Gone Home Review

Back in 2013, critical indie darling Gone Home was released to an unsuspecting public, and professional game reviewers ate it up.  They ate it up so much in fact, that it won Game of the Year in many outlets despite being a year with many heavyweight contenders.  The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, and a really big one, Grand Theft Auto 5 (on last gen consoles at least) all released that same year.  This, of course, infuriated many a man baby because Gone Home is not a game.*

*Also it has two lesbian characters and a significant amount of feminist themes in it which I'm sure had nothing to do with it.

Gone Home is the king of "non-game" games because of its notoriety.  (I don't want to rehash this stupid argument, but I've already talked about this.)  While I never really had much interest in buying the game, I was always a little curious what the big deal is and the console version came up for free on PS+.  It was a fine 2 hours spent.

You play as Kate, a 18-21-ish year old girl who has returned home from a trip to Europe only to find her parents and her younger sister Sam missing.  It is also a new house to her as her family moved while she was away due to inheriting a mansion from a mysterious relative.  On the front door is a note from Sam saying NOT to go looking for her and the game is trying to piece together what happened while you were away.

I've been very pro "mystery without combat game" as a budding new genre.  It's a great idea for a video game without having to resort to violence, puzzle solving, or simulations.*  Well, it's still kinda puzzle solving, but this is more cerebral.  The reward is in the story and completely independent of gameplay.  In Gone Home, the mystery is set up just fine....even if the payoffs are a bit lame.

*Nothing is wrong with any of those kinds of games by the way.  I just like to see different styles of games.

Don't get me wrong, Gone Home's story is good.  I wouldn't call it GOTY good though and story is mostly all the game has going for it since its gameplay is very scaled down.  It relies heavily on a bait-and-switch trope that doesn't sit right with me.  The game is basically like a horror game but without any horror.  This is set up with its world building and its mechanics.

Starting with the latter, this game plays like Amnesia: The Dark Decent. Seriously. You don't have a sprint or anything like that, but you can pick up and examine almost any object in the game.  It surprisingly has a physics engine, albeit, a budget one.  You progress through the game by picking up certain objects and reading certain letters that will trigger a voice over journal entry from Sam.  This uh....this also happens in Amnesia, only this time the journal entries from Sam are written FOR our protagonist and gradually tells you the story.  Also, just like many indie horror games, you progress through the house via a forced linear path.  Going in, I thought the house would be open but instead doors are locked and require finding a key, forcing you down a linear path so that the story is told in the correct order.

Features of the story and ambiance also create a horror game feel.  It's at night, you have to turn all the lights on, there is a raging storm outside with thunder and lightning, floor boards will creak, the house will settle, and so on.  Even though I KNOW I'm not playing a horror game, I can't help but put down something I'm reading and slowwwly check behind me every now and then.  Also, the mansion was owned by an eccentric weirdo, Sam's classmates refer to it as the "psycho house", Sam and her girlfriend routinely go ghost hunting, the house has hidden passageways, and other spooky things.  There is even a late game spooky thing that bait-and-switched the ending for me (see spoiler section below).

Because of the games weird reliance on horror tropes, without a single jump scare or monster, the story feels a little disconnected.  The story itself is good but it feels like it should have been in a different environment.  I'm not sure the end game feels I got were the ones intended by the developer.  Or it they were intended....okay????  (Again, spoiler section below).

However, for a 4 person dev team, this game is pretty phenomenal.  I never had any technical issues and the art design was on point.  Taking place in 1994, I loved all the little 90's nostalgia in the game from Kurt Cobain, Sonic Youth, SNES cartridges, Trapper Keepers, hand written mail, postcards, those stupid halogen lamps that everybody owned in the 90's, and even....TV static.  (Why am I nostalgic over that....?).  The game looks really good for such a small team.  It's also very cohesive, which is probably a benefit of small teams rather than large ones, and its narrative isn't muddied by information overload.  It's obvious what is important and what is "hey remember this from the 90's?".

And....yeah I'm pretty much out of things to say that isn't a spoiler.  I liked the game okay but I don't think it's great and especially not a GOTY contender.  It's OBVIOUS why it was a critical darling now that I played it though.  It talked about themes rarely in video games, it was made by a small team nobody really knew anything about, it had a solid narrative, and it looks hell of a lot better than the crap on Steam Greenlight.  For all those reasons, I liked it too, even with its tone issue, and it certainly isn't a game worth getting annoyed about.

