Gone Home |OT| I ain't afraid of no ghost!

Finally had a chance to actually play through the entirety of the release version, for the first time. Really wonderful to see everything in its final state after seeing and hearing so much of it in various stages of completion. Especially nice to hear the last few audiologs in the full context, since those were my favorite pieces of music to put together; Steve and co. stacked a lot of narrative weight behind them. Glad to have been part of this.
 
Finished this last night. Loved it. Best story or game experience I've had in a long time.

This will sit with me for some time.

My only reservations about recommending it are the price and the game performance. I agree that launching it at a solid price is the correct thing to do, but most of the people I'd recommend this game to are laptop users, and I'd hate for them to spend the money and be unable to run the game, with no option of a refund.

Something weird about American nostalgia for a british guy. Some of it resonates, other parts feel quite distant. The only thing that shattered the illusion of the time period was the artwork used on
the SNES cartridges
. It was using CG art techniques you didn't see until 2004 or later.

The game reminds me of Judith, in some ways. Are there any other games that this reminds you of? Is this a genre?
 


Still hearing about things I missed:

- The clothes in Sam's locker still have electronic tags on them
- The group activities on the social calender are gradually replaced with Mom-only activities
- Mum spent like $100 stylin' for that wedding, but they ended up going on the camp instead
- Delicious Gaynor Peaches. Gone Home takes place in Raptureverse confirmed.
 
Damn, been listening to dat Remo score. Good work duder, although no surprises there.

Still need to get this, such a busy month.
 
I really enjoyed the music. It really captured the era. Did you write all of the tracks?

Is 'duder' what Chris likes to be called?
 
Grimløck;77303271 said:
I just got this on Steam on a whim. Didn't read through any posts to avoid spoilers. I have on question: How long is the game?
Click to expand...
about 3 hours. I played it in two sessions.
 
Chris Remo said:
I wrote all the original music, yeah—obviously not any of the riot grrl stuff.
Click to expand...
Actually, I didn't realise the Riot Grrl stuff wasn't made for this game. Shameful ignorance, I'll pass it off as being British. :(

All of the music in the game feels wholly appropriate, so through curation or composition it's a perfect match.
 
Can't stop thinking about this game.

It's so strange, because I have bailed from 'related' games.
I dropped Bioshock because of the dreadful, boring and pointless combat.
I dropped Thomas Was Alone because I felt the voiceover was condescending. (might have caught me in a bad mood)
I dropped Braid because the writing felt like it was banging me over the head.

With Gone Home I didn't suffer any of these, and enjoyed the lack of obstacle for the completion of the game. The game didn't get in the way. Exporing didn't feel pointless, but I also didn't feel like I was being encouraged to waste time checking every box in every cupboard. If you looked around you would find the items you wanted to find, and the game afforded you the freedom to skim over content (some of the
official documents
, for example).

I love that this game respects the player enough to leave details down to subtlety, relying on the player wanting to look closely rather than shoving it in the face of the player.
 
Took me about 2 hours after beating it to realize how much I liked the game.
At first I was a little bummed about the ending, but after getting over it and thinking about the experience I realized how much I enjoyed it. The tension when you first open the attic, or as you walk through the attic and see the tears on the broken heart pic, stuff like that was just unmatched for me.

I knew there would be nothing supernatural but I admit I still thought there was going to be some kind of twist. My mind was racing trying to figure out what actually happened to everyone. I went from thinking everyone was dead, to thinking Sam committed suicide, to thinking you played a ghost. I ended up really enjoying how the game sort of played with my expectations. We get a note immediately pointing out that the girl went somewhere and took stuff with her. I assumed right away she was running away for some reason, yet my mind still went to pretty impossible outcomes completely ignoring the early notes.

Overall the game was great. I wish more games would come out involving this play style. Learning about Terry and Jan's side stories and piecing those together without being fed the pieces were great. My only complaint was the amount of time represented in some of the stuff found. One of the big things that led me to think something sinister happened was the date of so much stuff in the first half of the house all coming from 1994. Almost everything through the first half of the game is a year old. I couldn't help thinking that the house had laid vacant for almost a year until Katie came home. That sort of stuff seems almost too misleading. I'd understand some stuff coming from that early as the stories can't really take place over the last month and take time to develop, but it seemed like there was no real mix. Finding nothing from '95 in the first half lead me to believe they hadn't been there for 6 months.
 
MaritalWheat said:
Is that with modifiers turned on, or can you actually just do that at the beginning, if you know what you're doing?

That's actually super cool if the latter, imo - speaks to the power of the design to trust that to be there from the beginning.
Click to expand...
You can do it from the beginning.
 
I enjoyed the experience but I didn't fall in love with it like other people at the end. Really cool creepy atmosphere and it really does a good job making you feel tense in a large empty house. Loved the original music from Remo. I was sorta disappointed with the licensed music in those cassette tapes tho. Everytime I put them in the players, the cacophony ruined the mood. Was hoping there would be a bit more varied music to check out.

Also, the VA for Sam was excellent. Really impressed. Hope to see her in more games in the future.

Anyway. Still worth playing through. I may replay this when I'm in the mood.
 
I had trouble with
one of the cassette cases that was in the sewing room. It said do no look here on the bottom and on the inside part(Opposite the track list) there was more writing but as much as I tried I couldn't get it to flip to where I could see it. Does anyone know what it said?

Was anyone able to see what it said?
 
RepairmanJack said:
I had trouble with
one of the cassette cases that was in the sewing room. It said do no look here on the bottom and on the inside part(Opposite the track list) there was more writing but as much as I tried I couldn't get it to flip to where I could see it. Does anyone know what it said?

