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- Name of game: Gone Home
- Creator: The Fullbright Company
- Platform: Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, iOS
- Target audience: anyone interested in adventure, exploration, and puzzle solving
- Important formal elements
- Players: single player vs. game
- Objective: exploration (played from a first-person perspective to explore an environment and discover a narrative about the game)
- Outcome: everybody wins, as they will eventually reach the end of the narration
- Resources: mobile phone interface, graphical display explorable environment
- Rules & procedures:
- Explore the environment by panning (left half of screen) and moving (right half of screen)
- Interact with objects by tapping and examining them, collect objects in a backpack (inventory)
- Boundaries: the phone screen, and the virtual environment
- Types of fun
- Narrative: players play the game piece together the events of the story
- Sensation: players play this game for the outstanding visuals and the music that engage their senses directly and give spooky vibes
- How a narrative is woven into the mystery
- The narrative is set in 1995, and the player plays Katie (in first-person perspective), a young girl who returned from a trip overseas to her home in Oregon, only to find her house empty and family members disappeared.
- To convey this narrative, the mystery heavily relies on text (e.g., messages when you pick up an object in the house)
- How the mechanics support the mystery
- The objects around the house can be clicked to be examined, and unlock the next part of the narration