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SPOILER SECTION BELOW which I recommend reading even if you haven't played the game because I doubt many of you actually will play this game.  Also, the ending is the part I wanted to write about the most.

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The games narrative is primarily focused on Sam, the only character with voice over, and the parents.

The father is a semi-successful novelist, who hits a rough patch, but then finds his niche with a specialty publisher.  He has some issues in his relationship with the mother.  The mother is a park ranger who has the hots for a co-worker and it ooooohhhh so close comes to a full on affair until it's revealed the dude has a fiance and the mother turns down a wedding invitation late in the game
(showing her "what the hell am I doing" sense).  The mother and the father leave on some sort of couples retreat to rekindle the love and such.  That is why the parents are gone.

I do think the game does a good job at handling their sub-story.  It's given a very humanistic tone that isn't afraid to show the wandering thoughts of those in a long term relationship (coming up on 11 years myself....heh).  It's natural.  It's human.  It isn't glossed over like a rom-com.  It's well done.

Sam's story is really good.....and it pains me to say that her payoff and the game has dissonance that I cannot get over.

Sam meets Lonnie who is a punk rock, fuck authority, fuck the patriarchy girl who is going to join the army-what?..........Um......Yeah I don't buy it.  I guess chalk it up to "stupid teenager-ness" but that seems far, FAR fetched.  "Don't ask, Don't tell" is even brought up in the game and considering the two girls fall in love with each other.....I don't even.  The outspoken, raucous, started her own punk band, anti-authority, lesbian wants to join the army.....in 1994?  This isn't a good idea.  Kids aren't this dumb, and they can be pretty dumb.

Anyway, the two have a lovely relationship until the due date comes that Lonnie needs to report to boot camp (Sam also gets into a college for literature.  There is a pirate story that you gradually pick up and it wanders on a lot with the changes with Sam's mood and age.  The two girls eventually turn it into a comic that YOU CAN'T READ.  I would have read the shit outta that.)  Lonnie leaves for boot camp and Sam resigns herself to the spooky attic with red lights adorning the door saying she is going to stay up there forever.  However, at the very end of the game, you find the attic key, find an empty bed and a note that gives the final voice over saying Lonnie couldn't go through with it, can't stand being away from her, called Sam, and the two run away together happily ever after.....

I have two problems with this ending.

1.  Leading up to the attic, the second to last room is a hidden room behind the stairs with a goddamn pentagram where the two girls made their "final preparations" in an attempt to communicate with the deceased relative who they constantly ghost hunted as I alluded too earlier.  Immediately after finding an item here, the second to last voice over happens where a distraught Sam talks about going to the attic and....basically coming as close to possible as wishing she was dead without actually saying it (this is immediately after Lonnie leaves for boot camp).

I was invested in the story and dreaded going up to the attic thinking I was about to find a dead sister.  That obviously didn't happen.  Yeah, I could chalk it up to overly dramatical teenagers but not with the horror game tropes going on.  Instead, you find her dark room with a bunch of photographs of the two being happy together and with the voice over....I felt relief.  Relief is fine.  It's a good feeling.  But, the happy ending didn't feel all that happy because of that bait-and-switch.  The game tricked me again!

Another example, is when you find a bathtub with red stains on it.  They are positioned so that if a person was laying down in that bathtub, those are about where a persons wrists would be.  This comes immediately after Sam's journal entry about hating her parents.  I'd find a note after seeing the bathtub about how she helped Lonnie dye her hair red.  Yep.  THANKS.

What is this games deal?  The story is touching and makes you feel nice.  It's cute really.  It's fucking adorable.  But then I have a game that is trolling me because......why?  It's not like the game played with horror tropes in an interesting way or anything.  This game is definitely not satire.  It's more like, "lol, gotcha!".  Why you gotta play with my feels game?

I don't think anybody has ever said this but, Gone Home?  Gone Home is memes.

2.    This is probably the old man in me but....two teenagers sacrificing their future to be together is so not a good idea.

I only really thought of this after thinking about the game later but realistically, and the story is rooted in realism, is not likely to keep a happy ending.  Statistically, that relationship will not last.  Yes, the parents are religious and pretty pissed off about their daughter having a romantic relationship with another girl.  Running away from them?  Sure.  Go for it.

I....assume Lonnie's "Cool Dad" will take them in, as soon as he gets over the fact that his daughter is no longer joining the army and has no future, but....I assume that.

Whatever.  There isn't a whole lot of stories about a teenage lesbian romance out there in games so I guess I should let this slide.  But....lets have better endings in the future okay?