The Making of Family in Gone Home

My latest PopMatters article is now live: The Making of Family in Gone Home.

For a game that's completed in just under two hours, there sure are a lot of interesting things to discuss. In case you missed it, I already wrote a bit about my nostalgic sentiments here. Scott and I also chatted about the game in one of our occasional debrief podcasts, in which I try, at least a little, to play the devil's advocate. That is to say, there are plenty of reasons you might just dislike Gone Home, and that's OK.

With this PopMatters piece, I tried to explore how exactly the game manages to create a sense of family, an all too rare occurrence in games. While yes, the objects in the game map the tangible outlines of the family, the process by which their lives become real is participatory. When so much is left unsaid, the game is as much a combination of role playing and self-reflection as it is constructed narrative. In all likelihood, your own family experiences heavily influence all the minor perceptions you make while you play the game, and subtly augment your understanding of the Greenbriar family.

Of course that doesn't mean this somehow gives the game a pass. It is, in fact, a constructed experience. Nevertheless, and this applies to something like Dear Esther as well, the act of play is far more than mundane exploration. It's not a slideshow.

Does it paint the way forward for narrative in games? Well, I wouldn't go that far. But I do think these small participatory narratives, particularly when done so well, prove good stories don't need the trappings of an epic. They just need intimacy and outlines. We'll take care of the rest.

Punk, Magic Eyes, and Gone Home

With a few touches of familiar objects and locales, a piece of art can fill me with so much nostalgia I feel like I've traveled back in time. It's a weakness, one we all likely share, but still, nostalgia is an amazing phenomenon. This explains how something like Ready Player One can feel like a novel written, literally, for me, as though the author plumbed his way through my memories, finding every piece of nerdy subculture I could never forget and used as inspiration for his own story. In many ways this is what Gone Home accomplishes its expansive but lived-in world to explore.

There is a lot to discuss about Gone Home, which will have to wait until next week, but I want to take some time now to poke out my own susceptibility to its environmental trappings. See, I think nostalgia is a cheap way to get at someone's heart. Maybe "cheap" is the wrong word, it does have negative connotations, but at the very least, nostalgia seems like an easy distraction. See, the moment I stepped into the Greenbriar home, I was captured.

The game takes place in the wet and wooded American Northwest, Portland to be exact. While I never visited Oregon in my youth, or owned a mansion-sized home for that matter, I did grow up in the rural parts of Northern California. Our home was surrounded by red woods and a mighty storm could easily feel like the thundering backdrop to Gone Home. I also fondly remember the wooden mansion-like retreat our family would reserve for reunions every couple years which, when empty, were filled with the same imaginary apparitions that tickle my spine playing the game. The first moments, after just a glance at the house and an introduction to the storm outside, I felt at home.

Is that a sail boat?

When nostalgia grips you, you know it. I did my very best to set that aside and explore the game objectively, but two things ruined my attempt at achieving such a removed perspective: a punk mix tape and two Magic Eye posters. Like many children of the 80s, I loved the optical illusions. I hung at least two on my own wall and remember bringing them to school to show to my friends. They were novelties, but today they reflect so much more.

As for the punk tapes, they dug deep into my high school days. I remember going to my first punk show, I think my friends, or people I wanted as my friends, were playing in between sets in a tiny little room. The whole affair felt transgressive and liberating. The music was ultimately mediocre, but the message, the feaux trappings of adulthood, the open aggression that so many teens clung to, it was moving. It felt good. It felt like I was young. Putting in a tape into the record player in Gone Home called back into existence, for just a moment, an exhausted, adrenaline-filled, and deeply hopeful version of myself.

It felt really good.

So when Sam's story begins to unfold, I was ready for it, every piece. No, the whole story is not entirely relatable, no its not perfect, and yes, I can see why many people may not enjoy this game. Yet with all the memories this little worked stirred up, I had to feel like coming home again.