9:45: I’m not sure if the wind is coming from my surroundings or because my computer is overheating. Nevertheless, this front porch is penetrating darkness. The shadow illuminated by the windows could be from a tree, but all that seems to come to mind is the picture of BFG depicted on character books. I’m not sure if my character is coming home of if they rushed home because Sam is in danger, but maybe if I can come inside I’ll know. Just typing this out makes me feel nervous; I’m suddenly hypersensitive to the doors outside the apartment opening and closing as if something is going to happen to me when I go inside the door.
10:30: I’ve been walking aimlessly. It took me too long to find the key. I am filled with anxiety; there is something startling about walking in a large house alone. Not to mention, Sam’s journal referred to herself as the “psycho house girl”. What is wrong with this house?! The weather alert especially made me uneasy. I feel brought back to 2012 during Hurricane Sandy when my family lost power for two weeks. We since moved out of the house, but walking in the darkness with an aimless goal forever remains ingrained, and this game reignited that memory. Darkness is so central to this game that even walking into the light makes me wary.
I begin the game with the view of a porch. Unlike the many other games, Gone home doesn’t contain violence, yet it gave players a lot of freedom. With freedom, this game immediately gave me a hard time on how to probe the continuous steps. I had to spend 15 minutes trying to find the key on the bottom of a duck. This experience of probing provided a preview of the remaining plots. As I move around the first and second floor, I discovered that Katie is a rebellious child when she was younger and even her sister, Sam, called her a weirdo.
As I probe from rooms to rooms, I discovered more and more about this family. The father, Terry has some nasty secrets, Sam seems to change a lot as she gets older. The journal would give me a lot of information into the plot and I really like this type of plot progression method.
I begin the game with the view of a porch. Unlike the many other games, Gone home doesn’t contain violence, yet it gave players a lot of freedom. With freedom, this game immediately gave me a hard time on how to probe the continuous steps. I had to spend 15 minutes trying to find the key on the bottom of a duck. This experience of probing provided a preview of the remaining plots. As I move around the first and second floor, I discovered that Katie is a rebellious child when she was younger and even her sister, Sam, called her a weirdo.
As I probe from rooms to rooms, I discovered more and more about this family. The father, Terry has some nasty secrets, Sam seems to change a lot as she gets older. The journal would give me a lot of information into the plot and I really like this type of plot progression method.
There existed a sense of foreboding in the front porch. With a flickering light, the place grew eerie. Near the window, thundering and rain is what I could hear but as I got closer to the main door, the noise seemed to faint. This hints at the extent of time I spent looking for the key. That attention to detail raised my expectations for what was behind that main door.
I’m an all for clues person. Solving mysteries is my thing. I’m beginning to play this game with caution. I do not know if that’s the right attitude. I just checked the toilet paper for it could mean something. Roaming in the hallways and searching every room minute by minute made me impatient. To my dismay, not all rooms bore clues. Music library was one of them.
Right now, I am near the dad’s office. I hear two men talking.
8:00 PM
Though it turned out to be the TV, that thought was blood curdling. Reading every crumpled note from trash, I could feel what Samantha was going through. I then climbed the stairs. Picking up clues along the way, I reached an area with red lights. It cautioned not to enter if the red lights were on. Though every bit of me wanted to explore that further, I couldn’t find the entrance to it.
8:12 PM
I’ve just learned about the existence of a secret room. I’m headed there. As thrilling as the path was with the panel opening from the wall, there was a feeling of disappointment on climbing down to the secret room. By then I had reached a conclusion of my own. Probably, Samantha’s parents were too hard on her so she fled with Lonnie, her lover; her parents might have gone to find her. I’m still traversing through the house so I might keep adding more.
My eyes were strained during the game, but I kept going. With pulling every bulb string, I had chills going down my spine. It felt as if unveiling the entire mystery was the only way I could swallow food down my throat.
It’s a rainy gloomy evening in Mumbai. It’s dark when I look outside, even though it’s just close to 6:00 PM. Blissfully unaware of what the game was like, I decided to play Gone Home– not my brightest idea.
As the game started, I could hear the roaring sound of the rain, and the deafening thunder. I was on the front porch of what was supposed to be my home, but there was nothing that made me feel welcome. It was dark, periodically illuminated by sudden discharges of lightning. I saw the note that someone called Sam (possibly a sibling) had stuck on the main door– they were missing. I figured that the goal of the game was likely to figure out why they ran away and/or to find them. This did not improve the emotions I was feeling, the suspense heightened, and the game started feeling increasingly like a horror game. Horror– my least favorite genre.
