Gone Home | My So Called Life + System Shock

TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
edited August 2013 in Off-Topic
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What is Gone Home?
It's 1995. You come home from a year in Japan to find your family's house seemingly abandoned. A note taped to the front door, from your younger sister, tells you not to poke around trying to find out what's going on. Obviously, you go inside and try to figure out what happened. That's the game.

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So It's a Horror Game? A Monster Ate Everyone?
No, it's just a game about exploring and about piecing together a narrative by looking at the sorts of items that people use to live their lives. You can pick up items, look at them, put them back down, move them around the house, and so on. The game is not full of puzzles or linear sections - you go wherever you want in the house and find (or fail to find) whatever parts of the story that you end up finding, although you do have to find ways to open a few locked doors. There aren't multiple endings, but there are multiple middles, because there's so much stuff that no player will find everything on their first playthrough. What happened? Why? What kinds of people are your family members? What kind of person are you? You'll learn more (or less) about this depending on what you find and what conclusions you draw.

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What Kind of Wacky People are Making This Game? It Doesn't Have Any Guns, For God's Sake!
Gone Home is a product from the Fullbright Company, a game development studio started by Steve Gaynor, Johnnemann Nordhagen, and Karla Zimonja. They worked on BioShock 2 and were also responsible for Minerva's Den, the pretty fantastic BioShock 2 DLC. Here's a really interesting stream where Steve Gaynor plays through Minerva's Den and talks about it.

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Basically, buy this game or you're dead to me.

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Comments

  • shriikeshriike Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184461Members
    Convince me to play this game in 2 words.
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  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Totally indie
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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
    edited August 2013
    shriike wrote: »
    Convince me to play this game in 2 words.
    0451 ingame.

    Or, if you're not a hardcore gamer and that made no sense to you:

    It's good.

    I mean come on just look at the review scores.
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  • derfyderfy Join Date: 2012-10-30 Member: 164630Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    0451 you say? Awesome.
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  • CCTEECCTEE Join Date: 2013-06-20 Member: 185634Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    OR skip the game and read Fahrenheit 451 (but you'll be dead to the Dove guy)
    OR play the game and read Fahrenheit 451
    OR Join the Culture and be indie on a intergalatic scale (but you'll be dead to the Dove guy)
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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
    CCTEE wrote: »
    OR skip the game and read Fahrenheit 451 (but you'll be dead to the Dove guy)
    OR play the game and read Fahrenheit 451
    OR Join the Culture and be indie on a intergalatic scale (but you'll be dead to the Dove guy)
    It's not a reference to the book (directly), it's a reference to a lot of video games.
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  • ScytheScythe Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
    And that is CLEARLY a pidgeon.

    --Scythe--
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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
    Scythe wrote: »
    And that is CLEARLY a pidgeon.

    --Scythe--
    Pigeons and doves are basically the same thing.
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  • CCTEECCTEE Join Date: 2013-06-20 Member: 185634Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    "stout-bodied birds with short necks, and (..) short, slender bills with fleshy ceres"
    Why does that sound so sexyyyyy?!
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  • hub3rtu2hub3rtu2 Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165478Members, Reinforced - Diamond

    What does this have to do with System Shock? The logs? SS series had way more than that and I'm not even talking about shooting and puzzles this game so avoids (I wonder why... maybe it's art, you can't have gameplay in art?). SS series created their narrative through context, level design (masterful one at that), interacting with the environment (remember getting tricked by Shodan to
    destroy the Earth with a mining laser
    how fucking cool was that?), even gameplay mechanics, not just by reading a bunch of text items scattered around dry, devoid of life level.
    That kind of game design reminds me of terrible Newgrounds horror flash games like the Exmortis series, but at least most of them were free, not 20 dollars. Twenty. US. Dollaroos.
    Also, reference humor/pandering (us 90's kids amiriteee) is the laziest one, try something original.
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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
    The best part about that post is that the video you linked is a joke video from a YouTube channel that makes stupid reviews that make fun of idiots like you who actually believe that stuff :D

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  • hub3rtu2hub3rtu2 Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165478Members, Reinforced - Diamond
    Majority are obvious joke videos (still, some with valid criticism here and there), but some are serious. If you can't distinguish the two, then oh well... Watch their Fez video for example.

