Author: Ben

Day 77-79

These days took longer than all the others. Days 77 and 78 were by far the most engaging days. I couldn’t put the computer down. I was so curious to see what sort of cool organization was tampering with wires and basically running Henry and Delilah’s lives. In saying that, day 79 brought some disappointment. The so called organization that I thought was either a secret part of the government or a spy organization turned out to just be some loser father who managed to accidentally kill his son while teaching him how to climb. The hike to the helicopter also seemed like a century. I would’ve liked the game more if it had a more exciting ending.

Firewatch Days3-76

This game is very weird in terms of time. Days 3-75 took less than 10 minutes, yet day 76 took almost an hour. I also noticed that many quests change throughout. When you look for bear tracks, you realize that you and Delilah are not alone. When you simply want to go back to Watabi from the Fireman’s campsite, you end up realizing that you may be put into a research project involuntarily. It reminds me of the Truman Show. Even when Delilah and Henry are having private conversations it seems that they have a whole hoard of people listening to and stalking them.

Days 1 and 2

It’s ironic how over a decade took ten minutes, yet the 1st two days seemed like an eternity. While the 1st day remains engaging, the second day got very agitating. I thought the game’s plot was cool and enjoyed trying to stop people from using fireworks. I, however, got very annoyed when looking for the teens. It seems like every turn I made was wrong until over an hour later, I finally found a broken campsite.

Beginning of Firewatch Liveblog

The intro to Firewatch was much longer than that of Gone Home or Dear Esther, but it was much more interesting. I was engaged in Henry and Julia’s lives and how quickly they went. Because the game condensed almost 20 years into 20 minutes, it seemed that everything was happening so fast. One minute, Henry is approaching Julia at the bar, the next they’re moving in together and the next they’re getting married and having kids. I also felt bad for Julia. She couldn’t take a great job at Yale because it was too far of a move. She also seemed to get sick very quickly and Henry could no longer take care of her. I am curious to see what Henry’s new job entails.

Dear Esther/Gone Home Free Write

Both Dear Esther and Gone Home are slow paced games which allow you to explore the setting around. The games do this in different ways. Gone Home allows you to examine the objects in the Greenbriar’s middle class home and use them to make assumptions about Katie Greenbriar, her family and her friends. You take the objects and learn what each character is going through and the history of that character. In Dear Esther, you are more guided down one path. You can explore the setting, but there is really only a few different paths you can go in each level, and every step to the next level is the same for everyone. Also in Dear Esther, there is only really one story. A man is hurt and stuck on a deserted beach and is trying to escape. In the end, he can’t take the pain anymore and frees himself from it by committing suicide. It is more simple than gone home because the clues to explain the plot are told to you or directly in your path.

Gone Home Reflection

Gone Home is nothing like any game I have ever played before. When I play a game, I usually know the main quest of the game from the start. In Gone Home, however, the player is never directly told what the main objective of the game is. One simply has to find the quest for himself/herself using clues found in Katie’s (the narrator and the player) house. The game starts when Katie comes home from a trip to Europe.  The setting reminded me of the movie Clue. Katie’s house had a creepy setting in a sketchy mansion in the woods in the middle of the night. One major difference between Gone Home and Clue, though, is that Katie was alone. Sam, Katie’s little sister ran away, and Katie’s parents are on a trip to get marriage counseling.

A  difference between Gone Home and many other games I play is the games slow pace. When I plays games Call of Duty or The Fast and the Furious, the players are encouraged to move as fast as possible and to focus only on completing the task at hand. When I played gone home, however, I walked at a slow pace analyzing every detail ranging from the father’s works of literature to Sam’s punk rock cassette tapes. As I played the game I got to learn more and more about Katie and her family.

I especially enjoyed learning about Sam’s struggles to fit in and to hide her relationship with Lonnie. I was able to see Sam as a struggling teen, trying to fit in and receive comfort from anywhere she can. I think that Sam may really like Lonnie, but Sam is primarily using her for comfort. Sami seems to think Lonnie understands her, and that Lonnie will comfort her more than anyone else (especially since Katie has been gone for an entire year). Sam manages to hide this from her parents and in the end, runs away with Lonnie. Even though I see why she ran, I think it was a mistake. She met Lonnie less than a year ago and they have no way of surviving long term.  I also don’t know if Sam would stay with Lonnie once she could use Katie for comfort.  I hope Sam and Lonnie come back home in the near future. I enjoyed analyzing this game and look forward to examining more in the future.

 

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