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Liveblogging Gone Home

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5:47 PM

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.

Liveblogging “Gone Home”

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Pre-Door:

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.

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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.

GONE HOME

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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 Influence of Americanism

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The Influence of americanism

The world is an ever-changing place due to the rapid lifestyle that is widely prevalent. Trends and technology are constantly shoved in the face of people every hour of every day, primarily American based. Influences worldwide persuade us to visit a website, purchase the new thing, or any other way to get their product to cross your mind. I decided to combine the Eiffel tower and McDonald’s’ golden arches because of globalization affecting cultures; this particular photo combination was quite amusing to think about because I believe the idea of putting Mcdonalds branding on grande structures, such as the Eiffel tower, have come across the minds of their advertising heads. I knew I wanted to create a combophoto on globalization, but deciding how to convey my image was rather tricky. McDonald’s was on my mind, so I knew I wanted to include it, and I decided upon the Eiffel tower because the build allowed me to fit a street sign of everyone’s “favorite” restaurant on top; thus, my photocombo created, trying to convey the influence of American globalization on individual culture was produced.

Combophoto

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Building Blocks

Thinking of an idea for the combophoto was pretty difficult for me. I wanted to combine two pictures that had some connection, but still were completely different from one another. So, I thought of putting together pictures of things that are opposite in terms of size and colour.

I found a picture of a building I had clicked a few months back– it was black and white. The building represented ‘bigness’. I then found some vibrant Lego blocks, made a tower using them and clicked a picture of them at a similar angle (which was very hard to achieve)– this was the ‘smallness’. The result– this image I call ‘Building Blocks’.

I think that this image, in a sense, symbolises growing up. When we’re young and building our little Lego buildings, our world is small and colourful. We’re oblivious to the hardships, stress and obstacles that life is sure to offer. As we mature, we’re exposed to the big, bad ‘real world’. We have real buildings to build, real problems to solve, and the world just doesn’t seem too colourful anymore.

Literacy Narrative

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As a child, I did not learn to read in English like native speakers. In elementary schools in China, the common way to teach English was grammar lessons and vocabulary lists, the same way Spanish classes would be taught in any American high school. Hence, I wasn’t too fond of the English language. The rules to English grammar were never consistent, and I found it to be inefficient in expressing myself. This continued until I became an adolescent. When I entered middle school, I started to listen to a lot of western music. The genres I listened to varied from British rock bands to old school Hip-Hop, and artists like Pink Floyd, Nas, and Michael Jackson were the first writers who inspired me to learn English more thoroughly. I was intrigued in researching the differences between artists of various time periods and hometowns and how their lyrics would vary based on those differences. Songs like “Put It On” by Big L, “Pigs” by Pink Floyd or “Castles Made Of Sand” by Jimi Hendrix. As a result, my first memories with reading English were scrolling through music streaming, reading the lyrics line-by-line alongside their Chinese translations, while searching the words up on an electronic dictionary. Each word had its own melody to it and spoke to my heart. The words became much easier to memorize, and my use of grammar became more intuitive. I learned my first lesson: to treat a language as art, and not skill. I became more accustomed to English grammar rules and verbal conventions. My interaction with English remained this way until my family moved to New York in 2016.

Before my first day in an American high school, I have never been required to write an essay in English over 200 words. My experience with writing before was not the same. I wrote for the grades. I wrote in complex sentence structures to demonstrate that I’ve listened in grammar lessons. I replaced short sentences with long clauses full of never-used adjectives to demonstrate that I did my homework of memorizing 50 vocab words every day. And it was a difficult transition. I received unsatisfactory comments from my teachers, yet they don’t point out what’s wrong with my writing. This continued until junior year, when my English teacher asked me whether if a sixth grader would comprehend my essay. My teacher emphasized on being concise. Avoiding all repetitions and confusions over long sentences. Splitting one sentence into two. Two into four. I reached a realization that throughout all those years my goal of writing was to impress, not express. My teacher gave me my second lesson, which is to write for all people. Be more concise. It was to express my ideas in easier ways so more audience can be reached.

