More Fear Then Ever Before: The Last Moments of Gone Home

(SPOILERS ARE HERE- If you have yet to play or finish Gone Home and don't want the ending spoiled, don't read any further- SPOILERS BELOW.. seriously.)

I'm going up a flight of stairs, headed towards the attic. I don't actually know if this is the end of Gone Home, but it feels like the story is coming to a close. My stomach is in knots, I'm so afraid of what I might fine. I open the attic, take a deep breath and enter.

Gone Home tells a touching story of young girl, who falls in love and what happens to her life when she does. You discover your sister is in love with another girl. Your parents are against this, many people at her school are against it and even your sister seems confused and unsure of what is going on. But as the story progresses the two of them become close and develop a loving relationship.

That is until the girl your sister is with has to leave. She is in the ARMY, a dream of her's, and has to leave for basic. It crushes your sister, Samantha, and as the game begins to reach the end, Sam begins to talk about not being able to live without her. She writes how empty life will feel without Lonnie, and how she doesn't know what to do. This is when a terrifying thought entered my head. The first note your find, left by your sister, is on the front door. It says she has gone away, Mom and Dad won't understand. But it also tells you not to enter the attic.

I was worried about my sister. What if Lonnie leaving was too much, what if she took her own life. It doesn't help you find a map towards the end. Its a map of the house, marked on the map is "Will do it here". Or the fact that she begins to sound depressed, detached from everything around her.

As I reached the attic I was so afraid of what I might find. I was terrified I would discover the lifeless corpse of my younger sister. I told myself she would never do something like that. Sam was strong and smart, But love makes people dumb and weak at times. I opened the attic, took a deep breath...and paused the game.

I walked away for nearly 5 minutes. Seems silly now, but at the time my body needed a small break. I needed some Cheetos, some water anything to think about other then what I might find in that attic. That was only the 2nd time in my gaming life that I ever walked away from a game out of fear. The first was a much younger me, playing Silent Hill and being attacked by weird dead baby creepy things at the start.

Finally I got the courage to move forward, to enter the attic and face my fear. What I found was an empty attic, a note explaining Lonnie didn't go to basic. That she called Sam and told her how much she loved her and that they should run away together. What I also found, was relief. I was so happy for Sam. So happy I didn't find a body, and a note explaining why. I was so glad my sister wasn't home..that she was happy.

I wonder what Sam and Lonnie are doing now.. But I don't want DLC to tell me.

So, did anyone else take the red splatters of hair dye in the bath tub as an acknowledgment of the possibility of suicide being part of the story and upon hearing the innocent explanation of that completely dispel that notion from their minds and approach the attic with no anxiety at all? I honestly felt there was no danger of that being a plot point after that discovery and found the sweet, syrupy happy ending no surprise at all.

@kraznor: The red dye scared me but then after it I wondered what they were hinting at, foreshadowing. So, it had the opposite effect on me.

At that point in the story the game already had thrown more than a handful of red herrings my way that I was pretty confident that the Sam and Lonnie plot arc wasn't going to go dark. As a friend pointed out to me though, although the love story wrapped up on a positive note there's still not a guarantee that everything ends up okay. Your sister is still presumably out on her own in a severe thunderstorm trying to cover a pretty significant distance from home. Things could end up pretty tragic for her.

@dorkymohr:Well thanks for that thought...I was so happy thinking they were going to be a-okay. lol

@halomaste19: @kraznor: Did you dudes not see the bottle of red hair dye next to the bath tub?

@the_vein: I did, but that first moment of seeing red stains in the bathtub was freaky.. but finding out it was dye and the story Sam tells you about that evening was sweet. But scared me at first glance.

I guess I'm one of those who '' didn't get '' Gone Home. I'm an avid reader, and the story here didn't touch me in any particular way. I liked the whole concept of a 90's house though, but I wish the game had more to it than a story told through super-obvious notes that completely kills the immersion. I mean, who hides crucial notes of that nature in plain sight? I know, it's a game, but it's also a game that wants to be much more than just a game. I also would have welcomed some puzzles and an inventory of some form.

On paper, I liked Gone Home. On execution though, it wasn't really worth my time. The Stanley Parable, though...

@klei:Im just glad games are becoming so diverse and interesting. I mean, I remember when every game was a WW2 shooter/Racer or some action thing. Now we have so many options, its rad.

wow this sounds like a feminists dream! maybe this is why theyve been quieter lately. or maybe i just have been paying less attention :P

*than

Glad I'm not the only one.

I thought I was just going to find a sad sam crying in the attic or worse, a dead body. In hindsight I'm glad didn't go down the latter route.

Gone Home is legitimately the scariest game I've ever played. One time I turned around and saw an open door that I was sure I'd closed, and then lightning struck. I nearly stopped playing. No I'm not kidding.

@spoonman671: Hmmm, well I thought it was Then when you are referring to time and than when comparing things, so I assumed then was correct, as I am referring to time, "ever before"

lol 50/50 shot

@hunter5024: I had a moment, in the basement, where I picked up a small wooden cross with scripture written on it. When I did a light-bulb burst right next to me. A loud POP and then darkness. I ran away like a scared kid. lol.

That moment totally got me. I played the game entirely at night, so I was pretty on edge. It ain't a horror game, but walking through an empty house at night is still an unsettling experience in real life or not.

As for the actual topic at hand, for some reason it never even crossed my mind that suicide was a possibility for her, though I totally get why you would have felt that way.

Definitely in your boat. It had some cool moments, and I thought the characterisation of Sam and Lonnie was pretty good (not so much the sister you play as, who i've already forgotten the name of), but overall the main romance plot felt a little too predictable and dull. I actually thought the Father's whole story was incredibly interesting, and far more worth telling than a pretty by-the-numbers "star-crossed lovers" story, but I may be in the minority there. And yeah, this is besides the point but I just don't feel like it pushed the medium in a particularly interesting way; it still had all the same genre-cliches of adventure games, with audiologs, 4-number codes for safes scrawled on notes and keys located conveniently to create a perfectly linear experience. It just didn't strike me in any major way.

I've just finished Gone Home, and thought it was wonderful.

In a way, those who say it is not a game are paying it a compliment.

Taking away the narrative, there is clearly a puzzle/adventure game in there, even if it is fairly slight.

The game manages to hide the gameplay so the player can lose themselves in the experience.

With three young children, I don't get much time for gaming at the moment, so I played this over the course of three nights.

I don't remember the last time I was so keen to get back to a game and find out what going on.

While not too big a fan of Gone Home, I do like how they kinda poke fun at the player's expectations of something horrible being around the next corner, what with the red dye in the tub, the red lights at the end of the hallway, the whole "house may or may not be haunted" thing, etc. Well, it seemed like they were poking fun at least.

I would agree with this, especially about the fathers story being the best part. Also, I actively disliked the whole horror/ creepy facade it has going. I think it would be a neat idea to take the horror feel, and than use that to implicitly make comparisons to the more mundane horrors of life- that's cool. The game just never made enough of a leap to connect the feel of the house and the realities of a plot (mostly), so it more just came across as dishonest to me. The main love story in particular was so dissonant with the atmosphere, and I'm not convinced the dissonance served a purpose.

@the_vein: Yeah, I did. That's the innocent explanation I was referring to. I thought that basically made suicide a red herring and dispelled it as being where the story was going.

@lackingsaint: I actually found the father's storyline more interesting too. Was really happy when I found the publisher's letter late in the game.