Gone Home

BEAUTIFUL STORYTELLING $7.99 | https://gonehome.game/

ONE OF THE best games on 2013, Gone Home, has finally made its way to iOS with absolutely zero caveats and a much lower price. The aim of Gone Home is to explore, investigate, and build a case as to why your childhood home is empty after you have been overseas for a year. Set in 1995, there is a strong theme of nostalgia and childhood reflection. There are no jump scares, no combat, and no cheesy tropes in this mystery – just brilliant writing, audio (wear headphones, trust me) and an exceptional build up to a great finale. Controls are simple, since they don’t need to be complicated, but also free the screen to focus on the detail present.

It’s hard to write a lot about Gone Home without spoiling it – much of the work is done by the player as they piece together messages, notes, diaries, tapes and so on to figure out what happened in this dark and empty, seemingly abandoned house that once thrived with the lives of your family. Almost everything that exists in this home can be touched and examined, has a place and a reason for its existence. It’s a reminder that in the last bastions of an analogue world, before everything went digital, what we left behind could truly tell an enthralling story.