Gone Home

September 10, 2013 by Adam in Adam's Games

It's always a treat to veer away from the polished big-budget games towards an interesting indie game with a novel concept.  Gone Home starts with the player coming home to their family house, strangely empty, after a long trip to Europe.  It's up to the player to discover what happened, slowly unraveling the story as they look about.

I like how the storytelling is implied to a large degree.  There are the traditional notes and letters, but also receipts and book reviews and scribbled cheat codes for video games.  After awhile you get a sense of the people and the tensions in the house, and this forced voyeurism is somehow acceptable because of the situation.

It's also set in Portland in 1995, which has considerable nostalgia for me.  I wasn't quite so young at the time, but I wasn't quite as ancient as I am these days.

I bought it for Joanna as her first Steam game.  Hopefully she'll get around to playing it soon.