    That still doesn't change the fact that Gone Home is barely, if even, a game. Which costs what, $5 less than NS2? With 1-2 hours of content text hidden around a level to read? (and that's stretching it). Bang for your buck, I tell ya what.

    dohoho
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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
    http://storify.com/TychoCelchuuu/j-chastain-on-the-definition-of-games

    http://www.visitproteus.com/what-are-game/

    http://kotaku.com/5980714/they-patrol-our-streets-in-search-for-the-notorious-not+a+game-its-your-friendly-neighborhood-game-police
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  • hub3rtu2hub3rtu2 Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165478Members, Reinforced - Diamond
    edited August 2013
    So there are games with fun gameplay, with narrative that uses it in unexpected, various and original ways and there are lazily-made games with barely any gameplay mechanics, trying to tell a story in a boring - redundant even - way, using none or very few of the video game exclusive (as a medium) traits to provide narrative. Is that it? Okay, they are games, I guess. Maybe I'll fire up some Blender later and play my quality game.

    Check out this cool video too. it's somewhat relevant to my point.
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  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    Yo should check out Dinner Date
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  • sotanahtsotanaht Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
    edited August 2013
    So my understanding is that Gone Home is an independent film masquerading as a game (if that, sounds more like a short story book). It's a strangely normal story about a family with the veneer of a horror point-and-click adventure slapped over the top of it. There is no actual horror, just vague atmosphere. There is no actual adventure or puzzles, just hints of them. It fails on every aspect that makes a good game and yet people praise it as the best thing ever... much like TLOU come to think of it.
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  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu Anememone Join Date: 2002-03-23 Member: 345Members
    sotanaht wrote: »
    So my understanding is that Gone Home is an independent film masquerading as a game (if that, sounds more like a short story book). It's a strangely normal story about a family with the veneer of a horror point-and-click adventure slapped over the top of it. There is no actual horror, just vague atmosphere. There is no actual adventure or puzzles, just hints of them. It fails on every aspect that makes a good game and yet people praise it as the best thing ever... much like TLOU come to think of it.
    Shut up.
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  • sotanahtsotanaht Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
    edited August 2013
    I argued why it is bad. It fails to use the medium to a reasonable extent, it fails to provide what I want from the medium, it fails to deliver on expectations, and frankly the story isn't that good either. I never said it wasn't a game, but when I judge it as a game, it fails.
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  • XaoXao Join Date: 2012-12-12 Member: 174840Members
    Releases like this make me wish there was an option to filter games out of the steam store, like indie. Specifically Indie. Indie and every Indie related release.

    And why is ion storm/SS2 0451 key code pandering a good thing? How the fuck do these even become things, esp with "shout outs" from DX HR and Dishonored, fuck me things like this remind me of thi4f and how the whole games industry might as well go down the toilet sooner than later.
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  • hub3rtu2hub3rtu2 Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165478Members, Reinforced - Diamond
    Xao wrote: »
    Releases like this make me wish there was an option to filter games out of the steam store, like indie. Specifically Indie. Indie and every Indie related release.

    And why is ion storm/SS2 0451 key code pandering a good thing? How the fuck do these even become things, esp with "shout outs" from DX HR and Dishonored, fuck me things like this remind me of thi4f and how the whole games industry might as well go down the toilet sooner than later.

    NS2 is indie. CD Projekt games are too by technicality, it's just too wide of a term. Shout outs aren't bad if they are not frequent and there's a lot more original material on top of it. If you depend on references, then that's just lazy. Quoting the Fez review above: "I'm glad you have jokes that I know I'm supposed to laugh at already, instead of new ones. Thank you."
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