I tried to get into the house, but I could not figure out how. It took me an embarrassingly long time, much longer than I’d like to admit. I tried walking into the door, I walked around the porch 20-30 times, to no avail. At some point, I thought my laptop had a technical issue and that the game was glitching, so I quit and restarted. After several minutes I found the key and cursed myself for how obvious it had been. I entered the house, and the sense of eerie persisted.
Maybe it’s because I don’t usually play video games and I don’t really have much to compare it to, but the visual effects of the game thus far really struck me as beautiful, in a sinister and dangerous way. This, along with the sound, really set the atmosphere and make the game-playing experience more immersive. Another minor detail which I found very interesting was how the game manages to establish the time, location, character and situation (the character returning home after a long trip) without explicitly saying any of it.I figured out these facts by listening to the message she leaves for her mother, and looking at things like her passport and boarding pass.
But anyway, back to the ‘home’ I have to explore.
6:13 PM
There are a couple boxes laying around, it seems like the family is moving out. I went to the bathroom, and didn’t find anything too interesting. However, the faucets were in working condition and there was some soap by the washbasin. Outside, the telephone was in working condition as well. There were some messages left on the machine too. Someone is calling Sam because they’re in trouble. These things made it seem like the people living in the house (my parents and Sam) had left all of a sudden, and it was unplanned. Something was wrong.
6:19 PM
I ascend the looming staircase. I fumble around trying to make sense of all that I see. I learn that Janice Greenbriar (presumably the mother) is a Senior Conservationist. They live in Boon County. Small details that help build the characters without meeting or seeing them.
6:31 PM
I’ve been walking around the house picking up on random details. My father is a writer working on a new book. Someone (certainly the dad) is also obsessed with the death of JFK. He’s got a whole room dedicated to this. Also, the house originally belonged to someone called Oscar Masan, who we learn is the deceased, ‘psycho’ uncle. This is getting interesting. I feel myself losing the ‘creeped out’ feeling and gaining the ‘I need to know more’ feeling. I am more comfortable with the spooky and borderline morbid vibe of the game.
Locker in Sam’s room
6:41 PM
I see a door that has a warning sign on it. ‘Caution: Radiation Area. Keep Out.’ I’ve played this game long enough to know that I definitely should NOT keep out. There was something important in there. I enter into what the map tells me is Sam’s room. There was a locker with some female models’ pictures pasted on top. I open the locker and there’s a magazine in there called ‘Gentleman’. It is, quite clearly, ‘the Magazine for Men’. What’s it doing here? I listen to Sam’s journal entry. She has a friend called Lonnie who is afraid she’s done something wrong. I spot some clothes in the locker with the anti-theft tag on them. Was that it? Maybe. I listen further. Turns out, Lonnie kissed Sam who is a lesbian. (Maybe the word ‘friend’ wasn’t appropriate). I’m a sucker for teenage couples, so for a moment I got quite excited. Suddenly, I heard a piercing sound: thunder, and I remembered that this was not some cheesy rom-com. Sam had still run away, and the house was still terrifying. I tried to make sense of what all I just found out. Did Sam run away with Lonnie? Was she afraid to come out as a lesbian to her parents? Why did she have stolen clothes in her locker? Did Lonnie steal them? Is she covering up for Lonnie? So many questions, but for me, the game just got really, really interesting.
Just got through the door. Took a lot longer than it should have. Some of the things I tried before finding and using the key were: moving toward the door hoping to break it, throwing the Christmas Duck at the door, throwing the cup at the door, and doing a combination of the above. First few minutes served as learning: how to move and how the game interacts with me. I notice I am probing on a very deep level: I almost feel like a child in a candy store in the sense that there’s one hundred things I want to try, hopefully succeeding in one or two of them. Some other notes: I feel as though I am not Telescoping practically at all. I literally do not even know a single goal, but perhaps this has to do with core idea of the game. One thing that struck me in the second Bogost reading was the phrase “the medium is the message” and it is likely this is what developers hoped for at the start: confusion at the very start before one understands their tasks, much like the situation in which one comes home and no one is there. Enjoying it so far.
Main room: Okay things are getting a wee bit scary. Turned sound on: mistake. The voice recording of our character saying ‘Sam’ is bone-chilling, and I thought something jumped out at me when I opened the bathroom door. Maybe I’m just a wimp. My curiosity overtakes next fear, and I shall continue through. Hope we meet again.
Hallway: I’ve just been informed that the main room is called the ‘foyer’ by the map. Duly noted. This hallway is also terrifying, just like something out of “The Shining”. Up to this point, Probing has revealed a few things: your relationship with your sister Sam is rife with envy: Carol mentioned it in the postcard, and you have two trophies in the foyer. Scoreboard reads Katie 2: Sam 0. Apart from this, this is a new house – I picked up on this when postcard read “weird” as it pointed to address. Also, what is a “dejeuner”? Things to note: your great uncle, Oscar, died, and we don’t know who is the person in the soldier photo – Desoto.
