Gone Home: Exploration of Stories and Family Memories

Critical Play | CS247G Game Design Fundamentals

Katie, the protagonist, returns home after one year traveling in Europe and finds her home empty and everyone is gone. By examining through objects in each room, she tries to find out her sister’s Samantha life and teenage-trouble, reason why her family is missing, and the secret behind this house.

Gone Home is a game to explore stories. There are no non-player characters to interact with, no dialogues to trigger, no decisions to make. The player follows Katie’s perspective to piece together the story by picking up objects and triggering events.

Cover

The gameplay resembles reality in a way that there is no guidance on the order of exploration, although there exist some locked rooms to control the flow to a certain extent. The decorations and objects placed accurately depict an American family in the 1990s, such as old-fashioned TVs and handwritten letters. The player can pick up most of the objects and examine them by rotating them 360 degrees and appreciate the great details being made in the label of the beverages and the doodle on the tissue boxes.

There are objects you can interact with. The player can put a tape in a tape recorder and hear the music. The designer of the game cares about details. For example, there are objects visible only if the player has removed stuff above. If the player does not pay attention, it is easy to miss clues.

“Was it just your uncle who went psycho or does it run in the family?”

There are additional layers to help understand the story. Whenever the player unlocks a new room, it will appear on a map so that the player does not get lost in such a giant house. When the player picks up certain objects, one piece of Samantha’s journal appears which is presented using audio. This not only greatly enhances the sense pleasure but also allows the player to replay the piece of the story.

Samantha

So far, I have heard a heart-touching story about a girl in her teenage year who is distressed by the rapid changes and discrimination and seeks identity and love. I cannot wait to keep exploring and see what is next.