Finally, my third lesson of reading and writing came during the college application process. In those three months, I wrote countless essay drafts for admissions officers to read over. The process was a long struggle of trying to sound intriguing while avoiding clichés; trying to display personal talents while avoiding signs of arrogance. Nevertheless I appreciated this experience. By that last word I typed onto that last essay document, I truly had a better understanding of myself. The collection of my essay drafts becomes a full notion of my identities, my passions and traits. From this experience I learned to write in order to reorganize thoughts. Instead of writing for other people to read, I began to write for myself.

Side Quest 2: Combo Photo

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I was looking around my room for inspiration when I noticed my water bottle sitting on my desk. Then I started to think what fun things I could do with a water bottle. Eventually I came up with a play on words of Bottle rocket. As a kid I would make these cute little rocket with an Alka-seltzer tablet and some water. When we got into high school my my friends and I used dried ice and they flew way higher. I wanted to express my love for this weekend activity and fill viewers with that nostalgia from childhood.

The hardest part of making this photo was the formatting the layers. It was my first time using some form of Photoshop that was more than just Snapchat. All my previous experience of photo editing was writing the letter “S” for my streaks. It is quite exciting to learn something new in life on my own. I feel as though the past 18 years have been so guided, so this approach to something new has relaxed me.

Avatar

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For my avatar, I wanted to pick a grand picture that aimed to symbolize my expectations for college and my outlook on my future.

I picked an illustration from Paradiso in which Dante is graced by the Angels and sees the divine light at the center of it all. My name is placed brightly in the middle, contrasting with the bright gold of its surroundings. It was originally a black and white illustration but I played with the color balances and contrast to make the picture “pop” as it does.

Now, I in no way equate myself to any Divine beings, or the bliss of paradise – this is all metaphor for me being the master of my own destiny. In college I want to find my path to success, even as my definition of it changes, so in a way putting my name inside the circle of angels signifies the end goal of success as well!

Avatar

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I photoshopped my own photo using the app MomentCam. I chose to photoshop my avatar like this because it both represents my personality and stands for some part of this class as well. And also, I think it is a fun photo. It has full contrast of colors, with red in the background and blue and brown in the foreground.

The little blue fox magician right next to me holds a knife in its hand, almost saying, “welcome to the show!” In my life, I enjoyed being on stages and throwing myself out there meeting all kinds of new people. I participated in a couple dramas and performances under the theatre lights in high school, and I believe these activities can show people who I am. I like to laugh, and I like to make people laugh, to entertain them, to make friends with them. When I was photoshopping this picture, I really enjoyed the curtain at the background because it connects to my past. I also love this avatar because in the picture the huge box with a spade sign on it to the left represents the challenges of this class. In the picture, I’m locked inside the box. It mirrors the breakout rooms that we often do in remote classes. The several knifes It specifically speaks to this first-year writing class because it pushes us to get out of our comfort zone, to deal with new challenges, and to always perform our best when we face the unknown.

At first, I did not know how to make this avatar at all because I did not know where and how to start. I think the topic was very broad, and later I find out that if we use our creativity and boldness to get things started. This project could be fairly straightforward.

Avatar

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I have always seen myself as a goofball, leader type. Thus, my attraction to Sokka, from “Avatar the Last Airbender,” begun. Sokka is a person trying to be a leader in an era where he is put at an obvious disadvantage; however, he overcomes it, despite not bending any elements. Despite his hardships, he grows to become a leader, who still tries to make people laugh at his dumb jokes. I used Sokka’s image as part of my avatar because I see a lot of myself in him.
Additionally, I added the New York Yankees hat because I grew up around baseball, especially the Yankees organization. Furthermore, I added the mask to show my current situation of coronavirus. Even though Sokka has a smile on his face, it is concealed by the required mask and necessary social distancing. I faced difficulties deciding how I wanted to depict myself to people, whether to show my goofier self or my more academic and formal self. I chose the former.

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