Dads office and room between it and hallway: Unfinished letter – someone must’ve left in a rush. Also, time travel and the assassination of JFK. Maybe this is a frightening joke or something. Seems very mad scientist-y. Dads office filled with books, I’d wager there’s a secret door somewhere here. Also looks like your dad almost got fired.
Hallway again:
Crumpled note does not bode well. Uncle went ‘psycho’. Also, no-go on the secret door frontier. Disappointed. Entered the TV room – man, this place is freaking me out. Crouch allows you to see the novel ‘Ghosts and Poltergeists’ under a bunch of pillows. No bueno.
I chose this photo because I think it captures my main feelings throughout: one one hand, something feels incredibly wrong and scary. There are signs of haunting, or science fiction horror, and of family abandonment. On the other hand lies the serene answer; your family is not home right now, and this can all be explained by a simple misunderstanding. And in the middle is the light – the curiosity guiding you through it all.
After I heard the voice message, my initial thought was that they were not very rich as she had to take a very late flight, which was the cheapest. But as soon as I entered the door, I saw this huge mansion and I was confused as to what was going on. Why would someone who can afford to live in this mansion have to think about taking a cheap flight. The lighting from the starting was very dark. Initially because of the setting like darkness, thundering and suspense music, made me think it was a mystery game. The note Sam left reassured that, as I would have to find clues as to where she could have gone. I think another thing that was strange that I thought that there was going to be at least her mom or dad as she had come from this long trip. This also establishes Kaitlin’s character, she is a kind person as she didn’t want her mother to worry about picking her up, and her mother and father thought that she was responsible enough to take care of herself, so they might have gone to look for Sam without leaving a note.
I think scene was the most interesting for me was this place. It added to the suspense of the game as we find out that Oscar the person to whom this place belonged to her fathers uncle. I think this place establishes that there was a person who used to live her and went mad. This added to “horror” of the game. Involved in conspiracy theories and all, drove him to kill himself. Moreover, this establishes that Sam was bullied as she was often referred to the person who lived in the “psycho house”.
The sound of the rain, foot steps, and thunder strikes really makes the game feel like a horror movie. I was standing in front of the door when the game started. Without any clear instructions I assumed getting into the house was the goal.
I found out the note on the door that Sam left for Katie. I had made no progress in this game so far. Thirty minutes later, I was still standing in front of the door. Since the door was locked, I started looking for a key that enabled me to go inside to find out more about Sam and his note.
I finally found the key underneath the duck. It was really dark inside the room.
I really felt myself involved in the game. Got impressed by the realistic this game is, especially the audio quality, I got scared every time I heard the thunder strike.
I noticed that I could turn on the lights. Found a creepy family portrait hanging on the wall. There were lots of notes from drawer. I looked around the house, walked through every room to find anything important that can be picked up. I found Sam’s room on the second floor, however it was locked again.
As you play through Gone Home for class on Tuesday, I want you to liveblog your experience playing. Liveblogging is an informal sort of freewriting — while you are in the midst of playing the game, just notice whatever seems interesting to you and pause periodically to note those observations in your blog post.
The game begins on the front porch, with a brief puzzle to get in the front door, and sets up a little background for the main character and serves as a simple tutorial for basic game mechanics, so launch the game and play through that opening section, then pause the game and open your dashboard. Write a new blog post which starts by announcing that you’re beginning to play through the game and links back to this post (not just the course site, but this specific post). Tag your post with “sq3,” “gone home” and “liveblog” plus whatever other tags you’d like. (You can add tags in the post editor page, in the section labeled Tags, which should be in the sidebar just beneath categories and just above the featured image area.)
Write a paragraph (or a few sentences) responding to that opening sequence. Again, whatever is interesting to you about it — visual and audio style; emotional reactions; how the game establishes setting, time, and character. Perhaps especially think about how the game establishes character given that there is only one person present in the narrative and it’s the first person narrator — without dialog and other traditional methods of defining character, how do the game designers go about doing so? You might make predictions or note expectations for where this game will head.
Publish the post. Once you’ve published your post, you might check out the other students’ posts and see how they responded to the opening sequence — please leave comments on their liveblog posts responding to observations they made!
When you’re ready, go back to the game and play on. When you find a scene that seems particularly cool or beautiful or interesting, take a screenshot and/or write up a brief note about it on your liveblogging post — either leave a comment on your own post or edit the post and add a timestamp plus a few lines of commentary on the end of your post.
Check in periodically with your peers’ responses to the game and pay attention to whether you have similar or different reactions. Leave comments on your peers’ posts too, responding to their observations.
