Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

[clyde]

Emily Short just published a piece describing some of her thoughts on how reader's hypothesis can be leveraged to create an interaction in works of fiction. She seems to give a lot of importance to the ability for player/readers to test their hypothesis so that characters and events can appear to have complexity. Gone Home is used a a central example in the piece.

Here is an excerpt:

Hypothetical reading is most interesting if the reader is likely at first to form incorrect hypotheses.

Gone Home misguides the player initially, but it does so in a way that is completely orthogonal to the actual substance of its story.

http://emshort.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/reading-and-hypothesis/

[mikemariano]

That was a good read.

 

I tried to play Gone Home by limiting my actions to only what I felt Katie could justify doing, in part to try and enforce the complexity that eluded Short.

 

About five minutes into the game I started to freak out—I had exhausted everything I thought Katie would do within the limits of the system.  There was nothing left to do but open drawers at random, and this would eliminate the character of Katie in my mind.  Suddenly she's just Link smashing pots or Doomguy pressing space against every wall surface.

 

 

After going upstairs I got a (flimsy?) justification for looking in drawers, and that was enough for me to explore, but only as far as I thought Katie would, which was basically just the foyer, the living room, and upstairs.

 

I easily missed at least a third of this game, and I'm glad.  The Katie in my head would never have gone any further, and I need to keep her more than I need to 100% this game.

[ariskany_evan]

I first thought she was negatively criticizing Gone Home, but reading the article a second time it's clear she's looking at Gone Home through the lens of a very specific kind of artistic experience. ("... it did not satisfy me either as an experience of hypothesis-based reading or as a way of building a complex view of its characters.")

 

I think my only big complaint and something I'd like to see her expound upon is her insistence that the player's character doesn't act in a realistic manner:

 

"If we were at all invested in the protagonist’s story, in what is happening in the present of Gone Home, I’d expect the player’s reaction to involve such things as standing in the foyer and yelling, racing around the hallways and banging on doors, or looking for a phone to call friends or neighbors to find out what’s going on. Not, in any event, a methodical exploration of the desk drawers in the study."

 

Isn't this like watching a horror movie and going: "The main character is so dumb. No one in reality would choose to go down into the basement with those crazy noises happening."?

 

@mikemariano It's cool that there was enough freedom in the game that you were given the opportunity to act like your version of Katie!  Both my wife and I saw Katie as a costume for us to inhabit, rather than a fleshed out character, so our own interests in opening every single damn drawer became part of the fiction.

[Bjorn]

That's unquestionably one of the best and most thorough critical pieces on GH.  She's able to actually describe why it fails for her in an intelligent manner while also acknowledging the value of the individual reaction to it.  It certainly doesn't elicit the rage from me that Bogost's piece did.

 

I do have one quibble with her though.  She makes the comment that she could have just done away with the house, and taken the documents to browse through at her leisure, creating something more like Hate Story.  That overlooks that the house itself is a character.  It has a particular feel to it.  There is also environmental story telling going on that isn't a document.  The environmental stuff is simply never pointed out to you like the documents are.  It just feels like it's lobbing that out, as it would be inconvenient to the point she was making to acknowledge it. 

 

 

Isn't this like watching a horror movie and going: "The main character is so dumb. No one in reality would choose to go down into the basement with those crazy noises happening."?

 

Have you seen Cabin in the Woods?  It has wrecked my ability to watch cheesy horror movies in the same way.  It's the smartest cheesy horror movie ever made. 

[clyde]

I do have one quibble with her though.  She makes the comment that she could have just done away with the house, and taken the documents to browse through at her leisure, creating something more like Hate Story.  That overlooks that the house itself is a character.  It has a particular feel to it.  There is also environmental story telling going on that isn't a document.  The environmental stuff is simply never pointed out to you like the documents are.  It just feels like it's lobbing that out, as it would be inconvenient to the point she was making to acknowledge it. 

I agree. There's also some moments where I tested hypothesis by exploring. I went to the refrigerator and checked the expiration-date on the milk with the intention to find out how long ago Sam had left the house.

Still, I never made any assumptions about who the characters were and was able to make a decision to do one thing or another, or explore in order to confirm my suspicions in an intentional manner.

[ariskany_evan]

Oh man, I loved Cabin in the Woods! So fun. Nailed the tone.

 

So she mentions: "Where in the house would you go to express, or investigate, the suspicion that the mother is having an affair?" As a way in which "The exploration can’t be directed by the player in such a way that it elicits more information of the kind the player is most interested in".

 

My problem with this is that the house was what I was most interested in. The story itself was unraveling as a matter of course.  The systems of Gone Home let me know that as I explored the house, the story of the family would be pieced together.  I was most interested in the next doorway, and what kind of "moment" it would present.

