In Gone Home, a classic young adult romance unravels in the context of a traditional horror movie house. Developed by Fullbright Company, and released firstly in 2013, the game utilizes relatively simply point and click mechanics in a first-person POV structure to unravel the mystery of what happened to the player character’s sister Sam and the history of the house.
Seemingly geared towards a target audience of gamers who are familiar with the 1990s aesthetic, or who enjoy reading and environmental storytelling, potentially 13+ due to its themes and references to sex. It is easy to see how this game is similar to later games like What Remains of Edith Finch, which also relies on environmental storytelling to uncover a mysterious narrative, or even multimedia physical theater storytelling like those created by Meow Wolf, where audiences physically interact with an environment to uncover a similar mystery surrounding the remaining presence of a missing girl.
In Gone Home, narrative is woven into the mystery through the two particular mechanics of locked rooms and point-and-click interactability. Through embedding storytelling artifacts in layered discoveries behind mechanics of locked doors, and in prompting the audience to search through each object and turn them around to reveal new writings, Gone Home cultivates the sense of player agency and investment in the non-linear, non-present narrative.
A photo of the secrets drawn into the map as exploration occurs. Photo Credit
As I played through Gone Home, I felt a certain pressure to explore everything I could. The first puzzle – identifying the location of a key – taught me instantly that this wasn’t a pure walking simulator game that would hand me a linear experience, but would require me to read and pay attention to the environment to piece together the story of the family, find keys to unlocked doors, and notice codes. As I played too, I realized how the completionist mentality caused me to learn more and more and grow more invested each time a discovery was made, as not all interactable objects were fruitful.
The structure and genre of the game itself led to a sense of discovery, as it begins as a traditional horror game, but quickly a wholesome friendship occurs. I felt a sense of hope – and the other side of the coin too, dread – that within this creepy aesthetic (what’s going to happen in the attic?) – a certain thrill, from a queer female player, of realizing that Lonnie and Sam are themselves (first) female (then) queer. This emotion was driven by a transformed environment: from creepy jumpscares, then emotionally preparing for a sad story (certainly Lonnie couldn’t accept queerness, or they broke up, or they died), to realizing the ending was queer joy, a repaired marriage, returning parents, the ultimately innocuous protagonist’s return. The release and catharsis of the ending is served by the mechanics of the game implying a creepiness factor – as we grow used to turning the lights on and off to discover visuals as well.
Lonnie in her ROTC uniform. Photo Credit
What differentiates this game from others similar? I think that, unlike Edith Finch, we are following one character at a time as opposed to many in sequence. Though, like Katie, we learn little about Edith’s son (us, the player character) through the course of the game, we gain a fuller understanding of generational trauma, family history, the history of the house through the length of the game and the deft control of the game’s pacing. As Gone Home is nonlinear, the developers necessarily have less control over the pacing of each specific discovery. The linear architecture of Edith Finch leads to the story being presented to us, and while the sense of discovery was similar in Gone Home, the mixture of specific focus (following Sam’s story) combined with the nonlinear discovery and extrapolation from objects in the environment created a further sense of problem solving and investment in the narrative. Additionally, the choice to frame the entirety of the environment of Gone Home in stereotypical horror game tropes adds to a sense of bated expectation due to the environmental storytelling.
Ethics:
As a digital accessibility researcher, I did initially find some parts of Gone Home to potentially be accessibility concerns. By default, there is a lack of subtitles, and the turned off lights and first-person perspective might induce fear and dizziness in some players due to the clunky controls. However, a cursory look at the accessibility features detailed in Gone Home Accessibility Report seem to address most of these concerns. Particularly, large text subtitles and overlays over handwritten text can be toggled on, and the lighting staying on will definitely increase visibility and accessibility in terms of the game. However, I still feel that there may be some accessibility concerns with the first-person perspective. This can often cause nausea and dizziness in some players, and relies on vision of the entire screen, in addition to the searching needed to play the game. While it may be necessary due to the coding of the game and the engine, I would be curious about a version of the game that is more motion accessible.
