Gone Home is a slow-paced, story rich and pretty original indie game. Spoilers ahead. It’s part mystery, part narrative, and part solid illusion of horror to the point one might almost call it a horror game, though ultimately it isn’t. Questions abound during gameplay, some things are up in the air until the very end, including whether it will be a tragedy or not.

It has an interesting setup. You’re a young adult woman who has been traveling the world for about a year, and then you come home and arrive at the family’s new house in the middle of the night, and surprise — no one’s there, the house is empty as far as the family go.

So the game starts out as a mystery as you search through the house for clues as to where your family (parents and a younger sister) is at. But in doing so you start learning about these people, who they are, their stories, especially the younger sister and her story, what has happened while you were gone, and even, if you pay attention, what happened long before you were even born. You also learn about the house and its secrets, and the tragic story about the previous owner who is, as far as you can tell while playing, possibly haunting the house. Needless to say it’s a pretty eerie house, or more like a mansion really, really big and with secret rooms and hallways (no running in the hallway.)

A feeling of loneliness and dread permeates much of the game, which is an interesting design choice considering that it is, as you discover as you unravel the mystery, actually a coming-of-age secret love story and its ramifications.

The actual gameplay is minimal, to the point where some people maintain it’s not a game at all. It consists of you rather slowly walking around the house and searching for and examining clues, in particular notes from your sister that are being read out aloud (great voice acting), and piercing together what happened, hoping there isn’t a ghost around the next corner. For me that’s enough, though only because the characters and stort are well crafted enough, but I get why the game isn’t for everyone.

Unlike Journey it does get you thinking during gameplay, as you keep making guesses based on the current state of the evidence (at one point I started worry the dad was a derailed conspiracy nut gone mass murderer), and then possibly discarding those as you get more evidence. That’s fun. You could totally make a film out of this game.

The ending was pretty good and maybe unexpected (don’t know what I expected to be honest, but I know what I feared). A pretty happy ending, no horror and no tragedy, and it turns out the parents and the sister were gone for completely different and not especially remarkable reasons (which is fine, a relief even), so there is no single Big Flashy Special Event that explains it all.

So yeah, I may not love the game, but I do like it, it’s original and memorable. The most similar game I can think of is Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and I have a post on that one coming up.