Was anyone able to see what it said?
Click to expand...

It's just the rest of the tracklist. I was trying for the longest time to read it, eventually did it by holding it up to the ceiling. Casette case physics, best part of the game.
 
Larsa said:
It's just the rest of the tracklist. I was trying for the longest time to read it, eventually did it by holding it up to the ceiling. Casette case physics, best part of the game.
Click to expand...

Awwe, that's a bummer. Cassette case physics were great. At one point I through it on the ground and thought it broke apart, that could have been the only thing that made it better. :lol
 
This thread seems pretty positive towards the game. Is it really worth $18 or should I wait for the Xmas Steam sale? I love story based games.
 
If you're not a weirdo that can't get over the price and you are interested in something different then I would definitely buy it. I'm still thinking about it days after i finished it and that's pretty rare for me.
 
Larsa said:
If you're not a weirdo that can't get over the price and you are interested in something different then I would definitely buy it. I'm still thinking about it days after i finished it and that's pretty rare for me.
Click to expand...
It's funny, I think about it randomly too.. Like once a day since I finished it Saturday lol. I think it impacted me more than I realize. I'm not super crazy about the game but it was really well made, and definitely worth the $18.
I think it mostly comes down to the mood of it, which is probably due to the ambient sounds, music, and Sam's voice-over. She really is a good voice actress.
 
hlhbk said:
This thread seems pretty positive towards the game. Is it really worth $18 or should I wait for the Xmas Steam sale? I love story based games.
Click to expand...
I think it's an amazing product and is worth the $20, but it's a little hard to recommend to everyone at that price point because of the length. That said, much like Lone Survivor and VVVVVV launching at $15, I would encourage more indies to do the same.
 
Played through it last night and I liked it. Screw the whole "only 2 hours for 20 bucks". I liked the story. That said, how many audio logs were there? I want to make sure I have them all. Also, I somehow managed to duplicate one of the audio logs and I don't know how.
 
So, I got stuck after exploring the kitchen area after the basement (I had the key), and
accidentally discovered the hidden room with the attic key when I picked up the skull
. Does the game give you a hint on how to find it normally?
 
bigkrev said:
So, I got stuck after exploring the kitchen area after the basement (I had the key), and
accidentally discovered the hidden room with the attic key when I picked up the skull
. Does the game give you a hint on how to find it normally?
Click to expand...

Yeah
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Hey that reminds me

If I were to use Gone Home music for a Game of the Year video, are there plans to release a soundtrack of the original stuff? Or at least mp3s?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just need to figure out how best to do it. It's kind of a weird soundtrack since it's two extremely slow ambient 5-minute tracks and then 25 short 30-60 second logs.
 
Just finished this game. I still have all the goosebumps. Really amazing stuff here. The attention to detail is astounding and I know I missed a bunch of interesting stuff. The place really felt so real and
the lack of some supernatural twist or everyone being dead at the end really added to that. I was half expecting some kind of ghost thing, but I felt pretty stupid once it didn't happen. The lack of twist makes it so much better, because it shows how something so normal as an empty house can get people anticipating something so much more.

The price is something that will be debated (took me 2 hours), but it was sure as hell better than going to see any 2 hour movie or buying a blu ray I won't watch more than once. Can't wait to see what Fullbright does next.

Shout out to Chris for the perfect music too.
 
Is this game fulfilling? I read a lot of IGN comments where people said it depends entirely on its story and its story isn't quite good enough. A lot of people said it was even drastically overrated. I'm close to buying it, anyway.
 
I wish this game ran better on my Mac. I have a 2009 MBP with 8 gigs of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, and while I understand it's not a SUPER AWESOME AMAZING GAMING PC (or even close to it) this does run really poorly, even on min specs. It's not like it's a really graphically intensive game either, sooo... Blargh. I wonder if I installed it on my Win 7 side if it would run better?
 
Dartastic said:
I wish this game ran better on my Mac. I have a 2009 MBP with 8 gigs of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, and while I understand it's not a SUPER AWESOME AMAZING GAMING PC (or even close to it) this does run really poorly, even on min specs. It's not like it's a really graphically intensive game either, sooo... Blargh. I wonder if I installed it on my Win 7 side if it would run better?
Click to expand...

It is actually pretty graphically intensive if you put all the effects on. I can't get more than 40-50 fps on my desktop with a GTX560Ti and 2500k.
 
Very good game. 20 bucks IS too much for a 2 hour game. It should be 10 bucks, the price of a movie ticket, which this basically is.
 
To sum up... Meh.

The story is massively bullet pointed by the audio log to the point of predictability. Nothing is left to the users imagination as you are heavily hand held from on area to the next with locked doors (really who locks internal doors?!). The ending is a cope out and should have been open ended leaving only some random hints throughout the game of what might have happened, instead we get it all wrapped up in a bow.

For a game that is all about story it's a shame it comes of as trite and simplistic.

On a positive note the VO work was immensely good and I hope she does more in the future.

It gets 4 out of 10 from me.
 
Ovek said:
To sum up... Meh.

The story is massively bullet pointed by the audio log to the point of predictability. Nothing is left to the users imagination as you are heavily hand held from on area to the next with locked doors (really who locks internal doors?!). The ending is a cope out and should have been open ended leaving only some random hints throughout the game of what might have happened, instead we get it all wrapped up in a bow.

For a game that is all about story it's a shame it comes of as trite and simplistic.

On a positive note the VO work was immensely good and I hope she does more in the future.

It gets 4 out of 10 from me.
Click to expand...

My parents lock their internal doors, drive me nuts when I visit, so they are out there, still weird though
 
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