Gone Home, our favorite game of 2013, was a quiet marvel. Often slapped with the label of “walking simulator,” Gone Home was a revelatory shift in videogame storytelling in its non-standard exploration of a family via a house’s inanimate objects. Gone Home told a heartfelt coming-of-age tale about f
Our favorite game of last year has unexpectedly gotten a physical release on DVD, which is perfect because one day many years from now your kid can find it on your shelf, boot it up, and have a very strange and metaphysical experience. “Gone Home is a story about a high schooler in the ’90s, and is
This is something we’ve known forever, but the creator of Gone Home drove the point home and perhaps put the nail in the coffin. Talking today about narrative design, Gaynor made a subtle, but piercing call. In particular he was lamenting the fact that people who don’t play games but wanted to play
There have been many-an-editorial about whether games should have narratives at all, and, if so, how they should go about telling them. Gone Home’s beautiful answer was to wed stories to objects and environments, instead of, say, through non-interactive voiceovers and cutscenes. But it wasn’t perfec
