I've been reading a lot of the "post-game reactions" thread and I'm awfully surprised how many people thought there'd be a suicide. The idea probably (and briefly) popped up once, but I am almost certain it would end up the way it did from almost the beginning. I was just more terrified of the dark as I would be if i were home alone and not turning on all the lights; NOT worrying all the time if she is dead or not. I guess the realism the game presents made me not think she'd be going by such extreme measures.

Is this a cultural thing? I went through high school in North America only feeling as an outsider so I never really experienced what it means to be a North American teenager. I don't know how dark teenage/emo angst gets.

on a side note, not really impressed by the game. I thought I got more emotion out of Papers Please.

I'm pretty sure they want you to think that a suicide could've happened. It does occur a lot in these situations. I think the relief you get at the end make it better and is pretty nice. I feel that games are an highly cynical medium so a good, sincere ending felt great.

There's been a bunch of suicide in my family so it did influence my perception. So there's that.

I did like Papers, Please more than Gone Home as an art game (I think the mecanics are more intricate to the meaning of the game) but I don't see them as equivalent. They're both different games and both are extremly good in my opinion.

I'm not surprised that so many people expected it, because I think the game does set that up as a possibility.

What weirds me out is the people who are disappointed that there wasn't a suicide.

Everything that happened to Sam, and the way she was treated for being who she was, felt extremely oppressive. To top it off Sam said that she didn't know if she could be happy anymore because she was losing the one she loved.

I was very worried Sam was going to turn up a suicide in the attic. I was very happy that the twist was... that she didn't. It's actually quite nice to have a happy twist as opposed to a somber or extreme one (which is more often the case in video games).