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POeTrY and sTOries 29 in the last issue of the Bridge i wrote about Dear Esther an atmospheric interactive environment billed as both an art project and a story. while Dear Esther provoked a generally positive reaction from critics it was often criticised for its lack of interactivity and the linear nature of it. However Dear Esther inspired many other developers to explore the genre of the walking simulator games that mixed non interactivity with a narrative or simply exploration of an environment. This has caused many examples Proteus Ether One and Kentucky Route Zero. Yet there has been one example that sky rocketed above the rest The Fullbright Companys Gone Home. Gone Homes premise is simple you are a student who has just finished their gap year and youve come home to an empty house. seemingly your only objective is to work out where your family have disappeared to. Gone Homes two selling points are its narrative and its interactivity. You are able to interact with the majority of objects within the house whether that be placing a tape into a cassette player or rotating an object to read it. The Fullbright Company have done an excellent job of really creating an immersive convincing environment with each room you unlock and explore feeling real and atmospheric. Gone Home first sets you down on your homes porch in a typically gothic setting set at night time during a thunderstorm Gone Home constantly puts you on edge. every time you enter a dark room the first thing youll do is try find the light switch the creaking moaning of the house and the thunder combine to create a looming sense of fear. Gone Homes narrative is what keeps you going throughout the entirety of it. set in the nineties Gone Home brings you into its world with mixtapes of nineties bands and video tapes of the X-Files litter the oors. You find snippets of diaries telephone messages and scribbled notes your sister has left her little stories and parts of her life creating an intrigue and leading to a climactic ending. However you will only get as much story out of it as you choose to. exploring the house thoroughly will lead to discovering sub plots and humorous jokes. Youll find out more about your dads writing career and your uncles strange background along with strange household objects such as a Christmas duck. These objects make Gone Homes house feel lived in. as you ick through various nineties classics recorded on video tapes open a closet to find weathered board games stacked high see posters and ticket stubs for various nineties bands youll really become immersed within the lives of the family. This is where Gone Home really excels the objects and clues that litter its landscape compel you to interact with them to pick them up and inspect them and in doing so learn more about the story Gone Home tells. Gone Home is a triumph of interactive story- telling. it knows just how to keep you going drip feeding you information. it combines the atmosphere of films the interactivity and freedom of games and the literature of novels to create a truly unique experience that has only been hinted at before in games. The reason i have been so vague about the story is that the joy of Gone Home is figuring it out for yourself. The story is engaging believable and a joy to discover. The fact that you never meet the characters was initially due to budget constraints but it works in Gone Homes favour giving it the immersion of a novel. Gone Home is a masterpiece a first person story that truly works like nothing else in games or even literature. gOne HOMe Unoriginal darkness falls across the land a maidens scream is heard. There is a killer on loose and he The story teller starts. no no no says the listener This is too clichd. i would like a more original opening i want a good scare not a thought of that was familiar very well Once upon a ti The teller tries again. donteventry. The listener interrupts. i dont want a fairy tale. He was getting agitated. This was the third time this month he was unsatisfied. alright ok. Jonathon was a young man around 21 years old he prided himself on his intellect. However something would happen that would change his life. it all startedThe teller explained slowly. The listener gave him an unsatisfied stare. Fine On October 23rd 1929 an austrian science complex had lost all of its resources and its deadliest failure a crazy killer who told stories to his victims was loose in the facility. Hmm ok good opening. it could use more build up though i Umm oh. Youre smiling at me is that a said the listener. news Broadcast 17th July 1934. Yet another of the storyteller murders has raised. we are still amazed at the speed of the killer as he killed five in the past three days authorities will give us any information as it arises. Pfft what was that Overused ending. states the listener. why are you so UnOriginaL is it really that hard wow. Ok what do you want asks the storyteller angrily. something like this Unoriginality it is not a nice thing is it well i have a tale to tell you. it was a simple night in summer of 1946 and explains the listener. Fine then says the teller. He was That was a very original story i loved it said the listener to this story.