 

I think if I took all of the documents like she said and moved through them hypertext style I would completely agree with her. I don't think that would hold up very well.  A bummer she couldn't see outside of this while playing!

[Trip Hazard]

Just finished all of Gone Home in one not-quite-marathon 2 hour session. 

 

Really enjoyed it. The house wasn't very believable, and I had a strange moment right at the start where I felt completely lost after checking the answering machine - what would "Katie" do next? Not just wander around opening drawers, surely - but I was interested enough in the house and what I'd heard so far that I dug around a bit and Sam's story started to emerge. I was hooked after that; even had a little lump in my throat at a couple of points. I loved all of the other little tidbits about Terry, Jan and Oscar, too. 

 

It would have been great to have learned a bit more about Katie herself. I know she went to Europe and then came home, and that's it really. I assume that she is a fat girl because she is very sluggish, struggling particularly with stairs, and her footsteps are very loud? Also, when I saw that

"Lonnie D" was actually Yolanda Desoto, I thought she might be black, which totally threw my assumptions for a loop...but actually she's white *phew*

[Steve]

http://emshort.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/reading-and-hypothesis/

 

I appreciated this piece, though I do feel like it comes at things from an angle that I think of as a flawed conceit. The argument is sort of, "I wish this were a different game." I see this kind of approach to criticism sometimes, and it always seems misguided. It is a bit of a "why can't you talk to the monsters in Doom?" line of questioning. Well, because it simply isn't that kind of game, period. In Gone Home, the entirety of your interactive role is that of an active observer. Its premise is that the entire story takes place in the past, and that your role is to methodically explore an unfamiliar location, looking for bits & pieces of the story to reconstruct as you encounter them. I feel like a number of the arguments here are describing a different game-- one where the story is primarily about the player character, and happens more in the present tense, and that the player has more control over the course of events, or more active inputs into determining what appears next onscreen, or expressing hypotheses into the game and having it respond to them. These are all explicitly and intentionally Not What The Game Is About. Just like Doom is not about talking to the monsters, nor does it profess to be or imply that it should be.

 

I do very much appreciate her thoughts on her emotional reaction to the ending of the game-- I absolutely agree that "it made me cry" is a bullshit qualitative metric, and does not validate any piece of entertainment. You can make the audience cry a lot of different ways, and a lot of them are crass, manipulative carnival tricks that should not be celebrated. Shitty art can make you cry and great art can awe you without appealing to your base emotions. The tears are irrelevant-- though I do hope Emily felt there was some legitimate value in seeing something recognizable and human from her own life mirrored in the game.

[clyde]

I appreciated this piece, though I do feel like it comes at things from an angle that I think of as a flawed conceit. The argument is sort of, "I wish this were a different game." I see this kind of approach to criticism sometimes, and it always seems misguided. It is a bit of a "why can't you talk to the monsters in Doom?" line of questioning. Well, because it simply isn't that kind of game, period. In Gone Home, the entirety of your interactive role is that of an active observer. Its premise is that the entire story takes place in the past, and that your role is to methodically explore an unfamiliar location, looking for bits & pieces of the story to reconstruct as you encounter them. I feel like a number of the arguments here are describing a different game-- one where the story is primarily about the player character, and happens more in the present tense, and that the player has more control over the course of events, or more active inputs into determining what appears next onscreen, or expressing hypotheses into the game and having it respond to them. These are all explicitly and intentionally Not What The Game Is About. Just like Doom is not about talking to the monsters, nor does it profess to be or imply that it should be.

 

I still think that the ability to create hypothesis about what happened in the past and then committing to that hypothesis in some way, would have improved the game. The commitment to a hypothesis by the player wouldn't necessarily change the outcome, but simply increase the investment and understanding of the player. I think an argument could be made that the player writing an interpretation of what happened in the game on a forum could fill this purpose, but committing to a perspective during the game and then having the game reveal that your idea was an over-simplification would be more cohesive. The multiple perspectives (the player's thesis and the antithesis provided by further discovery) would make the fictional characters and their circumstances more complex. 

I agree that the game is about the methodical exploration of the mansion. The reason I think this is because after playing Gone Home, I close my eyes and see myself opening drawers and cabinets. But I think Short's argument points out that the game had an opportunity to involve the player by having them choosing sides in a family dispute; perhaps deciding to hide evidence of what has occurred or collecting it. 

