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Just played it, really enjoyed it. Totally worth the :5bux: from the Steam sale. And it's remarkably unpretentious, no big apocalyptic events, just some people trying to live their daily lives. The bit that got to me the most was getting into the attic, I can really understand getting worried about my sister. Though I have to say, this really asks for some kind of reading where the text is trying to tell the intended tech-literate 20-40 year old white male audience that they are sophisticated and urbane and understanding. After all, these are the guys who are going to own rigs that can run a dense Unity engine and use Steam and are familiar with the genre conventions that can be subverted. Though I guess you could say that about any indie game.
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Dec 1, 2013 23:34
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Pretty much any laptop anyone has bought in the past few years can run this game. Steam as a storefront is no harder to figure out than Amazon.com and Steam as a program isn't too tough for people to figure out either. I think the degree to which this subverts genre conventions if overemphasized by gamers, who, as you point out, are precisely the ones who are live to that sort of thing. They showed the game to a bunch of nongamers at least once and it went over well. This happened, for instance.
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Dec 1, 2013 23:42
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The game is also available from the Mac App Store or direct from the site. Steam is hardly required.
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Dec 2, 2013 00:02
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This was a really good game that I ended up crying over. First time that's actually happened to me while playing a game.
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Dec 3, 2013 06:06
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The steam user reviews for this game are loving depressing.
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Dec 3, 2013 11:22
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Osmosisch posted:The steam user reviews for this game are loving depressing.
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Dec 3, 2013 17:24
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Osmosisch posted:The steam user reviews for this game are loving depressing. What kind of reviews are we talking about? I would check myself but I'm not at home.
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Dec 3, 2013 19:48
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BattleCake posted:What kind of reviews are we talking about? I would check myself but I'm not at home. Blah blah blah not a game boring story what is this trash get it off my Steam
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Dec 3, 2013 19:49
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I just checked the reviews page and honestly it doesn't seem so bad to me. The positive recommendations outnumber the negative ones, most of the complaints are that it's too short, and in general it looks a lot like this thread - the quotes I have in the OP could just as easily be from Steam reviews. A lot of the negative reviews aren't even that bad. This is not to say that everything is great. There is indeed some stupid stuff: 
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Dec 3, 2013 20:02
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I wrote a positive review for the game and 75% of people downvoted it. 
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Dec 3, 2013 20:07
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BattleCake posted:I believe you're looking for this. That's interesting, I think the writer of the article makes a lot of leaps in logic though. Still, the fact that there is a debate means the scenario is written effectively.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:09
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ookiimarukochan posted:I've not checked EVERY language but it seems like the only review language with that issue is English. Every other language is overwhelmingly recommending the game. I'd love to know why that is though. american gamers are stupid hateful spoiled children who know and deserve no human companionship more news at eleven.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:10
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I don't really understand why a lot of people seem to get actually angry at someone not liking it. I'm not going to comment on anything else but buying something marketed as a game and discovering what amounts to a movie/book you have to click on is a pretty valid criticism.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:15
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Nurge posted:I don't really understand why a lot of people seem to get actually angry at someone not liking it. I'm not going to comment on anything else but buying something marketed as a game and discovering what amounts to a movie you have to click on is a pretty valid criticism. Except there are plenty of things less like a game that get less bile and hate form the same gaming audience than gone home does. Like hentai visual novels and heavy rain, or jrpgs (if you do not count skinner boxes as gameplay) Gone home is not a movie unless you are incapable of empathy and/or reading comprehension. Mentally putting together the side stories and understanding the characters and their actions isn't validated by numbers or an achievement but neither does reaching the last page of a book. It achieves what any story in a game should he trying to achieve by making a detailed lived-in world. And did gone home really market itself as anything else. Why I hate the detractors so much is that most of the bile seems to come from the part of gaming culture that shits itself when tropes vs women is mentioned, and they go beyond "don't buy this game" into acting like gone home's existence threatens their precious hobby. Like a little boy scared of his sister's dolls. I have loathed gamer culture long before gone home existed. That vile and shallow non-games are praised by the same gamers who put down a game that even if you did not like the story still has all the DEPTH, REALISM, COSMETIC INTERACTION and other things they use to praise "little girl molester mmo" makes my stomach turn.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:28
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Rita Repulsa posted:Except there are plenty of things less like a game that get less bile and hate form the same gaming audience than gone home does. Ok there's apparently a lot more yelling at stuff I've missed around this game than I assumed. I just don't think the visual novel type of thing should be marketed as games at all, which is my only real beef with the whole thing. I didn't mean to get you or anyone else upset, sorry.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:36
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He has a point in that people are allowed to not like this game and you don't have to spend the entire thread dredging up posts from people who don't like it and circlejerking about how ignorant they are.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:37
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SheepNameKiller posted:That's interesting, I think the writer of the article makes a lot of leaps in logic though. Still, the fact that there is a debate means the scenario is written effectively. The game's writer seemed to basically confirm that was his intent on this podcast. (And yeah, I know, death of the author, and all that.)
