Gone Home Reviews

Good game

a short and beautiful game. the voice acting was phenomenal and you could really feel the emotion behind it. the atmosphere and hints of a ghost haunting the place was a nice touch. the game can be finished very quickly but i enjoyed walking around listening to the notes, reading and learning the backstory of everyone, and i think that's where the beauty in this game lies. the environmental storytelling is this game is amazing. i'm leaving out details because the game is best when you experience everything alongside kate. 10/10 game.

i wasent prepared for an hour long emotinal ride making me cry and be happy at the same time

Short but nice ambience and story.

I bought this game a while a go it was on sale. And honestly I just found it very boring. I will never play it again. It just wasn't fun in my opinion.

No es que el juego sea malo, pero sinceramente es muy aburrido en mi opinion, no es interesante, a mi parecer tampoco es atrapante, es como ver una pelicula en la cual podes interactuar, pero de la cual no vas a disfrutar mucho. Lo jugue simplemente por el hecho de querer completarlo con todos sus logros, y obviamente por los cromos.

Loved the LGBTQ+ reference in this game. It feels a bit spooky, but it's not actually scary at all. I really enjoyed finding all the journal entries and learning Sam's story. The house you explore is wild, with secret passages and half finished rooms, and I personally couldn't imagine living there. Hah! But for the purpose of the game, it felt like the perfect setting to figure out what was going on. There were so many items and things to look at that just really felt insightful into learning about the family that lives in this house. Going through the commentary playthrough after the first was also really fun and I wish more games did this. It was really cool hearing how and why the game was designed the way it was and getting explanations for some of the elements. :) Most of my play time was spent exploring all the nooks and crannies on two playthroughs (second one was with commentary mode enabled). All told it took 4 playthroughs to get all the achievements (including the two for speed running the game).

Gone Home is a game with simple premise. You arrive at a mansion and need to find out what happened there, the game doesn't tell you that. Which I enjoy very much. You will follow the story of Sam which left letters across the house for you to find. There is no time trial for you to complete, at least not in your first playthrough, no specific challenge. Take your time and try to read as much as possible. The voice actress of Sam, done by Sarah Grayson, is one of the highlights of the game. You can feel the emotions in her voice in subtle ways that can make you feel what Sam is feeling. That together with the music makes the story telling one of the best I ever experienced. My only complain is the controls that feel a bit stiff, but you get used to it very quick. After all of that I can say for sure the this has become one of the best games I have ever played! I think everyone should try it!

I would give this game a sideways thumb if I could. I really enjoyed the story, and the way the clues filled in the gaps. But the walking speed is painfully slow (on the current patch, at least), and because it's so short, I think it's currently overpriced. I would recommend buying it on sale.

Though the game was short, I enjoyed Gone Home. I liked the general atmosphere: the music, the creaking wood, dimly lit hallways. It took a bit of brainpower, but I did enjoy piecing together who was who, and uncovering the family dynamic. I also enjoyed learning about Katie and her relationship with Lonnie. The progressive unfolding of the narrative was logical to me and made sense as you explored the house. By the end, it all came together nicely. I did find that taking a couple of breaks was helpful, as it was a lot of reading. Based on some of the reviews of this game I read, it seems like some folks fixated on the LGBTQ themes. To be honest with you, I didn't personally have an issue with it. The narrative felt convincing/compelling enough to me, and I enjoyed learning about Sam's/Lonnie's relationship. I personally dislike it when stuff like identity is shoehorned into movies/games and beats you over the head with it. I much prefer when a game treats its characters as real life people, with flaws, interests, and compelling backgrounds. Their identity is only one small part of them, not the whole story. This makes them relatable. Being a lesbian is besides the point here - it's about the Ouija board, the punk zines and music, the sleepovers, ghost-hunting, and much more. I thought the game did a good job of communicating this without needing to make some grand statement. In the end, [spoiler] Sam pursued love, which is perhaps not compelling in some big sexy finale kind of way, but I don't think it needed some huge payoff, either. It's a nuanced ending, and I was fine with that. [/spoiler] Other things I enjoyed: the level of detail all over the house. There are labels, books, playing cards, all which are not really integral to the story, but it is such a pleasure to just see high texture items, and to be able to read labels on the fridge. I know it's besides the point, I just enjoyed that attention to detail. It made the story feel more real, like everything was focused and clear instead of inaccessible and blurry. Most games shy away from too much detail, but this game is all about it. My only criticism of the game is that it sets up a pretty spooky atmosphere, which is fundamentally misaligned with the ending of the game. You arrive in a house, on a rainy day, and the first thing you see is a note from Sam saying, "don't look for me." I fully expected a suicide story, that Sam offed herself due to heartbreak. Without going into detail, that is not what happened, but I did have to save and quit, and look up whether this was a horror game. All in all, Gone Home is a neat little narrative experience. It's not perfect, but it has heart and it's clear the developers are human beings with emotions and feelings.