Gone Home from The Fullbright Company

[rodiard]

A home in 1995 with a Super Nintendo is a home I want to explore. I just might overdose on early '90s nostalgia.

 

Also, hi!

[Patrick R]

This looks much better than Home, the horror-adventure game I accidentally impulse bought on Steam, thinking it was this.

[Twig]

I actually liked Home, though, for what it was. For what it's worth. Ahem.

[tegan]

I'm really excited for this, but I'm so unaccustomed to the type of gameplay that I'm seeing that I keep expecting every trailer to end with the player turning around and a monster jumping out at them.

 

Alternatively: Shenmue.

[Sno]

It seems really, really wrong that i find that refrigerator so exciting.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Every time Gone Home releases any media I get excited. This game is going to be great! Or at the very least it's going to be 90s! So very 90s!

[feelthedarkness]

So neat. So the Bratmobile trail made me wonder, are there no "rules" against using the names/images of real products, as long as it doesn't purport to represent those products? 

[TychoCelchuuu]

Like, if I put Coca-Cola in my video game, but instead of representing actual Coca-Cola, it was a noxious poison that the villain used to kill newborn infants? Yeah I'm not seeing why Coca-Cola would have any issues with that so it's probably OK.

[tegan]

Personally, I'm actually a big fan of using real world brands. Most of the time it's done as a lazy, Transformers-style product placement; but it's very possible to use a real item to ground a story in reality or say something about its characters via implication. For a perfect example, check out an anime movie from a few years ago called Summer Wars. There's extensive product placement, but it's only used as a way to reinforce who a character is. The only person to wear branded clothing is a very intense, athletic kid who wears Adidas stuff; the elitist jerkass uncle whose take great pains to distance himself from Japan and his family uses an iPhone while everyone else uses a generic flip phone; etc.

[chummer]

Personally, I'm actually a big fan of using real world brands.

I'm totally for using real world brands in the game world. I think it only becomes a problem when there's only one brand in there or its presented badly. I think you can find cases of each in Alan Wake. Was it neat that the batteries were Energizer? Yeah, but why was every battery an Energizer one? That was immersion breaking. The second offense was found with the placement of the Ford Sync. There's a specific shot early on between Alan and his wife sitting in the car where camera grossly makes the Ford Sync panel the center.

 

Being sparse also makes it stick out more. Imagine a McDonalds next to a goofy, developer made pizza shop. The contrast is too sharp for me in those cases.

 

In any case, the way Fullbright is incorporating this music seems to be both tasteful and effective. I'm really excited for this game.

[tegan]

Clearly the Energizer people felt that they couldn't let the opportunity slip them by again after Pikmin 2 went with Duracell.

 

 

Anyone remember Darkened Skye, that super serious Gamecube fantasy game with a magic system based around collecting Skittles?

[Berzee]

Anyone remember Darkened Skye, that super serious Gamecube fantasy game with a magic system based around collecting Skittles?

 

I came so close to buying the PC version of that game SO many times, because it seemed hilarious to me. I think I actually played the demo! I don't remember very much about it (I have a hazy recollection of feeling like the wisecracking sidekick didn't live up to his potential).

[Colourful Stuff]

Scoops² http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/scoops-vs-hot-scoops/1600-454/

[gregbrown]

Gone Home just made the front page of NYTimes.com.

 

Bonus sliver of Idle Thumbs backer shirt:

[GameDreamer]

Gone Home just made the front page of NYTimes.com.

 

Bonus sliver of Idle Thumbs backer shirt:

 

That is just too rad.  The hot scoops meme has come full circle, with Steve becoming a literal scoop. 

[Colourful Stuff]

His expression is pretty great. Would you call that mild contempt or fear? He definitely sees something the others don't.

[axemtitanium]

PolyGoneHome.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Thanks for the link! I like to keep abreast of all the press about the game, although that article does have a really minor spoiler and it's made me reconsider whether I want to read any more about it as the game gets closer to completion and journalists start to reveal more and more about what can happen in it.

[Gormongous]

His expression is pretty great. Would you call that mild contempt or fear? He definitely sees something the others don't.

 

He looks just about to ask an incredulous question.

[Colourful Stuff]

He looks just about to ask an incredulous question.

"Why did you put Christmas Duck in the toilet?"

[dibs]

It looks like they caught him mid shart.

[axemtitanium]

Thanks for the link! I like to keep abreast of all the press about the game, although that article does have a really minor spoiler and it's made me reconsider whether I want to read any more about it as the game gets closer to completion and journalists start to reveal more and more about what can happen in it.

 

True, we're in spoiler warning territory now, methinks. That said, the article suggests an interesting possibility which I hadn't considered about the game: that there could literally be no objectives in the game. The house exists and the things inside it exist, but it's possible that there is no "win" state for the game. You, the player, could "solve" the mystery of what happened to the player character's family in your head by piecing together evidence, but there's no acknowledgement of that, other than personal satisfaction. If that turns out to be the case, I say "Bold move, Mr. Scoops."

[Colourful Stuff]

That's reasonable considering how some games with explicit objectives are played. GTA is the obvious example, most people using it as an emergent violence toy. Until I was a teenager playing through games was just something I never did. Being in a world with a means of interaction was enough. Codemaster's PS1 Toca Touring Car games for example. I'd just set up the largest and longest race I could then cause crashes. Even now I'll load up the Arma 2 mission editor and blow up tanks or land LZs while listening to podcasts. Making a game without an explicit objective is novel but could reflect how many people already experience games.

[MrHoatzin]

It is only novel because the industry is governed from above, by money—by money that by and large doesn't even understand or play games, but sure as fuck has a checklist of features that make a game.

 

When fishing for a convenient metaphor I see Gone Home as more of a narrative installation art piece than a game (as defined by the Game Police et al). And that is a very exciting direction for games to go more boldly. These are hardly new and novel things to say, but we have such a spectacular medium for allowing an audience to experience a world and we generally see it used for hamfisted ends.

[axemtitanium]

Looking back at my playing habits, I've only very rarely opted to eschew the "traditional" objectives as laid out by the designers to just play in the sandbox. The instance that sticks out in my mind is Katamari Damacy, which allows you to just experiment and observe the world in Endless mode. Coincidentally, I had a brief encounter with this paradigm again recently when I played Noby Noby Boy for the first time last week. However, I'm a self-described completionist and crave objectives to complete.

 

That said, I'm not unfamiliar with the philosophy of playing certain (usually) sandbox games as emergence engines; I'm a fan of the podcast after all. I just think that it would be interesting and bold for the designers of Gone Home to choose to not include any explicit objectives or win state in the game. I believe there's a difference between having objectives and letting the player ignore them (GTA, Far Cry 2, SimCity, etc.) and actually having no objectives. In the latter case, there isn't even a construct to ignore and might force the player to deconstruct why exactly they're still playing. In the ideal case, the player will decide that the act of exploring this house and uncovering the mystery is an interesting enough act in itself to continue playing, even if there's never any narrative payoff at the end other than knowing in your head that you figured it out.

 

At this point, I'm critiquing/praising a game design choice that might not have even been made. What is this, Idle Thumbs? Baboo.

 

 

P.S. Noby Noby Boy is fantastic.