[dartmonkey]

She is careful to say why certain things didn't work for her specifically. I think the premise itself is perhaps more open to interpretation than, say, Doom. Doom is about moving from A to B while shooting anything that moves before it kills you and you're sent back to A. Nobody wishes they could talk to the monsters because that relationship/mechanic is never entertained or even hinted at - they are fodder only. Gone Home can't be summed up so easily and presents complex human interactions, and the parameters are still in question for the player throughout their game.

I was very conscious that my 'system' of leaving all lights on and drawers open so I could see where I had been jarred with the character I was playing. The note that told Sam she should turn all the lights off and that she was worse than Katie made me chuckle. I thought the writing throughout worked perfectly and I particularly enjoyed the dad's story.

I wonder what effect a cel-shaded art style similar to the title screen would have had on the game. It looks great but after the AAA detail of something like The Last of Us (which continues to IGN me away with the sheer amount of everything), I found myself wondering how a more stylised take would have worked. I loved the title screen and UI elements.

[Stuart]

It would have been great to have learned a bit more about Katie herself. I know she went to Europe and then came home, and that's it really. I assume that she is a fat girl because she is very sluggish, struggling particularly with stairs, and her footsteps are very loud? Also, when I saw that

"Lonnie D" was actually Yolanda Desoto, I thought she might be black, which totally threw my assumptions for a loop...but actually she's white *phew*

 

I'm pretty sure she's Latina/Hispanic.

[carrotpanic]

I do very much appreciate her thoughts on her emotional reaction to the ending of the game-- I absolutely agree that "it made me cry" is a bullshit qualitative metric, and does not validate any piece of entertainment. You can make the audience cry a lot of different ways, and a lot of them are crass, manipulative carnival tricks that should not be celebrated. Shitty art can make you cry and great art can awe you without appealing to your base emotions. The tears are irrelevant-- though I do hope Emily felt there was some legitimate value in seeing something recognizable and human from her own life mirrored in the game.

 

Thoughtful perspective here, Steve.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Thoughtful perspective here, Steve.

Thoughtful perspective here, carrotpanic.

[carrotpanic]

Thoughtful perspective here, carrotpanic.

 

Yes, I know my comment doesn't add much but I really enjoyed what Steve said. How else am I going to show that?

[Zeusthecat]

Thoughtful perspective here, carrotpanic.

Thoughtful perspective here, Tycho.

[Merus]

Thoughtful perspective here, at my house when I look out a particular window onto the bay.

 

I think IF people (and roguelike people) get annoyed at indie games in the same way that indie people get annoyed at mainstream games - they try and do something that they've already seen before, but they just. don't. go. quite. far. enough. Short's coming from a perspective of a genre where having a human connection and telling a meaningful story is a large part of the genre, and so from that vantage point Gone Home looks like a big budget blockbuster, with promotion and press, but lagging the state of the art.

[Erkki]

I didn't read Emily Short's piece yet, but to me it seemed essential that in this game the house should be an actual space that the player can explore. It's much more satisfying to put together the clues yourself and the spacial dimensions add another layer of detail to everything.

Like for example you can infer that there's a dad's side of house and mom's side of house (forgot the names, sorry).

It would not be as interesting (immersive?) if details like that were spelled out as text in more notes or represented in other concrete artifacts without having to do the actual exploration.

[Trip Hazard]

I'm pretty sure she's Latina/Hispanic.

 

Oh, right. Makes sense. 

[Hermie]

It would have been great to have learned a bit more about Katie herself. I know she went to Europe and then came home, and that's it really. I assume that she is a fat girl because she is very sluggish, struggling particularly with stairs, and her footsteps are very loud?

That's a funny assumption, as you can find

her track-and-field trophies in the basement.

[TychoCelchuuu]

She's just sleepy. Her flight was a long one.

[Dewar]

I'm pretty sure she's Latina/Hispanic.

 

I'd have to say I never really thought about this at all when playing the game. What is it that makes you think that?

[clyde]

Short's coming from a perspective of a genre where having a human connection and telling a meaningful story is a large part of the genre...

Is this true? I haven't played much IF so I'm not aware of any examples where human connections are emphasized more, or meaningful story is a bigger part of the game than Gone Home.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I'd have to say I never really thought about this at all when playing the game. What is it that makes you think that?

Desoto (de Soto) is a surname for lots of Spanish people and of Spanish descent (thus lots of Hispanic/Latina people).

[Bjorn]

Is this true? I haven't played much IF so I'm not aware of any examples where human connections are emphasized more, or meaningful story is a bigger part of the game than Gone Home.

 

Is it that in GH, you're observing and not interacting with other people, whereas in some IF, it's driven by actual interactions. 

[clyde]

Is it that in GH, you're observing and not interacting with other people, whereas in some IF, it's driven by actual interactions. 

I'm not sure what you are asking. I may have shortened Merus's quotation too much