Gone Home
Gone Home came out in 2013, so only I’m a few years late on this one. Standard warning of spoilers ahead versus my assumption that everyone else has already played this game apply.
Gone Home doesn’t really fit easily in a single category, which is part of what makes it so appealing. The best way to describe it is a quiet adventure/exploration game. However, unlike most adventure games, there are no standard puzzles to solve. There are hidden rooms to uncover, a few combination locks to open, and keys to find, but the majority of the game is simply walking through an old, empty house, discovering letters, notes, and other objects that allow the story to unfold. Your player character is Katie, a college(ish) age woman, coming home to visit her family after spending time in Europe. As the game opens, you arrive at the house to find your family gone, without any explanation, leaving you alone to explore.
The game sets up a classic mystery trope, and the atmosphere - storm raging outside, creaky, creepy old house sounds, the occasional shadows at the corner of your eye - certainly sets you up for horror and jump scares. The setting is even slightly reminiscent of The 7th Guest and its sequel and The 11th Hour, but it isn’t a horror game. That said, to the game’s credit, it maintains the sense of tension throughout, even when nothing overtly threatening happens. The moodiness is only the backdrop to the real heart of the story.
Said heart is the characters and their stories, in particular the story of your younger sister coming out and falling in love for the first time. There are other stories to uncover as you move through the house - manuscripts and editorial letters that reveal your father as the author of an aborted series of books involving time travel and JFK conspiracy theories; letters between your mother and her childhood best friend that hint she may be having an affair (or at least wishes she was having one) with a handsome subordinate of hers at the Park Service; photographs and newspaper clippings that hint at a shameful family secret and the ‘disgraceful’ behavior of your great Uncle Oscar, the house’s original owner, who may or may not currently be a ghost haunting the place.
These stories build a rich background, but the main focus is on your sister, Sam. As you uncover Sam’s particular artifacts - handmade band posters, school notebooks, postcards, creative writing assignments - you get the sense of an older sister who is really getting to know her little sister for the first time. Sam starts as an awkward teenager trying to fit in at a new school, and grows as she meets Lonnie, forms a deep friendship, and finds that friendship becoming love.
The game is a brilliant study in a slowly unfolding narrative, one that wouldn’t have the same impact in a purely written or visual format. In terms of hours of game play, Gone Home is fairly short, but it hits all the right notes. Sam is very much rooted in the early 90s, so there may be a nostalgia factor there for some. The voice acting is superb, in particular Sarah Grayson as Sam. The characters are rich and nuanced; Sam and Lonnie are typical teenagers - goofy at times, sarcastic, charming, and full of the heartbreak of growing up - but also with layers that elevate them above the typical. Lonnie is an ROTC cadet who has always known she’ll follow her father into the military. She’s also in a punk band and regularly rebels against authority. In one particularly powerful scene, Sam confronts Lonnie about the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, asking if she plans to lie about who she is for the rest of her life, and how she can reconcile those two sides of her personality. For a game where ‘nothing’ really happens, there is certainly a lot going on.
That said, if you only enjoy games where you get to shoot or blow up things every two seconds (not that those aren’t awesome as well), Gone Home probably won’t be your thing. But if you’re in the mood for something highly atmospheric, tense, and contemplative, with a strong and unique narrative voice, this may just be the game for you.
Originally published at A.C. Wise. You can comment here or there.