'Gone Home'
- rebeccaphillips-iad
- Nov 15, 2014
- 2 min read
‘This game—it’s a humble production, made by a team of four in Portland, with none of the face-melting visuals of the big-budget games you see advertised on TV.’
- time considerations, the better the visuals the longer it takes and the more money, how does that effect the user? Cost of the game? How many games are there in circulation? People like books because they can buy them for £1 and there are so many to choose from on the shelves.
‘There are no guns. No “enemies.” No lava pits. No coins or gems or first-aid kits. No ticking clocks. No puzzles.’
- not the generic game you might imagine.
‘To play Gone Home from start to finish takes 90 minutes—maybe two hours. That’s the length of a movie, or a couple episodes of an HBO show.’
- less than a book? But in terms of films, it takes the same time but do you as a user get more out of it as an experience?
- with a film you can watch it over and over again, would people do that with a game? Why not? You may find more out, people re-read books. It doesn’t matter that you know the ending.
‘it does still require its players to navigate through 3D space using a mouse and keyboard. That’s easy and natural for those of us who have racked up hours of 3D play time, but difficult and disorienting for those who haven’t.’
- accessibility.
‘Gone Home is a game about exploration, and everything you’ll experience is tied intimately to the space of the spooky house around you. Your task is simple: Poke around.’
- exploration, human nature.
‘But Gone Home is special because it’s not just a video game, or even primarily a video game. It’s something else: some new hybrid of theater (think Sleep No More) and museum (think interactive exhibit) and holodeck (think… holodeck) — something that doesn’t have a name yet.’
‘I’m betting the VR (virtual reality) “games” of the near future won’t particularly resemble the big-budget video games of today.’
‘VR “games” will be far more intimate; more emotional; more accessible.’
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