dammit, I really wanna play the game, but my poor MBP can't handle it without burning up.  I'm gonna have to watch an LP of it...is there a good one out yet?
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Aug 16, 2013 03:28
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redcheval posted:Well that's... Yeah, that and his will stating that he died unmarried and childless, right? Kinda says something happened there. I'm guessing he either cut his sister out of the will, or she died before him, given that he left everything to his nephew. exquisite tea posted: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. I absolutely loved the Mom/Rick subplot. It really makes you wonder if she was just reading into his friendship too much, or if Rick actually had feelings for her, or what. All I know is, I gotta imagine it's pretty uncomfortable for Katie to find all these hints at her Mom's infidelity. apophenium posted:Did anyone find out where all the VHS players went? I'm guessing Sam took them? Maybe for money, or something. After all Lonnie said "Grab everything you can." Is it really not up for dispute that Katie accepts Sam's actions? I didn't think we got to see Katie's reaction. After all, though we as the player get to hear the journal entries throughout the game, Katie doesn't read them until the end. I like to hope Katie accepts what Sam did, don't get me wrong, but the only time we get Katie's reaction is to the...erm... intimate note in the basement. Of course, her reaction to that would be merited regardless of the circumstances, because no sane, normal person wants to think about their sibling's love-life. Of course, I could have totally missed something, and if it's pretty blatantly said that Katie's okay with all this, that makes for a much happier ending. God, the discussion this game merits is so good. Some of the tiniest details can reshape all your thoughts on it.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:31
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Missing that piece of info actually makes me feel like I missed a decent chunk of the story.
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Oh, and with Oscar: In the basement, you hear a weird little "hello!" So I guess there is a ghost Oscar?
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Aug 16, 2013 03:35
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OmniDesol posted:
I think, as you are Katie, this is something every player will decide for themselves.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:36
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I've never played a game that made a person's life so believable before. I can't even describe how I felt playing it.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:40
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Just finished the game. Spoilers follow. I drat near had a loving panic attack (even though I knew the game didn't have any jump scares) after I found the room with the pentagram and the key to the attic. Like, I know nothing is going to jump out at me, and I know that I have to get up to the attic as fast as possible because my loving baby sister is up there and she might have hurt herself. I think I was just really scared that I was going to find Sam hanging from a rafter up there and I didn't want to confront that possibility. I don't even have a sister, Sam isn't a real person, this is just a game, but I couldn't help but think "OH MY GOD SAMMY PLEASE DON'T HURT YOURSELF I'M COMING." Also, did anyone else think that, at first, the reason everyone was gone was because the controlled burn your mom was doing had actually grown out of control and you were about to be swept up in a firestorm? To me, it explained why it looked like everyone got the gently caress out in a hurry with the haphazard looking rooms and the messy kitchen. Looking back, that's actually really silly since there was a thunderstorm and there's no way a shuttle would drop you off if there was an inferno like 20 miles away. Fantastic game.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:42
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Played this game completely blind, only heard about it for the first time this morning. Really thought it was an Amnesia-type non-combat horror game at first, and in some way it made the game scarier that it wasn't. It taps into that real sense of unease in walking in a dark house, even if you have no rational reason to be afraid, which just feels more real than monsters and jump scares. That sense of dread doesn't go away when it becomes clear that there's nothing supernatural going on, but rather replaced with the dread of realizing that your family may have come to a really horrible end. Sam's journal entry when you get the attic key is perfectly timed so that, if you immediately rush upstairs, it just ends right as you get to the attic door. My heart was in my loving throat, and when you actually get to the attic and discover what's going on... Man, this game. Probably my favorite of the small throw-away details was the mother disposing the Earth, Wind and Fire ticket in the vent. I think she probably had serious thoughts of infidelity, but never went through with it, and realized it would be a mistake when she got the ticket, so she had to get rid of it, but her husband would find it in the trash. It's amazing the amount of story you can get from small details like that.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:45
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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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I don't want to go crazy praising this. I feel like there are a ton of players who will get absolutely nothing out of this game. What struck me most about this Gone Home is its confidence. It is telling a very subdued "small" story in a way that that doesn't pander or talk down to the player. That takes some serious balls.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:48
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I just love how video games have conditioned us. Everybody in this thread has these big grandiose ideas of what's going on at first. Surely there must be a murder or somebody's about to commit suicide or there's a ghost in the house that's gonna get me. It's a video game, something big and overblown has to be happening. But nope, it's just a simple story about a small family and their dramas and lives. We're not expected to care about characters unless they revolve around us; I think of the "romances" in the Mass Effect series and compare them to the electric thrill I got hearing Sam talk about her friend call her cute for the first time and suddenly I'm flashing back to middle school and the first time a girl said she liked me, and I was immediately hooked on that story. It's a damned compelling love story, and you're only experiencing it secondhand.
