Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

[juv3nal]

I think it's just that nerds really like plot holes because they want everything to make logical sense and talking about things in terms of emotion and feeling is a foreign concept to them.

 

 "Did the video game make you think about the importance of the environments we populate, and the stories they can tell?" isn't a criterion nerds would be trained to look for.

 

While there is a sense in which what you guys are saying is true, I think it's also playing to the stereotype of what a nerd is. It's entirely possible to be an art/film/architecture/poetry/drama/critical theory (think the Situationists and the notion of psychogeography) nerd.

[Argobot]

Oh for sure. Anyone can get overly anal about something they enjoy, not just genre fans. Just look at the Shining documentary Room 237. That's a clear case of people who are overanalyzing and possibly reading far too much into a piece of writing. It's fascinating in its own right, but I think that it doesn't add to the overall understanding of The Shining. 

[Patrick R]

It's a fair point. I don't think I'd consider anyone in this thread anything less than a nerd. We're painting with very broad strokes. "Nerd" in this case means "those nerds" which is probably not a super helpful way to go about a conversation.

[Twig]

i aint a nerd get yo labels offa me

[Badfinger]

I really don't think it's anything new, it's just that you can expose people's obsessions more easily on The Internet.

 

There's functionally no difference aside from what is being scrutinized between a JFK conspiracy theorist and an Elder Scrolls plothole searcher

[Eric]

I'm of the mind that overanalysis doesn't exist. It may not be useful to do deep analysis of a piece of work and it may be even harder to substantiate and back up that analysis but I think that generally there is nothing wrong with picking something apart and drawing ideas from an art work. I guess the problem here is that people seem to think that having plot holes invalidates all other analysis (and perhaps enjoyment). I think that's wrong at its base. I also think that probably for some people it's hard to overlook the mistakes that they notice and they may even enjoy finding and pointing out those inconstancies than playing the game at face level. To me it boils down to a whatever floats your boat scenario. Having writing flaws pointed out rarely should have an effect on the meaning or value of something so long as they aren't glaring and overwhelming or you're writing a wild post-mordenist criticism about how the plot holes reinforce the holes in Katie's interpretation of the events in her family or whatever.

 

On a somewhat related note I'm watching my friend play through this game bit by bit (they have to stop frequently because they don't play games much and get dizzy in first person things) and it's really interesting to hear what they say. For example they couldn't account for Katie hearing the journal entries when she discovered things. I had to think about it and I couldn't really either. The best justification I could come up with was:

that Katie wasn't actually hearing the journal but the player was. And it wasn't until the end that Katie really gets the full story. It's interesting to me to think what the game might be like the player, like Katie, didn't get to hear any of those journal passages until the very end.

It also made me realize that I didn't think twice about the decision to have voice overs playing as you went along while I was playing it. I wonder if that has to do with me being so familiar with audio journals in other games and sort of taking it for granted. what does this tag do

[SecretAsianMan]

Oh for sure. Anyone can get overly anal about something they enjoy, not just genre fans. Just look at the Shining documentary Room 237. That's a clear case of people who are overanalyzing and possibly reading far too much into a piece of writing. It's fascinating in its own right, but I think that it doesn't add to the overall understanding of The Shining. 

 

 

It's a fair point. I don't think I'd consider anyone in this thread anything less than a nerd. We're painting with very broad strokes. "Nerd" in this case means "those nerds" which is probably not a super helpful way to go about a conversation.

 

I am reminded of this

 

[feelthedarkness]

that Katie wasn't actually hearing the journal but the player was. And it wasn't until the end that Katie really gets the full story. It's interesting to me to think what the game might be like the player, like Katie, didn't get to hear any of those journal passages until the very end.

 

I felt like the structure is that Katie is reading the book, and remembering the act of piecing things together, as she reads a journal entry it gives context to an item she saw, sort of opposite to how the player experiences it. She's exploring the memory. It can also account for players finding things in different orders.  

