Gone Home

It's a short game, a simple walking sim that tells the story of a family broken. And if anyone was expecting jumpscares or spooks, none here (to my relief lol) as someone who is able to relate to Sam in some way -keeping spoilers free - i found this game very touching. would recommend for those who have an hour or two to kill to just explore and immerse yourself in the story.

"Where's the puzzles? Where's the mystery? There's no dead bodies or psychic premonitions or harsh orchestral stings as I turn a corner and a door closes on its own! There's nothing here but great voice acting and atmosphere and wistful remembrances of what I thought the world was like when I was a young person!"
-- Direct quote from me, an idiot

I played this game more then 10 years ago for the first time and it left me very impressed. Recently when I got my steam deck I went back and played this game again since I was in a mood for a good but short story based game and I saw that they had added achievements. It was nostalgic to return and I knew the story was memorable and interesting, but after 10 years I had forgotten a lot of the details.
Gome Home is a story exploration game with some light puzzles. You play as a young girl (20-ish) coming home after a year abroad. You mostly follow your little sisters journey through recordings and try to find out what her life has been like when you were gone and also about your parents situation, worklife and relationship. You snoop around and find a lot of clues and evidence to what has happend and the voice acting is great. The game can come off as a horror title based on the dark rooms and sounds, but it is not actually anything spooky.
This game holds up really well with an artstyle that is long-lasting. It's mindblowing that I can now play this game on a handheld device like the steam deck, this used to require a quite beefy PC back in the days. I really had a good relaxing time exploring the house and finding all the clues, now going back for achivement hunting and finding new things about the game I never knew existed. The story is bittersweet and could be a tearjerker for some, at least I think it will have an affect on most people in some way, shape or form, I think this game was pretty groundbreaking back in 2013 and it really is worth playing even to this day even when I look past nostalgia. It's just a short and interesting game that doesn't overstay It's welcome. I would love more games like this.

Gone Home was, alphabetically, the next unplayed game in my library, so I clicked Install and started playing without reading the description or user-defined tags first.
And I loved it.
It's a shame those who went into this expecting a poop-your-pants horror experience can't break from their own internal narrative to appreciate the narrative of another, but most of the negative reviews I've read say more about the psychology of the reviewer than they do about the story in the game.

I first played Gone Home back in 2017, and I was actually so scared that something bad had happened to the family! There was such an ominous feeling all throughout the Greenbriar estate, I was certain somebody died. All I have to say now is that I'm SO glad I played this game. Such an emotional story, can't recommend it enough!!

I usually never type out reviews because I cannot be bothered, but I really wanted to type one here. I remember being like... maybe 10-12 years old when my father bought this game for me saying it was a "murder mystery" only for me to play it and be absolutely floored by the ending. This was WAY before I came to terms with my pansexuality--hell, I didn't even know what bisexual was! But I remember being a little girl watching the credits fading with that illuminating font and just... silent. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't what I got. For days, I felt so fixated on it. The raw emotions in the vocals for the credits, the intimate details of the journal entries, the desolate yet suffocating house, the motif of facades among the family, so many things that I didn't truly understand at that age. But I understood Lonnie and Sam. I certainly did. Maybe that's why I cried days later over the ending. All I could think of was "what if I ended up being 'one of those people?" I knew gay and trans people existed as a child because it was explained to me after discovering a friend's identity. But as a child, I was still terrified of being "one of those people" because all I could think of was "would my family deny my existence?" Layers upon layers of a murky revelation swirling within me. It was one of those things that you GET as a child, but you don't quite UNDERSTAND it, yet you don't want to ask your parents because it is so taboo. Between this game, Life is Strange, and The Last of Us: Left Behind, sometimes I wonder how long it would have taken me to have the epiphany that I was pansexual had it not been for these games? All that is to say, while it isn't perfect, and while it may be a let-down for SOME gamers, I personally adore this game as it explored the coming-of-age narrative through a queer lens.

Gone Home to me was the second walking simulator I remember being a thing, coming straight off the back of Dear Esther. Unlike Dear Esther, which was an outdoor/cave nature walking sim, Gone Home brought the genre indoors in the form of a house.

I think the "wow factor" was much greater all those years ago, being able to enter a house, picking up items and just casally browse them without a care in the world.

Learning about the protagonist and her relationship with her family and others is of course the highlight of the game. It's an interesting game at that, but on replays I just feel that the story is a bit unimaginative. It's also an entirely lonesome experience.

But credit where credit's due, this game did pave the way for more interesting indoor walking sims like What Remains of Edith Finch.

I still recommend Gone Home to this day as a piece of walking sim history. This is part of where it all began, and if you enjoy walking sims this is a must!