Crappy Jack fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 03:48
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catpowerd posted:I don't want to go crazy praising this. I feel like there are a ton of players who will get absolutely nothing out of this game. What struck me most about this Gone Home is its confidence. It is telling a very subdued "small" story in a way that that doesn't pander or talk down to the player. That takes some serious balls. I really feel fuckin sad for anyone who gets absolutely nothing out of this game.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:50
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I kind of figured out where a lot of it was going due to the fact there's at least 3 bibles in the house. From Sam's first few entries it was obvious where the trouble started. Still, I was tense going to the attic...
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Aug 16, 2013 03:52
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I thought Sam's stories about Allegra and the first mate were also really well done, especially the chapter with the amazons. Also that Sam and Lonnie went as Allegra and the First Mate for halloween 
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Aug 16, 2013 03:58
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When I saw The Pentagram, I didn't panic because I immediately remembered the Ouija Board and thought "Aw, they were trying to summon their ghost friend for their last night."
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Aug 16, 2013 03:59
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Anyone screencap this note? e: This is my first time in the thread. I think the OP does the game a disservice by saying it isn't a horror game, since the game is certainly steering you in that direction pretty much keeping that possibility floating till the very end. ee: Anyone know where the game's save file is? Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 04:04
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Sexpansion posted:Can't wait to speedrun this poo poo tonight. Already did it (spoilers in the video, obviously): Gone Home Speedrun As you can imagine the game's story doesn't make much sense like this.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:08
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Mutation posted:When I saw The Pentagram, I didn't panic because I immediately remembered the Ouija Board and thought "Aw, they were trying to summon their ghost friend for their last night." The only time I panicked was when I saw red stains on Sam's bathtub. Then I picked up the hair dye.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:10
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This is a few pages back, but the 0451 thing was originally a reference to Farenheit 451. Also, I really enjoyed this game, a whole lot. Whoever referenced the DuClare mansion from Deus Ex was spot on. It's essentially a game made out of the parts of any semi-open world game where you snoop through people's belongings, hoping to find something interesting. I look forward to finding out about the stuff that I missed.Teenage Fansub posted:Anyone screencap this note? I did, though I didn't save it. It's Sam describing her first intimate moment with Lonnie (Lonny?), and thinking of ways to get together again. Cicadalek fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 04:13
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Teenage Fansub posted:Anyone screencap this note? Yeah. Here you go.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:15
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Also when I noticed Oscar's nametag on the Pentagram and Sam's nametag in the garbage, I thought maybe you would end up needing to exorcise her spirit from the house.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:16
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Holy poo poo if you hold the tapes under different light they have messages between Sam and her girlfriend wrote to eatch other on them. The level of detail is insane.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:18
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Thanks. What's with 'Japan' in the OP? Did it get changed to Europe in development?
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Aug 16, 2013 04:19
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I think my favorite part about this game was right at the beginning, when I found the combination to the father's locked file drawer. I rushed back and opened it expecting to find something dramatic or plot important...only to find important paperwork. You know, the sort of thing that would be in a normal person's locked file cabinet. Set the whole tone for the game, really.  Still, that God drat light bulb going out gave me a heart attack.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:20
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I didn't cry at all, you guys are liars. I tend to not get emphatic towards video games though, wasn't expecting too at all. I'm not sure how I feel. Happy I guess. I'm really really glad it had a happy ending. As a few others also expected, I assumed it was going to end with a suicide. So many of her notes just read that way, but nope just ditching town. I liked how the house slowly unlocked itself over time, and my love of leaving lights/drawers open made it obvious where I had and had not been fairly quickly. Even with full exploration ( I checked everything, just didn't bother to try and read chickenscratch notes. ) I still beat it at the 70 minute mark. Oddly though, I didn't feel like it was too short, it felt perfectly right to me in length. Not sure it was a full $20 game, but whatever, I want to support more stuff like this, so sure, have my $20. And yes I'm spoiling this, because I'm sure some goons would use it as an excuse to not buy/play it, which they should, price be damned. I figured out pretty early in the basement that Oscar was either trans, a cross dresser, or gay, which I felt was interesting, since they don't put nearly any information out on it. I didn't bother with the Ouija board, because I didn't realize it'd really do anything. I did however crack his safe, and realized he committed suicide for his "sin", which was a bit sad. I felt really bad for the dad, as his father was an rear end in a top hat, his wife was likely/maybe cheating on him, his books were terrible, and finally, several years later he was forced to sacrifice what pride he had to write for a trashy