Ah, god bless Steam. Where else could I find a 20 euro game for only 5?
Anyway, after some big publisher products, I felt like I could use some indie material. Gone Home is one of those critics darlings that have popped out in the last years, and apparently it had strong storytelling. Why not?
So, I just finished and the overall feeling is mostly positive. You can go through the whole game in less than 3 hours. It's very short (maybe too much?) and mainly based on exploration. You impersonate the older sister of a family who returns from a year travelling through Europe, but the house is empty. All gameplay goes around you opening drawers, checking notes and letters and playing tapes so you can connect the dots of the inner family stories.
There are no enemies, no shotting, no magic, no nothing. Just move around and learn about what happened to your family on that year. There are 4 plots that you can unveil, 2 of them not particularly interesting but the main one is touching. 3-4 puzzles for opening combinations (one I had to check for the solution online)... and that's pretty much it.
Now: Do I recommend it? It depends. If you are in the mood for some indie novelty, definitively. It offers a new approach of how to tell a story, and it kinda succeeds. Don't expect much more, though. Also for 20 bucks you can probably get more gameplay from other indie games, so I'd suggest to wait until it's for sale.
But I don't want to sound diminishing: I deeply appreciate the effort and applaud the final result. We need people trying new things, and Gone Home shows us a possible way.