[Chris]

I disagree with the fundamental argument of that comic strip. Obviously we understand that no two human creations are literally the same at an atomic level. But I think probably most of us also understand that there's some kind of threshold, even if not super rigid and defined, of interesting and meaningful—not simply technical—differentiation. It's pretty clear that there are things that maintain interesting, describable, and profound differences even when we aren't forced to observe them while trapped in a box for a year. We won't all care to explore those differences in all those things, because yes it's true that we simply don't all have the time or interest to become deeply educated about the same things. But I do think there are things that, in general, are compared for their own sake or for some purely utilitarian reasons, and then things that, when compared, are more likely to yield disproportionately meaningful rewards. This is one of the important functions of criticism.

[Gormongous]

I disagree with the fundamental argument of that comic strip. Obviously we understand that no two human creations are literally the same at an atomic level. But I think probably most of us also understand that there's some kind of threshold, even if not super rigid and defined, of interesting and meaningful—not simply technical—differentiation. It's pretty clear that there are things that maintain interesting, describable, and profound differences even when we aren't forced to observe them while trapped in a box for a year. We won't all care to explore those differences in all those things, because yes it's true that we simply don't all have the time or interest to become deeply educated about the same things. But I do think there are things that, in general, are compared for their own sake or for some purely utilitarian reasons, and then things that, when compared, are more likely to yield disproportionately meaningful rewards. This is one of the important functions of criticism.

 

Maybe. But I think the threshold for different people varies wildly, usually based on a person's interest in and knowledge of the subject. I've spent the last week comparing twelfth-century legal charters in northwestern Italy for my research. This is something that I would have thought boring and meaningless a year ago, but my perspective has been changed by the demands of my job. If I can do an about-face on poorly edited documents of medieval Latin legalese, why not on anything else?

 

I more have a problem with the implication of the XKCD comic that people will develop said interest and knowledge on something if you just force them to consume it. That goes against my experience. The reason that the internet seems to be full of people obsessing over every subject is just because it's so big and so interconnected that people can be found for anything anywhere. It's not like it was a generation ago, where you only knew that one guy who liked trains a bit too much.

[Eric]

The main problem that I have with that XKCD comic is that both of the characters are assholes and presumably we are supposed to agree with one of them

 

I felt like the structure is that Katie is reading the book, and remembering the act of piecing things together, as she reads a journal entry it gives context to an item she saw, sort of opposite to how the player experiences it. She's exploring the memory. It can also account for players finding things in different orders.  

 

I think that this is the interpretation that I like the most. It reinforces the thematic prevalence of memory and nostalgia. It's interesting that, given this reading, all of the gameplay is in the past tense and that the things that are currently happening (i.e. the passages Katie is currently reading) are even further in the past. It says something weird about the nature of fiction and I think especially the nature of interactive fiction though I haven't really parsed through it yet.

 

vv I see your point. I get a little razzed when people use xkcd as an image macro intended to make a point about something and usually it just seems preachy and reductive. 

[Patrick R]

My main problem with it is that it's XKCD and therefore equates didacticism with humor, for some reason.   

[SecretAsianMan]

Gee, I didn't expect any of that. I was just making a dumb joke.

[UltimateHurl]

I think it's also that nerds tend to gravitate towards genre fiction, in which the joys are more often mechanical and plot-driven. If most of what you consume is sci-fi, action, fantasy or horror, the way you consume art will start to be more about whether or not works can tick off certain boxes. Was the horror movie scary? Did the sci-fi novel have good world building? Did the fantasy game have an epic storyline? Were the fights in the superhero comic badass? You can start to train your mind to view all art as whether or not it matches a rigid set of criteria.

 

"Did the video game make you think about the importance of the environments we populate, and the stories they can tell?" isn't a criterion nerds would be trained to look for.

 

I'd say I can remember a time when I felt like the mechanical and plot-driven elements of a work were the most important, and if it wasn't consistent then it was less valid. I feel like as I've developed a better understanding of art generally (especially things like Bauhaus and abstract work) I've learned to appreciate things more. I like how David Foster Wallace phrases his experience of David Lynch's work (which I considered nonsense for the reasons we are discussing), that it was Lynch putting his own mark on the world in a way only he could, so the expression of surrealism was uniquely his own. I think thinking in these terms with video games would really help open them up, as in "This is Steve Gaynor and friends' expression of a story in which X and Y happen". But I think the relationship between author and player, and player interpretation of the work is different and complex with video games anyway, given the fact that comparably few games are treated as works by a coherent author, the only big ones I can think of are for example Ken Levine's Bioshock series, which was a bit heavy-handed, but exists with plot holes and more evolved analysis.