fantasy novel company. I liked some of the themes in the family. The dad wanted to be a writer so badly, but he just couldn't pull it off. Meanwhile Sam only got better and better at it as the years went by. Oscar was likely gay, but rather then accept himself, he locked himself away/killed himself. Sam was gay, but she stopped lying, and accepted it. It was a neat touch. I'm apparently missing a bunch of stuff, as I never found a few things people are mentioning here ( porn habits, apparently Katie getting disgusted at finding out about Sam's sex life ), but honestly, none of that sounds important, or integral to the story outside of trying to make this a more believable group of people. Though now I am super curious about maybe missing more, as I felt like I scoured that house, and didn't find that stuff. A++ game. e: The one thing I really didn't like was it was far to much "Sams" story. Which is fine. Except for the fact 90% of the notes in the house are hers. Including the notes in the mothers room, or areas of the house the mom/dad "controlled". There were far to many stray school folders with notes from Sam in them, or notes thrown into garbage cans the parents would also use talking about her love for Lonnie, or notes pinned up on walls they normally wouldn't be talking about how great it is to be gay, and realize it. Around the time I got to the kitchen table, it felt a bit forced that she had all these notes everywhere. I guess yeah, they couldn't have just put 21-24 notes in the bedroom/attic/basement, and left the rest of the house empty, but it would have been nice to have a few notes from the perspective of the mother/father about her behavior to push me to the next spot. Rookersh fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 04:21
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Mutation posted:When I saw The Pentagram, I didn't panic because I immediately remembered the Ouija Board and thought "Aw, they were trying to summon their ghost friend for their last night." I think it's more sad than that though, since there's a book on exorcism in that room; they were trying to lay Oscar to rest.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:23
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This isn't a video game.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:30
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So... Oscar abused Katie's father, right? In the servant's quarters of the basement you can see Terry's (Katie's Dad) height every year from 6 years old all the way up to age 12 (1963), but only up to 1963 and no further. Terry is obsessed with the JFK assassination, which happened in 1963. He spends his whole life writing books about that year. In the letter behind the hidden panel in Terry's writing desk, there's a letter from Oscar congratulating Terry on his marriage - a letter which mentioned how relieved Oscar is that Terry is interested in nice young women and that his development has been normal. He also mentioned how Terry is always welcome back in the house anytime, but the torn out section indicates that Terry might not want to come back. It's also clear that the note was ripped to pieces and taped back together. Since the note was in a postmarked envelope, it only makes sense that Terry received it around the time of his wedding and ripped it himself, then reconstructed it. On top of all of that, in the safe in the basement you see a letter from Oscar to his sister (who shares a surname with Terry, indicating that Terry is her son) talking about how he "transgressed" but sought no absolution, only forgiveness. He also mentions how he "removed himself from temptation." He died a recluse in his own house in the 70s, and the last mark you see for Terry's height is 1963, the same year as JFK's assassination, which Terry is obsessed with. That indicates that Oscar separated himself from not just Terry but all other children. This leads me to believe that Oscar abused Terry - especially given Oscar's remarks about how relieved he was that Terry turned out normal and married a young woman. So it seems pretty clear to me that Oscar abused Terry, and was forced to alienate himself from his nephew, not that Oscar lost a son. Sumac fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 04:33
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Is there a way to open binders, or are they just for decoration?
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Aug 16, 2013 04:33
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MacGyvers_Mullet posted:So... Oscar abused Katie's father, right? Wandering Knitter posted:Is there a way to open binders, or are they just for decoration?
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Aug 16, 2013 04:38
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MacGyvers_Mullet posted:So it seems pretty clear to me that Oscar abused Terry, and was forced to alienate himself from his nephew, not that Oscar lost a son.  this makes so much sense. I feel stupid now for not connecting the name Terry, clearly labeled on the height marks. For some reason this became a totally alternate character in my mind, which doesn't really even make sense. drat. I quit playing hours ago but my fascination with the story has just kept on going afterwards.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:41
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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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redcheval posted:I think it's more sad than that though, since there's a book on exorcism in that room; they were trying to lay Oscar to rest. Wow, I didn't even consider that. In the end S&L weren't afraid of Oscar but empathized with him. Not to mention their 'ghost hunting' is what got them closer.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:43
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Rookersh posted:e: The one thing I really didn't like was it was far to much "Sams" story. Which is fine. Except for the fact 90% of the notes in the house are hers. Including the notes in the mothers room, or areas of the house the mom/dad "controlled". There were far to many stray school folders with notes from Sam in them, or notes thrown into garbage cans the parents would also use talking about her love for Lonnie, or notes pinned up on walls they normally wouldn't be talking about how great it is to be gay, and realize it.
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Aug 16, 2013 04:44
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