Gone Home is a first person exploration game, where the player (you) takes control of Kaitlin Greenbriar a twenty year old girl who is just returning "home" from a lengthy trip to Europe. I put home in quotes because while Kaitlin was away the family had moved to a new house in Oregon. Though Kaitlin is the character you embody she is not the main focus of the story, the genius of it is, you never really get any insight into what kind of a character she is beyond a few post cards scattered about the house. The story is completely focused around Kaitlin's younger sister Samantha. Who is an incredibly brilliant, yet awfully cryptic seventeen year old girl. The game takes place entirely in the Greenbriar residence on June 7th of 1995. The time they chose for the game plays in important role in the overall story, as well as quite a healthy dose of nostalgia to go along with the chills on your neck. They've incorporated punk mix-tapes, magic eye posters, and a healthy dose of super Nintendo chit chat to warm any 90's child's cold heart.
The stage is set as soon as you begin the game. You arrive home to see your family at around midnight on a stormy night only to be locked out, and welcomed by an eerie note on the door from your sister Sam. As you enter the house you get a feel for the atmosphere, you have no idea what direction this game is going. A few lights are on as you enter the foyer, the house is creaking and cracking, lights flickering from the storm outside, as your feet pound against the hard wood floors. The house feels old, and you are a stranger here. As soon as I entered the house I turned on as many lights as I could possibly find. I had barely set foot inside and was already spooked out. The game is driven on story and discovery but the environment is as much a part of the game as either. The crackle of thunder or televisions being left on in empty rooms gives you a sense of abandonment. It's a ghost town in there and you've got to find out why.
You can wander the house pretty freely. There is no guide, and there is no particular order as to which room you can explore first though a few doors are locked. You're introduced to Sam through audio journal entries that are triggered by reading notes found within the house. The amount of detail put into each note is fairly impressive. Even in the ones that aren't all that involved in the story. As you work your way through the house you learn more and more about Sam and what she's going through as a teen in the high of the grunge explosion on the west coast.
The game offers a roller coaster ride of emotion. As you play through you become deeper and deeper enthralled in the story being presented to you. For a moment I actually felt like Kaitlin Greenbriar. One of my early gripes with the game was it's length. I finished it in just under two hours (one sitting) and I basically searched every crevice of the house. Initially I though of that as a bad decision but I realized at least in my experience, had I put the game down and walked away from it I may not have had the same experience. I was so deeply immersed in the would and story they had created, it was so gripping I could barely take my eyes off the screen.