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

Zornack

Member
I didn't enjoy this game at all. It's basically Audio Logs: The Game, and some of them are so ham-fisted. The general story was pretty good, but the audio log about
DADT
and the one where Sam kept repeating
follow the pack, follow the pack
where way too overdone. They might as well have been bashing me over the head with a sign saying TEENAGER TRYING TO FIND/ACCEPT HERSELF ANGST ANGST ANGST.
 

r3n4ud

Member
I didn't enjoy this game at all. It's basically Audio Logs: The Game, and some of them are so ham-fisted. The general story was pretty good, but the audio log about
DADT
and the one where Sam kept repeating
follow the pack, follow the pack
where way too overdone. They might as well have been bashing me over the head with a sign saying TEENAGER TRYING TO FIND/ACCEPT HERSELF ANGST ANGST ANGST.

So, um...I take it you didn't enjoy the game? :p
 

Lissar

Reluctant Member
So this. I saw them and was like NOPE not even going to try. Super nostalgic though. I remember they were always a big hit during school book fairs back then.

I tried. I had to try once more. NOPE.

Also, Lisa Frank trapper keeper! Nostalgia overload.
 

Zornack

Member
So, um...I take it you didn't enjoy the game? :p

I loved it, game of the year, 10/10/10.

Nah, I thought it was pretty shit, but I get why people could love it. I just feel like it goes halfway there. It's got a down to earth story, great atmosphere, a cool setting, but it fell apart for me when I realized it's just, as I mentioned earlier, Audio Logs: The Game.
 

Ceebs

Member
I tried. I had to try once more. NOPE.

Also, Lisa Frank trapper keeper! Nostalgia overload.

I died at finding that in the closet. I was chatting with someone who is several years younger than me at the time and they had zero clue what Lisa Frank even was. Did it have a very short shelf life in the late 80's to early 90's?

I loved it, game of the year, 10/10/10.

Nah, I thought it was pretty shit, but I get why people could love it. I just feel like it goes halfway there. It's got a down to earth story, great atmosphere, a cool setting, but it fell apart for me when I realized it's just, as I mentioned earlier, Audio Logs: The Game.

I am curious where you fell on the whole Bioshock combat debate, because this is sorta the game everyone ragging on the combat wanted.
 

IMACOMPUTA

Member
uhhhhhhhhhh.
I was really excited about this game and have been completely let down and I feel ripped off.
2 hours? Really? $20?
The rest of this will be spoilers:
Aside from nostalgia and the anticipation of something creepy happening this game was a huge let down. Absolutely nothing happens. The only time i felt anything was when I got the attic key and expected to find Sam dead in the attic or something. Wow, turns out the mom and dad are going through a rough patch and the daughter is a typical teenager that happens to have a lesbian lover. The setting for this game and complete mystery behind it leading all the way to its release produced SO MUCH potential for this to be great.
So let down right now. I was really hoping for something creepy with a big wtf moment, but no it never came.
And I understand the game was very detailed and took a lot of time to make, but $20 is way to much for Audiologs: the game.
Fuck.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I'm surprised at how sluggish this runs on my PC.
 

Zornack

Member
I am curious where you fell on the whole Bioshock combat debate, because this is sorta the game everyone ragging on the combat wanted.

Hmm, yeah, I thought Infinite (and TLoU) had way too much combat and that the combat wasn't that great. Around halfway through of both I found myself playing for the story beats and slogging through the shooting.

I guess I'm looking for some medium between TLoU/Bioshock and Gone Home, or maybe a story driven game with combat that's not shooting. But anything with combat can't have as non-combative a story as Gone Home, which sort of defeats the purpose of that type of game.

Meanwhile Sword & Sworcery and Papers, Please are two of my favorite games, both with nearly no combat. I guess Gone Home just didn't click with me.

Actually, Papers, Please is a pretty good example of a game with a story that's not OhGodIt'sTheEndOfTheWorld, no combat (well, some, but it'd be fine without) while still being engaging, but it lacks the exploration aspect of Gone Home. I just need more from a game than running around picking up audio logs disguised as pieces of paper.
 

IMACOMPUTA

Member
Hmm, yeah, I thought Infinite (and TLoU) had way too much combat and that the combat wasn't that great. Around halfway through of both I found myself playing for the story beats and slogging through the shooting.

I guess I'm looking for some medium between TLoU/Bioshock and Gone Home, or maybe a story driven game with combat that's not shooting. But anything with combat can't have as non-combative a story as Gone Home, which sort of defeats the purpose of that type of game.

Meanwhile Sword & Sworcery and Papers, Please are two of my favorite games, both with nearly no combat. I guess Gone Home just didn't click with me.

Actually, Papers, Please is a pretty good example of a game with a story that's not OhGodIt'sTheEndOfTheWorld, no combat (well, some, but it'd be fine without) while still being engaging, but it lacks the exploration aspect of Gone Home. I just need more from a game than running around picking up audio logs disguised as pieces of paper.

How about a story game that actually has a good story? This game was as anticlimactic as anything gets. It's like a boring day of real life: the game.
 

