Critical Play: Mysteries

For this assignment, I played Gone Home. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the narrative that was woven into the mystery. The game was essentially all narrative, as you explore your home for clues to figure out why your family is gone.

There were two main methods of conveying narrative in the game. First, there were letters written from Sam, your sister, detailing events that led up to your family’s disappearance. These letters were triggered whenever you stumbled across some object in the house that corresponded to the letter, which would then be read aloud in Sam’s voice and then stored in your backpack for you to playback later. The letters moved the narrative forward as each one got closer and closer to present day, until you finally come across the last letter explaining what happened to your family.

The second means of narrative came from game objects scattered throughout the house—Sam’s crumpled up school notes, your father’s book manuscripts, letters to publishers and employers, cassettes of old music, photos, journals, financial records, even food in the refrigerator. Through these objects you gain other strands of narrative that run alongside the main story in Sam’s letters. You learn that your father is a novelist but his second book was rejected. You learn that your uncle is rumored to be a psychopath and that your house is haunted. You learn about secret passageways in your house, allowing you to unlock other rooms that hold new story details.

The letters and game objects in Gone Home do the simultaneous job of conveying narrative and controlling the narrative pace so that the story is revealed in order, over time, without lulls in the game that could disinterest the player. It makes for a very compelling mystery!