My playthrough of "Gone Home" - May contain spoilers!

Hey everyone, I know this game is not exactly brand new but it's on sale for half price on steam so I thought I would give it a go. I had never heard of this game before and the videos all pointed towards a horror game and I loooove horror ;), so anyway, I have just played through this amazing game, I literally finished it just minutes ago and I had to talk about it! I haven't felt this way about a game in a long time in fact I haven't felt this way since I played Half Life 2 on the Xbox so it's been a while.

"Gone Home" was created by 'The Fullbright Company' a group of people (Steve Gaynor, Karla Zimonja, and Johnnemann Nordhagen) who worked together during the development of 'BIOSHOCK'

Ok enough about who made it.

The Game!


It starts off with a girl saying that she is coming home, it's a little more detailed than that but i'm not going to be typing out what everyone says word for word. The game then opens up with you in what looks like a covered porch, the front door is locked but with a little snooping around you soon find the key, when you enter there is a horrible feeling of dread... at least for me there was! Half of the main foyer is dark and a flickering light that blinks out made me not want to enter that part of the room just yet. Instead I walked to the lit area, I think this is what the developers had hoped for as this is where the story starts.

As I walked around the dark rooms turning on lights while constantly turning around (as I felt like I was being watched), I eventually come across an item that triggers another voiced segment, the protagonists (Kaitlin) sister (Samantha/Sam) were reading a letter written for Kaitlin, these are what mold the story so you need to find as many as possible for the story to make sense.

Sam is in high-school and is finding it hard to make friends, feeling like an outcast she expresses how she wishes her sister to be home and speaks of how hard school is. Straight away I became invested in the story , as I and many people found it hard to make friends and I felt like an outcast! So i wanted to know more but at the same time I wondered whether this was why I felt wrong, why I always frantically searched for the light switch whenever I entered a dark area, is this story going to have a sad ending I thought? will it be suicide? murder?

Then in one of the letters something is brought up "Everyone calls me the girl who lives in the psycho's house" so now I thought there was some evil spirit in the house who was a psycho mass murder or something, I was on edge every time I turned a dark corner, every time the wind blew, it all kept building up and up without any payoff and it was driving me nuts, if I saw a monster then at least I would stop wondering what it was! But no, silence.

About 30 minutes later after hearing many more of these letters the story was starting to take shape, a girl who found it difficult to fit in finally makes a friend, another girl called "Lonnie" but on the letters she writes she calls herself by "L" (you find letters between Sam and Lonnie throughout the game) and it soon became clear to me that Sam had a crush on Lonnie but she hadn't confirmed it yet, and now every room was almost pitch black, the story and the atmosphere kept peaking my curiosity and i couldn't stop playing, my eyes are now getting heavy, I'm tired and i want to stop playing but if I tried to quit I would feel a wrenching in my gut like I couldn't live without knowing more.

Perhaps because I felt such a connection to the game and the characters, I wanted to see what happened, I wanted them to have a happy ending so Icould go "yeah... yeah that will be me one day" or maybe i'm insane... possibly both.

So now it's been an hour, the story is starting to take a turn for the worse, Sam is crying in the voice segments and it's really effecting me, my heart actually hurt. Now there really was no turning back, no way was I going to abandon Sam while she was crying. I pressed on and prayed for something good to happen, oh I should also add, when she laughed in the voice segments I felt happy and the darkness didn't seem so, oh I lack the words so I'm going to say "scary". The dark empty rooms seemed less scary but when she was crying or freaking out I became terrified of the dark, the lightning seems to strike more frequently and the noises, breathing, moaning, whatever i was hallucinating would seem to increase, I thought there was a connection.

Now about an hour and 20 minutes in I was in the secret basement, mannequins, fallen lights, boxes and creepy photographs, "this" I thought "This is where the monster will be" I slowly crept through the basement spinning around every time I heard something or I thought I heard something, I was a wreck, the atmosphere had ruined me, it was just too much. I eventually found a note but before I could even read more than a line the protagonist put it back saying "nope I'm not reading that" this drove me mad, I Had to know what was on it! I closed the game and looked it up on Google... Turns out it was a note from sam describing the first time she and L had sex, kinda funny how human the reaction from her sister was, i'm pretty sure if i wrote the same thing and neil read it he would also throw it away after the first few lines hahaha!

So after that, it started to perk up a bit, everything seemed brighter and light hearted until towards the end of the game... ok here comes the BIG spoilers so turn back if you haven't finished it or intend to play it!

"She's leaving... she's going to basic training... i'll never see her again" "I can't live with out her!" "I cried in the alley, i cried and cried until my ribs hurt" "I can't go on" "I love her..."

These are a few quotes from the next 3 or 4 voiced segments I found, it's Sam talking about L, L joined the army and Sam can't live without her. At this point my heart was in my throat, I wanted to cry, I kept thinking "she's dead... she's killed herself" and the atmosphere was horrible.

Then, the next voice segment "I'll go to the attic, I dream of her climbing up and hugging me" so I set fourth for the attic! Running as fast as I can! Which is pretty slow as there is no sprint button... So I walked as fast as I could! Towards the attic! the red... evil looking attic... ok maybe i don't want to go in.

I stood there, staring at the door, key in virtual hand, and I couldn't open the door... I kept thinking she would be dead or i'll finally face the monster. I took a deep breath and clicked on the hatch, it fell and all went silent, no thunder, no rain, no eerie noises nothing.

I walked up the steps slowly and another voice segment started "Kaitlin!-" my heart leaped! "-oh I fell asleep!-" oh... another note... i thought... nevermind "- as I woke i missed two calls but I caught the third one, it was Lonnie... she... she didn't go! She couldn't handle it! She couldn't be without me, she told me to pack my bags and to leave the house, we will go somewhere where we will not be judged! We will just drive! I'm sorry I couldn't be here to see you Kaitlin, I will always love you sis."

A happy ending... my eyes swelled with tears, a happy ending! Oh thank god! I sat there as the credits rolled and the same voice spoke a little more, then the game ended.

A happy ending.

Thank you for reading, I need another tissue.
~DerpyDooReviews