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Dec 3, 2013 20:38
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cbirdsong posted:The game's writer seemed to basically confirm that was his intent on this podcast. (And yeah, I know, death of the author, and all that.) That's cool then, the biggest giveaway I read in that whole article was the one where his father congratulates him on dealing with personal issues through literature. Everything else seemed circumstantial, but it was obvious the author intended some sort of subplot from that line.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:40
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If you have ever praised an rpg (elf fantasy or otherwise) for its story in spite of admittedly lovely gameplay you lose all right to simply say "not a game" as a criticism of gone home with no other justification.mass effect, alpha protocol, silent hill... people who shreik that PLANESCAPE: TORMENT was the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME admit that the combat was absolute garbage. If you say you were fooled by the marketing you in essence admit you were illiterate. I'd peel more layers down from the reviews on the page and point out more of why they are not criticisms of the game but of a story where you are a woman looking out for your sister with no gratuitous masculine pandering. But I cannot look at those reviews directly right now without my blood boiling. SheepNameKiller posted:He has a point in that people are allowed to not like this game and you don't have to spend the entire thread dredging up posts from people who don't like it and circlejerking about how ignorant they are. You can not like the game, fine, I expect more than just "not a game" especially in context of what was just being talked about : The hateful and senselss steam downvotes. Criticize some aspect of the story itself, criticize the ending, anything, make a coherent arguement but do not blindly take the side of the gamers unless you agree with what they represent. I've seen the indie fans heap praise on crappier things for too long. Hemingway To Go! fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 20:44
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Nurge posted:Ok there's apparently a lot more yelling at stuff I've missed around this game than I assumed. I just don't think the visual novel type of thing should be marketed as games at all, which is my only real beef with the whole thing. I didn't mean to get you or anyone else upset, sorry. The Gone Home Steam forums were apparently a cesspool for months that the developers just continually deleted posts from, and it's not just all gay-bashing: many gamers see themselves as the last holdout against the tide of "non-games" coming to destroy their beloved, juvenile hobby. If the "non-games" win, we'll never get Gears of War 4 or something is I guess the idea. T his is why the creator of Proteus ended up writing about what a game is, why Kat Chastain exploded at some idiots on twitter because they were harassing someone who made a "non-game," why this joke twitter account has so much to talk about, why Dear Esther gets so much poo poo, why Errant Signal made this video on the topic addressing common arguments that people give, and so forth. When you say "I don't think X should be marketed as a game" what you're saying is "I have my own idea about what true games are and if you're not a true game don't sell yourself as one," which terrible because it constricts innovation, excludes new voices, creates and enforces dichotomies that serve no purpose except to exclude people who you think ought to be excluded because you don't understand what essentialism about these kinds of concepts is stupid, and so on and so forth.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:46
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TychoCelchuuu posted:There is a lot of hate for "non-games" from people like you who couldn't tell Wittgenstein from Bernard Suits if you force-fed them essentialist arguments until the cows come home. People like you think stuff like Proteus and Gone Home shouldn't be sold on Steam because Steam is for games and these are non-games. People like you think they've been tricked into buying "art" when what they wanted was "fun." People who make "non-games" get harassed by "gamers" who see themselves as defending gaming from the encroaching tide of "art games" that aren't "actual" games. I never mentioned steam. I have no problem with anything being sold anywhere, only the terms under which they are being sold. I can't even begin to understand how people are piling on me for this. Believe it or not there are some actual accepted definitions to what a game is you can look up in a dictionary, and they do hinge on interaction. If you think you can redefine words to suit what you think it means right this instant inside your head, that's not going to be accepted by the people you're trying to hold discussions with. I'm truly sorry for making you explode into paragraphs of text mostly about things I never even said anything about. My only problem is that a lot of these things that have no actual choice, skill, or player interaction at all are marketed as games. Right there, on the store page.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:01
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You don't have to like Gone Home, because honestly while it is now of my favorite games of all time and what future games should strive for I could see you being able to poke some critical holes in it and heck there's always room for improvement and Gone Home is the first game of its kind. But ultimately I agree that is totally a dead horse to drudge up the nerd whining, because its not going to change anything and it does wind up a bit too circle-jerky us vs them type thing. Just let the neckbeards wallow in their hug-boxes, if more games get inspired by stuff like Gone Home and matures the medium there's a good chance that it will just move on without them.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:04
