Gone Home, developed by The Fullbright Company, is a newly released indie adventure game that’s getting quite a bit of buzz across the interwebs. Here’s the setup.
It’s June 7th, 1995. 1:15 AM
You arrive home after a year abroad. You expect your family to greet you, but the house is empty. Something’s not right. Where is everyone? And what’s happened here?
How do you not want this game? Even better? It’s on sale right now through the 21st of August for $17.99 on Steam.
Gone Home isn’t a combat game. It isn’t a puzzle game. The developers call it an “interactive exploration simulator,” and it encourages you to explore every detail of a house, your house, in the 1990s. You’ll find out the story of the people who live there, your family. You’ll open drawers and doors, pick up and examine every object, learning the story of your in-game life while you look through everything they left behind.
Gone Home was created by some of the same developers that worked on the BioShock series, and written by Steve Gaynor, the writer of BioShock DLC “Minerva’s Den.” The story-rich entry into the BioShock 2 universe was praised by critics and fans alike as being as good as, or even better than, the original game.
The current release, then, is a personal story of exploration, and deals with themes of uncertainty, heartache, and change. Every detail is firmly set in the 1990s, letting you surround your in-game self with the ephemera of the period, re-living it or experiencing it for the first time.
It’s important to check out games like Gone Home if for nothing else than to support the high quality, independent, artistic work of some of the best game devs out there. If you need more reason than that, then you might consider trying something that isn’t a shooter, doesn’t try to help you escape reality, but instead engages your curiosity. Why not play a game like that?
Gone Home is available now on Steam or the game’s official website for Mac, PC, and Linux, for a launch sale price of $17.99.
To play Gone Home, you’ll need OS X 10.7 or up on a Mac that has at least a 1.8GHz processor and 2G of RAM and 2G of hard drive space, as well as at least an Intel HD Graphics 4000 card.
Mac System Requirements
Minimum:
• OS X v10.7 Lion or higher
• 1.80GHz Processor
• 2GB Memory
• Intel HD Graphics 4000
• 2GB HDD space
