[GAME] Gone Home Review

Developer: Fullbright

Publisher: Fullbright

Genre: Adventure, Indie

Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC (Reviewed), Linux, Macintosh operating systems

Release date: 15 Aug, 2013

Find the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/232430/Gone_Home/

Gone Home is an indie game developed and published by Fullbright back in the summer of 2013. The goal of Gone Home is to discover why after a year of travelling Europe, you return home to an empty house, with your parents and your sister nowhere to be seen. Through a series of clues in various forms such as letters, notes, objects and many other items, you uncover the in-depth reasons why you are alone in the dark and vast mansion whilst the storm relentlessly provokes irrational fear.

I went into Gone Home without knowing a single thing about the genre or storyline. I personally believe this was the best way to experience what Fullbright had in store. I’ll just quickly gloss over the settings and options that are available for the PC version. There is a plethora of options available such as; field of view slider, ambient occlusion, motion blur and even things such as head bobbing and sticky mouse targeting. So, there’s absolutely no complaints here with what is usually a weak spot for indie titles.

Right, now that the jargon is out of the way, let’s get to the game itself. You are immediately greeted with a stunning home screen with gorgeous art work with a focus on simplicity. The background shows the mansion surrounded by darkness with all of the lights off, except one. This creates a feeling of anxiety before you even get started. You begin raising your own questions in your mind as the darkness somewhat foreshadows your journey through the mansion.

You begin this journey in the porch area of the mansion as you just retuned home after your time away travelling. You are given very little information about yourself to start with, not knowing who you are or what to expect when you get inside. As you progress through the early stages of the game you will find various clues that help you understand as well as begin combining clues to form potential plots for the story in your mind and speculate the reasons for the empty house.

You walk through various dimly lit rooms and start getting your bearings, the clues you will find are hidden in various places, whether it’s in plain sight, or concealed behind secret panelling in the walls. These clues range from missed answer phone messages to more twisted and confusing newspaper clippings in which you must use to forge the story and progress through the house on your quest to uncover the secrets.

If you knew what you were doing, you could complete this game in just under a minute… Yep, no kidding. But my experience with Gone Home lasted over 2 hours. I found myself intrigued and lost in the story. I read every single note and letter from start to finish as well as leaving no stones unturned as I curiously traversed the eerie, cold and empty home.

Your findings make you build relationships and understanding with the characters without ever meeting them. You learn of the hardships that your sister, Sam was facing throughout the last few years, as well as learning of the struggles that your parents endure, which creates an engaging and somewhat relatable series of events which aid you when filling in the blanks whilst you’ve been gone.

The storyline is by far and away the unique selling point for this game. Although for almost the entirety of the game, I thought I was going backstabbed by some sort of demon as the lights flickered, the floorboards creaked and I swear I heard someone say my name… Maybe I’m the one losing the plot?!

The story ended in a rather disappointing way, although it was an incredible and realistic feeling story, I couldn’t help thinking that I wanted something more. So much information that was discovered over the time I played Gone Home was suddenly irrelevant, although it made my character understanding much greater, I had also subconsciously created more elaborate alternative plots that were thwarted by a rather dull ending.

The gameplay and graphics in Gone Home were nothing special but worked like a charm. It was all in all, a very frustration free experience, easy controls, simple mechanics and a great mansion design with plenty of twists. The lighting was used in such a way that guided you around the mansion, for example, if you noticed that a certain room had a light left on, you would always find something useful there, without feeling like the game is holding your hand at all. The graphics did the job, although I wouldn’t call it pretty, the lighting effects made up for that by creating a very unsettling atmosphere especially when accompanied by the sound of rain pounding the windows and the crashing thunder.

I did enjoy playing this, I just wish they made more of the ending. I’m not asking for it to be turned into a horror game, not by any means, the tension in that game was plenty enough for me, but I would have loved to have known even more about the Father’s obsession with

J.F. Kennedy and the Mother’s somewhat mysterious relationship with Ranger Rick or even how and what happened to Oscar to make him turn into a so-called psycho, but I guess I’ll never know…

Gone Home – 7.0 out of 10

Please leave your thoughts and comments below, thank you for your time! As always make sure to head over to the contact page and follow us on social media and join our discord to get involved!

- Scorpio