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You both make some good arguments but you really just encapsulated the main reasons why the counterargument against anyone disliking this game is equally insufferable. One is that you can't talk about how good the game is without characterizing the people who dislike it as inferior or subhuman or sexist or illiterate or whatever, and two is that you think every time someone dislikes the game it forces you into some type of us vs them defensive battle.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:05
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Pretty much any laptop anyone has bought in the past few years can run this game. Steam as a storefront is no harder to figure out than Amazon.com and Steam as a program isn't too tough for people to figure out either. I think the degree to which this subverts genre conventions if overemphasized by gamers, who, as you point out, are precisely the ones who are live to that sort of thing. They showed the game to a bunch of nongamers at least once and it went over well. This happened, for instance. Fina posted:I wrote a positive review for the game and 75% of people downvoted it.   My review has 11 people out of 14 downvoting it, even though I explicitly warn in the review that there's not a whole lot of actual gameplay.TychoCelchuuu posted:There is a lot of hate for "non-games" from people like you who couldn't tell Wittgenstein from Bernard Suits if you force-fed them essentialist arguments until the cows come home. People like you think stuff like Proteus and Gone Home shouldn't be sold on Steam because Steam is for games and these are non-games. People like you think they've been tricked into buying "art" when what they wanted was "fun." People who make "non-games" get harassed by "gamers" who see themselves as defending gaming from the encroaching tide of "art games" that aren't "actual" games.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:05
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Nurge posted:I never mentioned steam. I have no problem with anything being sold anywhere, only the terms under which they are being sold. I can't even begin to understand how people are piling on me for this. Believe it or not there are some actual accepted definitions to what a game is you can look up in a dictionary, and they do hinge on interaction. If you think you can redefine words to suit what you think it means right this instant inside your head, that's not going to be accepted by the people you're trying to hold discussions with. I'm truly sorry for making you explode into paragraphs of text mostly about things I never even said anything about. My only problem is that a lot of these things that have no actual choice, skill, or player interaction at all are marketed as games. Right there, on the store page. The definitions of words change all the time, movies started out as magician's tricks, nobody cares.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:08
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Crappy Jack posted:The definitions of words change all the time, movies started out as magician's tricks, nobody cares. Not by someone redefining them to suit their views for the purposes of a conversation they don't. No one would ever be able to actually discuss anything if we didn't have some shared baselines for linguistic definitions. If I say "I'm going to go play a game", and actually start reading a book someone might be confused why I didn't do what I said I was going to. Or you can replace reading a book with playing Gone Home there if you wanted me to make it even clearer. Nurge fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 21:09
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Gone Home is a "game", there's interaction and story and plot and exploration and all are particularly strongly expressed. There are no RPG elements or combat sure but everything else is in there. The one legit criticism I can see of Gone Home pulling a fast one is that early trailers did set the tone of a scary/creepy game and the game definitely ends up being something else entirely. The early game seems to even pay homage to this possibility, with the lights going out in the basement and red dye on the tub and such. But I think everyone knows at this point that it's not a horror game.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:12
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I personally have problems with most of those other games named. Which is one reason why gone home getting singled out is annoying. A lot of games get praised for little things that serve the worldbuilding but don't influence gameplay. Most games don't do that and instead just sort of expect me to be interested by showing me ten hours of cutscenes before letting me pick up an item or talk to a character, Gone home's story is not perfect, but it is a huge step forward. Most of those other games don't allow the freedom to draw your own conclusions or have the subtle touchs that make your time spent looking at objects more meaningful. Face it, "gamers" single out gone home not because it's a non game on steam, there's already a lot of those. They have an agenda. They're the ones who think gamer girls are out to get them and that anita s. is trying to (I have seen this, literally stated) "take away everything they love" meaning video games. The ones who laugh at pewdiepies rape jokes. The weakest, frailest, most pathetic specimens of man. That's why they cannot ignore it like the other nongames. gone home is a scapegoat like tropes vs women for "gamers" and gamers I mean hateful subhumans gaming is a loving crock at this point. If you want "gameplay" go play a euro boardgame or a strategy game, if you want mindless instant gratification by all means play the rest of the steam catalog but don't tell me it's loving deep because you can talk to inane characters like the flat chested girl with boob envy or the blue alien hot chicks who all love you personally, press a button to shoot a gun or swing a sword, or have a bunch of meaningless statistics that all make your character better the higher they go up. I'm sick of