Free write

While Gone Home allows you to create your own narrative by drawing assumptions from various notes and objects, dear esther differs by drawing assumptions straight from the text and images given to you. The basis if Ball’s historical argument lies in the fact that in Gone Home your not given a story but have to discover pieces of evidence yourself and use them in order to puzzle together your own depiction of the family. Similarly, historians look at various pieces of evidence in order to construct an accurate historical account. Dear Esther acts much more like a literary text as you are given the narrative and draw assumptions based off the main character’s passages. Both games definitely have the same eerie feel with the main objective to explore in order to gain more and more parts of the story. What I believe makes gone home better is the historical argument that Bell is making. You, the user, has to actually act like a detective finding various pieces in order to construct your narrative.