The premise of Gone Home is pretty simple. You play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, a woman in her early 20s that is returning home after spending a year traveling around Europe. The game is set in the year 1995 in Oregon. While in Europe, the Greenbriars moved into a new home, so Kaitlin is unfamiliar with the house. Kaitlin arrives in the middle of the night with a cryptic note on the front door from her teenage sister Sam. You enter the house to find that nobody is home. It is your job to piece together where your family is at.
It sounds incredibly simple, but the execution in Gone Home is amazing. The story is told through objects you interact with and audio logs recorded by Sam, which play automatically whenever Kaitlin interacts with an important object in the house. What unravels in the next two hours is a very touching story that is unique to games. While the first playthrough of the game can be pretty short, a detailed environment with an engrossing story makes the $20 price tag worth it.
I do not want to get into the specifics of the story because it is something that needs to be experienced by players firsthand. But I will say that the story presented, is one that a lot of people will resonate with. The themes that Gone Home explores are things that a lot of kids went through while growing up. This is a main reason why Gone Home has been received well by so many people that play the game. While the story is great, and it is fun to piece together where your family is, the best aspect of the game comes from the connection you feel with the story. A lot has happened to Kaitlin’s family in the year she was away, so there is a lot to learn in the game. A majority of the game is spent picking up objects, documents, and other items in the house and analyzing them. But the story that develops is what really makes the exploration of this empty house rewarding.
If you’re looking for a horror game in Gone Home, you can go ahead and skip it. While every light is off in the house, and there is a thunderstorm raging outside, this is not a horror game. That being said, there are some elements of the game that can be a bit spooky, but it comes from the nature of walking around an empty house that you are unfamiliar with. As with the story, a lot of people who play Gone Home will have experienced something like walking around a completely dark home, and there may be some normal things that spook you at first. I was walking through the house, turning every light on and always checking behind me. Sometimes the roar of thunder will startle you as you are reading a note, and going into the unfinished basement is spooky, just like all unfinished basements.
Gone Home relies on the fact that the player has experienced a similar situation in the past. It also draws on the nostalgia effect. The game is set in 1995, and the developers at The Fullbright Company do a great job of making the house feel like it is straight out of 1995. There are big CRT televisions, VHS tapes with movies recorded on them, answering machines with messages you can listen to, and old Super Nintendo cartridges. Grunge music was also becoming more mainstream, and you’ll find cassette tapes with grunge music on them that you can listen to. Gone Home has a believable setting, which makes the story even better.
Fans of high resolution textures will love Gone Home. The Fullbright Company has done a great job making sure that the objects you can interact with look great and are easy to read. The house is a pretty big with a lot to explore. It is easy to spend 10-15 minutes in a room looking at everything. With three floors to explore, there is a lot of content in the house. Playing behind the game is an amazing original score from Chris Remo.
Overall Gone Home is a great package. The story and environment are the two best aspects of the game, and do a fine job of engrossing the player. There is a lot to see in the house, and you’ll most likely miss some stuff on your first playthrough, so multiple playthroughs are required. It is an enjoyable experience that will resonate with a lot of people. The story is simple, but powerful, and I bet by the end of the game you will have a big smile on your face.
Score 9/10
Gone Home was developed and published by The Fullbright Company on August 15 for PC, Mac, and Linux. A copy of the game was purchased by the reviewer.