mindless poo poo being told to my face is gameplay depth, and of gamers so afraid of doing something meaningful that they'll try to redefine game until it doesn't include that one where you play as a woman exploring a house. SheepNameKiller posted:You both make some good arguments but you really just encapsulated the main reasons why the counterargument against anyone disliking this game is equally insufferable. One is that you can't talk about how good the game is without characterizing the people who dislike it as inferior or subhuman or sexist or illiterate or whatever, and two is that you think every time someone dislikes the game it forces you into some type of us vs them defensive battle. Again you're ignoring context here. There's plenty of criticism you can lob at the game but none of it was being responded to or described. E: need to take a break and go breathe air outside I have not called anyone in this thread any names. I have carefully indicated who I am talking about and why I'm talking about them that way.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:15
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Nurge posted:My only problem is that a lot of these things that have no actual choice, skill, or player interaction at all are marketed as games. Right there, on the store page. You very clearly didn't click any of the links in the post you're responding to. Click this one.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:17
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Rita Repulsa posted:I have not called anyone in this thread any names. I have carefully indicated who I am talking about and why I'm talking about them that way. You say this but you defend the game with such fury and there's just no reason to get this worked up over a video game.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:17
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SheepNameKiller posted:The one legit criticism I can see of Gone Home pulling a fast one is that early trailers did set the tone of a scary/creepy game and the game definitely ends up being something else entirely. The early game seems to even pay homage to this possibility, with the lights going out in the basement and red dye on the tub and such. But I think everyone knows at this point that it's not a horror game. One of the interesting aspects of Gone Home is how it uses that tension building to invert the horror trope in a clever way. Someone who was 'fooled' by this is just bad at reading, since the game clearly marketed itself as something else. SheepNameKiller posted:You both make some good arguments but you really just encapsulated the main reasons why the counterargument against anyone disliking this game is equally insufferable. One is that you can't talk about how good the game is without characterizing the people who dislike it as inferior or subhuman or sexist or illiterate or whatever, and two is that you think every time someone dislikes the game it forces you into some type of us vs them defensive battle. Tone arguments are dumb no matter who makes them. Both 'sides' are accusing the other of caring too much, big deal, what a worthless discussion. You're not really rising above here. Nurge posted:I have no problem with anything being sold anywhere, only the terms under which they are being sold. I can't even begin to understand how people are piling on me for this. Believe it or not there are some actual accepted definitions to what a game is you can look up in a dictionary, and they do hinge on interaction. If you think you can redefine words to suit what you think it means right this instant inside your head, that's not going to be accepted by the people you're trying to hold discussions with. I'm truly sorry for making you explode into paragraphs of text mostly about things I never even said anything about. My only problem is that a lot of these things that have no actual choice, skill, or player interaction at all are marketed as games. Right there, on the store page. You don't get to define what a game is. You may think your definition is correct, but there really isn't a clear definition of what constitutes a game. Gone Home is first person computer software with narrative and player interaction. It's as much of a game as The Sims. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 21:20
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cbirdsong posted:You very clearly didn't click any of the links in the post you're responding to. Click this one. The problem with this is that if you take the view expressed in this video to its conclusion I can order something that's called a game and get sent a bowl of pigshit in mail with a letter saying "Suck it up, it's art. Square. Don't try to limit our creativity." Granted that would require me to not actually read up on the game. But hey, maybe the art is so deep it's going to be different for everyone. I'm expecting my bowl of pigshit from Peter Molyneux any day now.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:24
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my problem is any aspect of gaming culture and their opinions about things are being legitimized, not with the gone home reviews themselves. Giving their views the benefit of the doubt is what makes me mad, what they say about gone home just reminds me of it. "gaming culture" people cheer for women being hurt by real world problems. They laugh at rape and shame women for having agency while they themselves have done nothing worthy of respect. I cannot have less sympathy for them and whether they love gone home or hate it I will not talk about them nicely when they enable the real world to be a shittier place for everyone. And if you don't hate women because they threaten your video game playing time, my statements do not include you. It's unbelievable that those people actually exist and are listened to. Hemingway To Go! fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 21:27
