Gone Home
After being away from home after a long period of time, coming home one would experience of warmth, joy and excitement. However when Katie(the player) comes home from a study abroad program, we are presented in front of a empty house that is dark, eerie, and even a tad scary. The game did give off a scary vibe, but as the game progressed, it was not as scary as I thought it would be. Since I played as Katie, I had to go through every step with her, and I felt possible emotions that she might have faced if this were a real life experience.
When the game first started, I did not really know what to do. I was actually really confused as to what the objective of the game was. After like messing around with the game, I finally figured out how to use it. I personally really enjoyed the game. Though the process to uncovering everything was a little tedious and repetitive, the outcome I thought was satisfying. The game touched on topics such as homophobia, infidelity, and sexual abuse. I cannot say I relate to these topics, but the topics itself was a huge controversy then and all are still today. It allows for discussion to occur when a simple game like Gone Home simply just touches on them. I find this to be really important to integrate learning aspects and controversial topics into the games.
I also feel like the experiences and hardships some of the characters face internally can be relatable. Such as Sam’s struggle to find her sexuality and feel acceptance. At some point in life, everyone has struggled to figure out their “identity” or has had an aspect of them that was not accepted by everyone. This is one of the many characters that faced some sort of hardship that we could relate to. Each character was established relatively well in the game to the point where I felt like I knew their whole life story.
Overall, the game was very interesting to me. It was one of the first games I have played and actually could relate to it to some extant and find meaning to it.
