Would You Like To Play A Story?

When was the last time you walked through an empty house? Remember what that felt like? Have you ever been to your parents’ new house shortly after they've moved? It’d be pretty unsettling if no one was home to greet you. Today we fight with atmosphere.

  

Storytelling has been around since the beginning of everything and we have adapted every one of our cultural advances to convey a tale. Pictures told stories before words did and actors wove tales before they were preserved on film. Until recently getting a compelling message across in a video game was difficult because it got in the way of the core gameplay. Gone Home is a recent indie release that not only manages to captivate you in its narrative but makes it the core gameplay.

You arrive in the middle of the night at the rather large house your parents and sister have moved into while you were abroad for a year in Europe. No one is home and the air is not quite right. Boxes are stacked in various places which makes the dwelling feel not quite lived in. The unease in the atmosphere is so thick that you’ll be searching everywhere for a light switch and every item has been fully rendered to the point where it can be picked up and rotated. In a time where it seems like every indie game is a callback to retro graphics it’s nice to see such realistic lighting and modeling.

The game takes place in 1994 which is a brilliant move. This was the time before everyone had regular access to the internet and calling outside of your zip code (let alone country) cost quite a bit of money. The family has recorded TV shows and movies on blank VHS tapes and music mixes are on cassette tapes; I remember living in these times and they’ve nailed the feel. The items you find in the house are extremely well thought out as almost everything is relevant, at one point you find a school assignment that was completed by your younger sister and later find the same assignment you completed years before and it illustrates the very different personalities better than any descriptive text could.

There are several plot lines running through the house. The younger sister’s is told through what sounds like journal entries as you progress room to room and feels like the front and center narrative. The incredible aspect is that the other items around the house tell you about the other situations in the household. So pay attention, this is video game storytelling at its finest.

After praising Gone Home all this time I did have one gripe about it. It’s the price. $20 for a game where everything can be seen in under 3 hours is kind of a hard pill to swallow. I don’t regret my purchase at all but I worry that people are less likely to buy at such a premium. That’s it. The experience is one of the most fulfilling game stories I've ever played through.

I was kind of surprised at how I was expecting the worst case scenario the entire time. Maybe we need to look at the other stories we pay attention to, not everything needs to get “Law and Order dark”. Take an evening and play Gone Home, there’s a reason it’s going to be talked about for quite a while.