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Nurge posted:Believe it or not there are some actual accepted definitions to what a game is you can look up in a dictionary, and they do hinge on interaction. Where are these mythical non-interactive games that you speak of? Even the most straightforward linear visual novels have at least some degree of player agency.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:28
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Popular Thug Drink posted:One of the interesting aspects of Gone Home is how it uses that tension building to invert the horror trope in a clever way. Someone who was 'fooled' by this is just bad at reading, since the game clearly marketed itself as something else. It really didn't present itself clearly in its marketing. While I also thought inverting the horror tropes in this case helped their story it ultimately did not help their marketing.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:36
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Nurge posted:The problem with this is that if you take the view expressed in this video to its conclusion I can order something that's called a game and get sent a bowl of pigshit in mail with a letter saying "Suck it up, it's art. Square. Don't try to limit our creativity." Granted that would require me to not actually read up on the game. But hey, maybe the art is so deep it's going to be different for everyone. I'm expecting my bowl of pigshit from Peter Molyneux any day now. This seems like a fairly crazy leap to make. Gone Home is obviously a game--which I guess we are sort of using as shorthand here for interactive entertainment software product--in a way that a bowl of pigshit is not. If you don't trust yourself to be able to reasonably make the distinction at point of sale, you probably aren't the person who gets to decide what's called a game or not. Gone Home is interactive; it is controlled in the way a video game is controlled; it delivers its content in the way a video game does; it was developed with video game development tools using practices common in video game development. Obviously this is not an exhaustive list of traits of video games, and none of them individually makes a video game, and the absence of any of them does rule out the thing in question being a video game; but I think they point in the right direction in this case. If it looks like a duck, etc. "Gone Home can't be called a game because someone might send me a bowl of pigshit in the mail" reminds me of "What, are they going to marry BABOONS next?! What's to stop them!?!?" Any reasonably-thinking person can tell the difference. It's not actually a real risk, it's just a slippery-slope fantasy. A bowl of pigshit might be "art" but it's probably not going to be described as a "painting" or a "print" or a "drawing" and if you order something simply based on absolutely NO information other than someone somewhere called it "art" you probably deserve whatever smelly package arrives at your door.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:37
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SheepNameKiller posted:It really didn't present itself clearly in its marketing. While I also thought inverting the horror tropes in this case helped their story it ultimately did not help their marketing. As someone who understood exactly what Gone Home was before I played it, I don't understand how your argument works at all. Sorry if you feel like you got hoodwinked, I guess. The November 2012 trailer seems more mysterious than anything else.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:40
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I come back to this thread after months figuring the wave of people feeling threatened by this game's existence will have washed away. Sadly, I was wrong Anyway, I've been wanting to play through this again, but I don't know if it's been long enough. I seem to remember everything quite vividly. I was waiting for a rainy night but every forecast of rain has ended up false or perpetually delayed. We'll see how much longer I can wait before I crack. The whole game hit me hard enough that I don't know if I'll ever be able to forget much about it, so waiting may be futile.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:41
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Chris Remo posted:This seems like a fairly crazy leap to make. Gone Home is obviously a game--which I guess we are sort of using as shorthand here for interactive entertainment software product--in a way that a bowl of pigshit is not. If you don't trust yourself to be able to reasonably make the distinction at point of sale, you probably aren't the person who gets to decide what's called a game or not. Gone Home is interactive; it is controlled in the way a video game is controlled; it delivers its content in the way a video game does; it was developed with video game development tools using practices common in video game development. Obviously this is not an exhaustive list of traits of video games, and none of them individually makes a video game, and the absence of any of them does rule out the thing in question being a video game; but I think they point in the right direction in this case. If it looks like a duck, etc. That was a response to the video someone linked to me in the post I quoted, not Gone Home. I was trying to illustrate why the video's message of "Let's not define what anything is because it limits our creativity." might not be the absolutely most well thought out thing ever.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:42
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Popular Thug Drink posted:As someone who understood exactly what Gone Home was before I played it, I don't understand how your argument works at all. Sorry if you feel like you got hoodwinked, I guess. I don't, I'm playing devil's advocate. Before the game came out I thought from the trailer that it was a scary game, but I am not going to flip out over this because the end result was still worth the purchase in my eyes. You are being really unnecessarily snarky here and in your prior post and I'm mostly trying to ignore those parts.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:44
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