Lunzio

Member
Maybe because I got the game on the cheap from steam card sales I feel differently, but even though I completely expected an ending like that while moving through, I still got chills as it unfolded.

By the end, all the peril that the family seemed to be having was slowly wrapping up. Father printing new books. Mother getting a promotion. Sam & Lonnie running away. Each person found their own happiness.
 

Du2andal

Banned
Just finished up and what a great game! The house was incredibly interesting and completely packed with detail. Of course, I am a 90's kid so the nostalgia went a lot of the way for me.

Two questions:
Is there an official journal entry count? I finished with
21
and I am curious if I missed any.

Also, was there any resolution with
the wife and ranger rick? I saw that he gave her the EWF ticket and that she wrote him a glowing performance review but I never saw anything to indicate that they actually cheated or that she ended whatever there was prior to the couple's counseling.
 

Empty

Member
Also, was there any resolution with
the wife and ranger rick? I saw that he gave her the EWF ticket and that she wrote him a glowing performance review but I never saw anything to indicate that they actually cheated or that she ended whatever there was prior to the couple's counseling.

there's an invitation to rick's wedding on the fridge, presumably to his long distance girlfriend mentioned when he invites her to see EWF, which the wife misses to go to counselling. she also takes a new job away from rick in the conservation department. i think she wanted to cheat but just mis-read the signs that rick wanted to as well and once that stopped moved on to try again with her, newly re-energized, husband.
 

Lunzio

Member
Just finished up and what a great game! The house was incredibly interesting and completely packed with detail. Of course, I am a 90's kid so the nostalgia went a lot of the way for me.

Two questions:
Is there an official journal entry count? I finished with
21
and I am curious if I missed any.

Also, was there any resolution with
the wife and ranger rick? I saw that he gave her the EWF ticket and that she wrote him a glowing performance review but I never saw anything to indicate that they actually cheated or that she ended whatever there was prior to the couple's counseling.

To my knowledge, and I may have missed something, but I didn't notice any hard evidence of tomfoolery. I take the "anniversary vacation" to a couples' therapy camp to mean only good things for the fate of the parents though.
 

Du2andal

Banned
there's an invitation to rick's wedding on the fridge, presumably to his long distance girlfriend mentioned when he invites her to see EWF, which the wife misses to go to counselling. she also takes a new job away from rick in the conservation department. i think she wanted to cheat but just mis-read the signs that rick wanted to as well and once that stopped moved on to try again with her, newly re-energized, husband.

Ahh! I totally missed that
the wedding invite was his.
Awesome, thanks. I just knew there had to be something.
 

Dinosur

Member
Just beat it. Thought it was amazing until the goddamn thing just ended out of nowhere at the two hour mark and
completely retcon'ed the story for no reason
.

Pretty sure I did everything except
open the safe in the basement
.

First 114 minutes: A+
Last 2 minutes: Triple F minus

I feel bad saying this because the devs did a really great job and the concept was sweet, but IMO there's no way in hell it's worth $20.
 

Kurdel

Banned
Such an amazing experience. Anyone who hasn't played the game yet and is reading this thread should stop immediatly.

The game is well worth 20$ for me.

Congrats to Steve Gaynor and co for making such an amazingly unique experience.

Also, props to Chris Remo for the soundtrack. I didn't know he worked on the game, and the music was such an important piece of the atmosphere and the mood of the house.
 

IMACOMPUTA

Member
Such an amazing experience. Anyone who hasn't played the game yet and is reading this thread should stop immediatly.

The game is well worth 20$ for me.

Congrats to Steve Gaynor and co for making such an amazingly unique experience.

Also, props to Chris Remo for the soundtrack. I didn't know he worked on the game, and the music was such an important piece of the atmosphere and the mood of the house.
I'm going to do the opposite and say don't buy it unless you're totally already sold on it and have a lot of extra money.
 
Was hesitant to buy this because of the price but decided to do it anyways. I actually really liked the experience of finding things throughout the house. The story was touching as well. I do think the game is a bit short and the ending was alright. If you're on the fence about buying this I say wait for a sale.
 
Hmm, yeah, I thought Infinite (and TLoU) had way too much combat and that the combat wasn't that great. Around halfway through of both I found myself playing for the story beats and slogging through the shooting.

I guess I'm looking for some medium between TLoU/Bioshock and Gone Home, or maybe a story driven game with combat that's not shooting. But anything with combat can't have as non-combative a story as Gone Home, which sort of defeats the purpose of that type of game.

Meanwhile Sword & Sworcery and Papers, Please are two of my favorite games, both with nearly no combat. I guess Gone Home just didn't click with me.

Actually, Papers, Please is a pretty good example of a game with a story that's not OhGodIt'sTheEndOfTheWorld, no combat (well, some, but it'd be fine without) while still being engaging, but it lacks the exploration aspect of Gone Home. I just need more from a game than running around picking up audio logs disguised as pieces of paper.
Well games like Omikron, Heavy Rain or TWD maybe fill that spot for you? They have some sort of combat, be it fighting mechanics or QTEs and the rest is mostly story driven exploration.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
This is a great game to start using my 7.1 headphones with...I'd actually hate to play this without them now, the sound design seems pretty key to the experience.
 

blamite

Member
Having some trouble. This is basically what I'm seeing when I start the game:
0gwT6zT.jpg
I can see some lights, and a couple interactive things like the door or the duck, but other than those I've got no textures on anything, just black. I've messed with the graphics settings and verified the game files, still no luck.

