You start at the threshold of a huge, empty house and by the time you’ve moved through all of its rooms, you’ll understand the lives of the people who lived here, what happened to them, and where they’ve gone. There are no action sequences, no dialogues between characters, no use-this-on-that inventory, no cutscenes. Upon entering the house, you soon learn that the Greenbriar family moved here the previous autumn, and you'll begin to uncover notes, receipts, newspaper clippings, and other items “just lying around” that fill in the blanks about the ten months they’ve lived here. An ominous note left by her younger sister, Sam, suggests that something bad has happened and implores Katie not to go looking for answers. Without giving away the nuances that make it so compelling and touching, Gone Home’s basic story is this: Katie Greenbriar, a high school graduate who’s just spent a year backpacking in Europe, returns home after midnight to find her family’s house locked up and apparently empty. Gone Home tells a story that feels true as you discover it, one that anyone who grew up in the '90s (and, really, anyone who’s ever been a teenager) will relate to in some way. As you piece together the mystery of their disappearance, the game addresses many of the same real-life issues MSCL so deftly explored: the frustration and isolation of being seventeen, the confusing pangs of first love, and even “grown up” problems like keeping a marriage alive when both parents have drifted apart, all through an LGBT lens that never would have been okay on network television two decades ago. Set in June 1995, Gone Home is a story game that peeks into the interrupted lives of a Portland-area nuclear family, the Greenbriars, who seem to have vanished from their house in a hurry. Gone Home, an indie production from the four-person team at The Fullbright Company, is not a retelling of My So-Called Life, but I have to think the developers were fans. (We weren’t that crazy teens were doing the same all over the country.) But in the end, network executives decided that the American viewing audience just wasn’t that interested in a real, raw look at the secret lives of teenagers.

A few months earlier, when this unflinchingly realistic portrayal of high school life was pulled from primetime after only 19 episodes, we had written letters to the network and circulated a petition around school that picked up a few hundred signatures. Someone had left behind a Boston Globe on the table and we flipped through it to the entertainment section to read that My So-Called Life-a TV show we loved to the point of obsession-had been cancelled. I was a high school junior, skipping an afternoon class to go out for lunch with my best friend. Considering how often I had to save the world (or a MacGuffin) from a villain with simple motivations, along with Night in the Woods, this is the best narrative experience I had with a video game.On May 15, 1995, I learned a life lesson in disappointment. If you want something different, and can enjoy what feels like a more personal story, told in an unconventional way, this is for you. If you are a traditional value person, in video games or otherwise, you probably will not like this. keeping you exited about what will happen next, fearing for dark turns and the well-being of the characters. Gone Home makes it easy, by being very well told. Ultimately, whether you like the game comes down to whether you like the story and empathize with the characters. The 'challenge' of the game is to keep up with the story threads and the timeline they present - though it makes no difference to your ability to advance in the game, only in your ability to enjoy it. There are no action sequences in the game, no real puzzles, you will not get stuck, and it becomes obvious pretty soon what you need to look out for to proceed with the story. What looks like a 3rd person point-and-click adventure is actually an interactive novella, which you piece together from clues scattered around the house.

You will rank this game very high, or very low. What looks like a 3rd person point-and-click adventure is This is not for everybody.

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