After a little digging you find a letter which explains why someone may have started binge drinking. For instance, on the minibar thereвЂ™s an empty bottle of vodka and several glasses carelessly discarded. Gone Home is the pinnacle of вЂshow donвЂ™t tellвЂ™. This all makes the game design seamlessly weave into the narrative, making for a brilliant experience.

One of them read: вЂњSam, stop leaving the lights on youвЂ™re just as bad as your sister.вЂќ I had to stop for a minute and just think вЂњfair play, you clever bastards.вЂќ They knew that I would be frightened when exploring the house and would leave every light on, they then took the piss out of my cowardice by naturally making it an aspect of KatieвЂ™s character. With all of downstairs illuminated I finally climbed the stairs and the first thing I came across was a cork-board with some notes pinned into it. My personal favourite example is more of a little joke: as I mentioned, the house is quite scary when dark so I turned every light on, and you can bet it remained on when I left for a different room.

A cleverly opened door and a rough, distant sound attract the attention. Firstly, any player could go right up the stairs when they first enter the house, which would mean theyвЂ™d get a lot of the story out of sync, but yet the the mansion is designed in such a way that players went left first. While the narrative already has its well publicised plaudits, I feel as if its game design is quite underrated. As an older sibling, that feeling of powerlessness, of being too late, and the feeling of regret that you werenвЂ™t there for something is really, really shit. SheвЂ™s been away for so long and so much has happened that sheвЂ™s missed, she could have helped her sister on so many occasions but wasnвЂ™t there. Playing as Katie really related to me this time, in a whole different way than it did originally. In the time since I last played it IвЂ™ve left home for university, and have a younger sister still at home. Without spoiling for the uninitiated, I will say that SamвЂ™s story is beautifully told and if you have a heart you will definitely well up on at least three occasions. Stories of failure, marriage, family, parenting, work, losing touch are all in there if you look carefully, but SamвЂ™s story, which is also told by wonderfully acted diary entries, is the main hook of Gone Home. When the jump scare (one of the best jump scares in anything) finally does get you, you will scream.ДЄs Katie explores the house looking for clues as to the whereabouts of her family members, youвЂ™ll learn more by reading letters, invoices, posters, notes, and postcards. So much so that I wouldnвЂ™t enter a new room before switching the light on first, and I would shuffle slowly around every corner just in case a werewolf was lying in wait to devour me. The atmosphere created is similar to the beginning of a lot of horror games, the building tension before the hideous creature finally makes his first appearance. It creates an immensely tense atmosphere that immediately conveys that something terrible has occurred. The lights are all off, doors creek, floorboards suggest someone is in the house, all the while the wind continues to howl and the thunder continues to crash. As you enter the secluded mansion, with a monstrous thunderstorm raging outside, the eeriness and dread of this great, big empty house immediately becomes apparent. She reaches her familyвЂ™s new Portland home, for the first time, and finds it completely empty вЂ“ her mother, father, and sister (Sam) are nowhere to be seen. You take on the perspective of Katie Greenbriar, whoвЂ™s just got back from a year of touring across Europe. ItвЂ™s a masterpiece, not just in its famed storytelling, but in its clever game design as well. Playing it again on console truly made me realise just how good it is. Despite that, IвЂ™ve never gone back to it as I felt as if it was the type of experience that should be savoured, played once and not tarnished by multiple playthroughs.

There are a number of development assets left over, including screenshots of the IDE, presumably used by the developers for quick reference.Originally released two and a half years ago, Gone Home was, by quite a distance, my favourite game of 2013. The mouse and the keys were aligned vertically to reduce the vertical height, and the mouse was redrawn. In the final game, a modified version of gui_fps_controls, called Controls_Handdrawn, is used on the 'New Game' screen. The file is called gui_explorer_controls internally, while the image matching the current control scheme is called gui_fps_controls, though this image also goes unused. It seems that at some point in development, another, less interactive control scheme was used, where the player would only use the mouse and spacebar.

Gone home platforms