Anyone else had this problem/aware of a solution? (there is at least one other person with this problem on the steam forums.)
 
Welp, this is a game. It's not a game I want all games to be, but it's one way to tell a story that only a game can do, and it does it damn well, about as well as you can for the style. And the story, it's fantastic - it's not a unique story, but it's such a human take on it, it captures a certain piece of a person's life and emotions in a way only really good books or films can capture, and certainly games generally fail to do. It took me something like two hours to get through, but whatever - I'll certainly think about it a lot more than games that have taken me five times that.

I can't wait until mirrors in games become an easy thing to pull off though, because seriously, like 5 bathrooms without mirrors just becomes disturbing, heh.
 
I bought this last night, had a quick play as I'll be devoting this evening to it.

However I did get a bit freaked out
by the sound effects when I tried the answerphone and read the note.
 
I enjoyed the experience. Even though I liked it, I'm going to say wait for a sale on it.

Edit: If I had to add anything, it's that this proves the best experiences are when you go into a game full blind.

Not that I would think anyone would argue about that.
 

Eknots

Member
Heard great things about this game, going to wait until it's cheaper to get it though. 19.99 is a little steep considering it's a indie game that probably isn't too long.
 

Sober

Member
I can't wait until mirrors in games become an easy thing to pull off though, because seriously, like 5 bathrooms without mirrors just becomes disturbing, heh.
I think it was more of a case of it they included mirrors, you either had to make them work, in which case you spend a lot of time trying to model/animate Katie, which I assume would be a lot of work considering the amount of fidelity they were going for with the environment over anything else.

Speaking of screenshots, did anyone get the note in the
servant's quarters? The one with Sam writing about her and Lonnie kissing in bed or whatever? I don't think it's like smut or anything, probably more innocent than that but just curious about what they actually had written down on it before Katie went 'nope'.

Kinda debating the modifiers and if how that would've played out if some of them were turned on/off and how that would change how the player would discover/piece together information.

edit: also the ghost
boardgame made me laugh
 

Wok

Member
Have you played with any modifier? Personaly, I chose to disabe the map on my first playthrough, I liked it better, otherwise I know I would have constantly looked at the map.

Kinda debating the modifiers and if how that would've played out if some of them were turned on/off and how that would change how the player would discover/piece together information.

Without the audio logs, it would have been more difficult to get the main part of the story for me.

With the lights on, you don't get the scary atmosphere.
 

Sober

Member
No audio logs makes sense if you were actually Katie
since most people getting the Attic key and hearing the last few logs from Sam made them fucking BOLT upstairs but Katie would never know to do that other than it being the last place in the room/the odd note from Sam
. But yeah I don't know about recommending it on the first time around.
 
Sam and Lonnie ran off together, Katie discovers the journal that Sam started writing ever since they moved into 1 Arbor Hill (shortly after Katie left for Europe)

Hmm. I guess it now comes down to understanding the characters and their motivations, feelings, emotions, instincts, etc.
 

jettpack

Member
I just finished. Truly incredible. emotionally resonant. genuine. funny. and really pretty. Guys and Gals, Gone Home is dope as hell.

Obviously Sam and Lonnie's story is the star, but i also really loved the Dad's narrative.
i totally said "way to go dad" out loud when i found the note about the book reprinting.
 
Very emotional and powerful. Yet I finished in 55 minutes. Thats damn short for 19.99. I think the extremely short playtime will prevent folks from grabbing this.
 

jettpack

Member
Very emotional and powerful. Yet I finished in 55 minutes. Thats damn short for 19.99. I think the extremely short playtime will prevent folks from grabbing this.

really? took me 2.4 hours which felt like the perfect length. but you may be right. i hope not. Its so good, everybody should play it.

for me at least, the content was well worth the 19.99 It also looked really nice which i appreciated. cant get enough high res texture notes.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Finished it in a single sitting. Took about two hours for me. Almost had me at tears a couple of times. Emotional powerful, simple storytelling in vein of stuff like Dear Esther.

I think people going into works like this with a "solve the video game" mindset really shouldn't bother.
 

Jay Sosa

Member
Sheeeeeit that looks amazing. If only I wasn't to lazy to build myself a decent pc.

Very emotional and powerful. Yet I finished in 55 minutes. Thats damn short for 19.99. I think the extremely short playtime will prevent folks from grabbing this.

I love short games..nothing worse than 10+ hour of the same shit over and over again. But 55 minutes is a bit extreme.
 

Ikopi

Member
I find it quite ridiculous how people focus on the price vs. length. There is enough information to warrant a second playthrough, and then you will have spend at lease 4 hours on this game.

I have bought 50 euro games which I stopped playing after way less than 4 hours because they were too boring. Gone Home is quite the opposite to boring.

I still find it intriguing why all the VCR's are removed from every room in the house..
 
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