 

I'd agree with Chris when it comes to the function of criticism, and I'd say game criticism doesn't touch on evolved analysis as much as it could (I mean, I've seen amazing journalistic work, but I'm talking about reviews, where 'is this worth my money?' is rarely answered with some respect to the thought, emotion and impact a game has, rather than just the playtime, mechanics and genre-savviness of the work). I guess I sound like a jerk saying that, but when I used to review games I tried, in whatever small 'don't spoil this for anyone' way to at least touch on the impact a game had.

[Badfinger]

Gee, I didn't expect any of that. I was just making a dumb joke.

Well for a "smart" comic, XKCD is awfully good at being dumb so I think we all got our money's worth. v('-' )v

 

By the way Eric, I am 100% sure there is an option to turn the voiceovers off, I'm just not in front of a copy of the game to check.

[Twig]

XKCD is great!

[osmosisch]

It's polarising.

[tegan]

Has anyone ever seen that one response to an XKCD comic someone made where they dissected all of the math in it and explained why it was horrendously wrong? Because that was pretty great.

[Badfinger]

I have not but I'd love to.

[Latrine]

Geez, guess I'm sorry my nerdy analysis of a potential plot hole lead to this nerdy naval gazing about what is or is not valid analysis of everything. I didn't mean to imply that some plot hole or inconsistency had lessened my enjoyment of the game, I liked the game very much. However I disagree that Gone Home is a purely emotional experience, and thus should be solely analyzed as such, because its core design conceit is collecting anthropological evidence and piecing together a consistent explanation for what's happened in the house. The characters in the game are believably realistic so it's not unusual to think about how they would act given the evidence that you discover. It's also a testament to how much work was put in the game that my potential issue regarding character behavior has a plausible explanation and that everything really works chronologically.

[juv3nal]

It's also a testament to how much work was put in the game that my potential issue regarding character behavior has a plausible explanation and that everything really works chronologically.

 

Maybe with regard to the particular issues you were talking about, but:

-Dates updated in Ghost Hunter logbook for timeline accuracy.

-Fixed a few other dates/days in text and images.

( from http://thefullbrightcompany.com/2013/08/26/patch-1-01-now-available/ )

[Denial]

I'm of the mind that overanalysis doesn't exist. It may not be useful to do deep analysis of a piece of work and it may be even harder to substantiate and back up that analysis but I think that generally there is nothing wrong with picking something apart and drawing ideas from an art work. 

 

Agreed - or at least, what is often called overanalysis is often either bad analysis, which is indeed pretty surplus to requirements, or worthwhile analysis outside the comfort zone or level of interest of the person calling it overanalysis. "You're overthinking this game" is certainly a surefire way to be told you're underthinking it...

 

(Incidentally, the canonical explanation for the audiologs is I think

that your playthrough is Caitlin reading the diary at the end of the game and  remembering the relevant items to each diary entry that she found while walking through the house. So your playthrough is actually Caitlin remembering e.g. the list of Street Fighter 2 instructions and thinking "oh, right, that item totally tallies to this diary entry".

[Latrine]

That's the explanation that Steve has given in interviews, but it doesn't really jive with me.

 

When you're playing the game it doesn't really feel like a memory or flashback. I'm perfectly fine with the narrated journal entries just being unexplained and just for the player. Maybe Katie remembers what you played through when she reads the diary at the end of the game, but the game ends there so it's not really something you experience as the player.

[Twig]

Why does it have to feel like a flashback? If a movie did it would you complain then, too? I feel like it's not a stretch of a storytelling mechanic.

[Latrine]

Why does it have to feel like a flashback? If a movie did it would you complain then, too? I feel like it's not a stretch of a storytelling mechanic.

 

It's a video game, not a movie. I'm not an external observer to a character's narrative, I am inhabiting the role myself. I should know whether I am in the present time or remembering something in the past. If they really wanted to push the framing device further they could have, for example starting the game with where it ends (just like the movie Steve referenced in one of his interviews, Sunset Boulevard), but I think I would prefer the way it is now where there is some uncertainty to the ending.