We were all pretty excited when we heard that a few folks from the Bioshock crew were forming Fullbright Company, right here in Portland. And we’ve been eagerly awaiting the fruits of that collaboration. Well get ready to be happy. Fullbright’s first major title is available. Introducing Gone Home.
Gone Home departs from the typical plot lines to pursue more of a completely solo first-person puzzle dynamic. Where digging through a series of clues and found items start to weave together an interesting story.
And for Portland’s nascent but rapidly growing independent gaming community, this marks a significant milestone.
Gone home is an interactive exploration simulator. Interrogate every detail of a seemingly normal house to discover the story of the people who live there. Open any drawer and door. Pick up objects and examine them to discover clues. Uncover the events of one family’s lives by investigating what they’ve left behind.
The player never encounters any other character, but through finding photos, notes and various objects around the house, the stories of the individuals and the bigger story about the family are slowly pieced together. Early on in the game, the player learns through notes from a publisher that their father is a published author. They also learn that he writes reviews for a home theater magazine, presumably to pay the bills. At some point, the player wanders into the music room to discover boxes of their father’s unsold books. Gaynor says the juxtaposition of objects within the environment tells a story without the designers having to explicitly explain to the player that the father character might be a failed author.
For more information on Gone Home, see the Fullbright post or visit Gone Home. For an in-depth look at the team, read Polygon’s piece on Fullbright.
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[…] it set the bar—and the expectations for Fullbright as a studio—extremely high. Now, nearly four years to the date of Gone Home’s release, we get access to their next title, […]