First, it is very good. I’m not quite sure I think it’s quite as great of a game as much of the twitter-verse is making it out to be but I do think it’s very much worth your time.

Second, most non-gamers should find it pretty accessible as this is an exploration game, with no combat or other dexterity requiring game mechanic that one needs mastery of (though it should be noted that it is a first person game, and in my experience some non-gamers have extreme difficulty navigating a first person environment). Also the story is one that should appeal to a wide audience, though I do wonder if it will be able to find that wider audience given it’s medium and distribution methods. It should be noted however that some machines with integrated graphics may not be able to run the game well (my 2011 MacBook Air became extremely hot very quickly and then stopped performing well, and so I needed to switch to my PC to play the game).

Third, Gone Home is an example of a type of game that has recently seen a lot of critical acclaim and examination, one which might be described as an interactive narrative (other recent examples include Kentucky Route Zero and The Walking Dead). I actually wonder if all the acclaim Gone Home has received will reawaken the debate over what is and isn’t a game, since it (and titles like it) feel very different than most other video games. Specifically most games have a skill or problem solving component which is supposed to provide the challenge to the player and are in some ways seen as the point to the game. In titles like Gone Home however, there is few or no such components, and the mechanics that are there are used to drive the narrative along instead. This generates a remarkably different experience for the player when compared to more traditional games. On the one hand this allows for a whole new world to be opened up for narrative fiction, as there are things you can accomplish with video games that you can’t capture quite as well in other media (for instance, I would argue that interactive spaces can capture a sense of place better than either the written word or motion pictures). On the other hand, the lack of any skill or puzzle solving component can potentially alienate traditional gamers who are currently the target audience for these kinds of games (though perhaps this will change in the future). Some games try to combine both a deep thoughtful narrative along with traditional gameplay mechanics (the Bioshock series is a good example of this) but in my opinion when game designers try to do this these to elements often clash with each other (I’m not evoking the whole ludonarrative dissonance debate here, I actually think narrative and skill based play are two completely different things and when both are extremely engaging they compete against each other for your minds attention). Because of this I’m really interested in seeing how well narrative only (or at least primary) games carve a niche for themselves in the marketplace.

Finally I’m kind of curious how people will react to the pricing of this game (which costs $19.99, though it’s currently on sale for $17.99). It’s an interesting exercise to think of the “correct” price for a game (or any piece of intellectual property for that matter). $20 is a normal price for a mid-level game, though the duration of Gone Home it is a bit short as far as games go. One could argue that as a narrative piece that can be completed in 3 hours, it would make sense to make the price closer to that of a movie. Of course from an economic point of view the price is really just a function of supply and demand, and since the supply for a digital product is whatever the creators need it to be, the real question is how much demand there is and perhaps more importantly how much will a change in price change the quantity purchased given the level of demand. And honestly I don’t really know the answer to either of those questions. I suspect though that a lower price will fetch a much higher volume for the reasons I mentioned above.