No discussion of “Gone Home” anywhere on BBS? Boingers, I am disappoint.
Who’s “played” it? What did you think? It’s still on my mind after a couple of days, and I bought a friend a mouse so I could make them play it.
I liked it, and it’s very well done, though it is a bit much of a one-trick-pony game for a full $20 – DEFINITELY avoid spoilers if you have any thought of ever playing this game.
Note also that it is basically a point and click exploration / reading thing, more so than what I’d call a game.
While it was relatively short, I really enjoyed taking my time and going through the house, picking up things that there was clearly no reason to pick up and examining them for the period details. You are right that’s it more a first person “visual novel” than a game - there’s no combat, no real mechanics, or anything, just an interesting place to explore.
I did like multiple layers to the story lines - I think I figured out everything that was going on, past and present, but it took quite a bit of thinking on it after I had finished playing to put it all together.
I think if it was cheaper I could recommend it more wholeheartedly. $20 is a bit much for what it is, and the fact that a single spoiler, if you’re unfortunate enough to encounter one, would basically ruin the story.
$10 might be a sweet spot where I could just say “try it, you will probably like it, if you’re into reading and exploring”.
You are probably right - though I would never tell anyone what their art is worth (It’s about $10)
Oh, and there are at least 3 total spoilers I can think of. Only 1 of them is obvious and a real spoiler, but I think the B-story is maybe as interesting as the A.
What are your feelings on Amnesia and Dear Esther, which I believe are similar, but didn’t catch my interest. With “Gone Home” once I started I was clearly going to finish it.
I have not tried Amnesia or Dear Esther.
I did play the Walking Dead game because it was on so many ‘game of the year’ lists, but I felt it was basically so non-interactive – you make “choices” but they have no real effect on the medium and long term narrative – that it was essentially a point and click reading game, like Gone Home.
However, I ended up hating Walking Dead because I couldn’t explore anywhere I wanted. There were all these artificial constraints on what I could do, and “puzzles” never had anything more than one solution anyway. At least in Gone Home you are free to move about the house however you like, take as long as you want, and look at anything in any order. I just felt zero player agency in the Walking Dead game, and would have preferred it as a non-interactive movie.
I am not necessarily a huge fan of this style of “game”, but Gone Home worked much better for me, and the story is very well told in it. It’s recommendable minus some price quibbles.
The Walking Dead was not a good game. It was a pretty good story, but as you point out, I could have just watched that episode on the TV and been fine with that - I really didn’t feel like it had to be a game. Have you played 400 days (the in-between bit) yet? That actually felt a lot more important than the first game did.
I have Dear Esther from one of the Humble Bundles, but I’ve yet to play it. Another game in the same genre that I have played is To The Moon. It’s fairly short, I think about 4-5 hours, but it’s really good. And getting the soundtrack with it is definitely worth it. Especially when it goes on sale for 50% or 75% off.
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