Gone Home

[schneefink]

I finally finished Gone Home, in a little under four hours (and with some help from the internet after getting stuck once. Steam also tells me less than 10% of players have the "completed the game" achievement, which seems low but idk.) Overall I enjoyed it, I'm glad I finished it (but I'm also glad I'm done.)

When I started playing I knew nothing except that it would be about Sam's lesbian love story. When "I" came home and was met by nobody, I kinda assumed that Sam might be missing, but the parents would still be around. I also started out putting back everything I picked up, turning lights off again etc., which was annoying sometimes but also felt like the polite thing to do. When I went upstairs and saw that the parents weren't home, and their room looked like they left in a hurry, that was also about the same time I got impatient and didn't bother with being neat anymore. Which fit because Katie was becoming more worried (which made it slightly odd that she was still walking slowly… oh well.) Sidenote, I can understand Sam being very emotional and not properly thinking about leaving easily accessible info for Katie, but their parents just leaving like that? Smh.
I liked the gradual uncovering of the story and history, piecing together what happened etc., but there were a lot of drawers and sometimes it felt very slow. I enjoyed the secret rooms and passages. I got annoyed a few times how dark rooms were, especially when finding the light switch was tricky.

Not sure what I'll play next: ideally not something fast because my wrists have been bothering me more often recently. I'm thinking of trying Disco Elysium but I'm both worried that I won't like it and worried that I'll like it too much. Logic.

Comments

[snickfic]

I liked Gone Home but didn't know it was going to be about Sam's lesbian love story, so for the first 45 minutes or so I thought it was going to be some kind of time travel/conspiracy theory horror, and was pretty disappointed that it wasn't! I enjoyed the lesbian romance, too, but I would still like to play the game that I thought it was based on that first 45 minutes.

[schneefink]

If you didn't even know what genre the game was, that sounds like very odd marketing to me... I can definitely see how the first 45 minutes or so would make you think of time travel/conspiracy, and I too would play that game.

[snickfic]

In fairness, I don't think it was a marketing fail, because I almost certainly bought it based on a rec, probably on ffa. That was so long ago that I have no idea what the rec was, though!

[schneefink]

Ah, makes sense.

[mllesatine]

I also had to check the internet for clues for Gone Home because I got stuck and didn't know what else to do. And yes, the walking speed is sooo slow.

Disco Elysium involves a lot of reading and I found that a bit overwhelming in the beginning. I also had a language problem, having the English voices but keeping the German text on made my brain try to read while also listening at different speeds. It got a lot easier with the English text. I think it's the kind of game you have to give your whole attention which is a bit of a pity because I like to listen to music or podcasts when I play other games. I'm sure you will enjoy it a lot.

[schneefink]

Specifically I got stuck on the first floor, I had gotten tired of picking up everything at that point and of course that was when you needed to pick up one specific thing to find the first secret room...

I never listen to anything else while playing games, I'd find that too distracting. Though, come to think of it, by now I'm pretty sure I could play Hades while listening to something else. Hm, might have to try that out.

[mllesatine]

I usually need to do something else when I listen to podcasts. :) The game I regularly play (The long dark) I know inside and out so it's not a problem (and I don't play at a hard difficulty).

[schneefink]

I too usually need something else to do when listening to podcasts - which is part of the reason why I don't listen to as many podcasts anymore ^^ I used to listen to them while running, or ironing, or doing puzzles etc.