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Bluedust posted:The only thing that really got me from this game was when I found a Leaves of Grass book. I know it's meant to be back in the 90s but I'm sure that was a Breaking Bad callout considering literally any other book could have been used. I laughed. Spoilers maybe? I'm pretty sure it was supposed to strengthen your suspicions that the mom was having an affair, cause the book is from Ranger Rick and it's pretty well known for being full of references to sex, the body, and taking pleasure in the material world. Ungodly fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 06:50
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Re: that - Was the book from Ranger Rick? I thought you find a bookmark inside the book that says "enjoy this book" or whatever but it's not clear if she got that bookmark in a different book he gave her or if it's that one. So it's not clear whether she's thinking of him, or if he's also thinking of her, or if it's just a coincidence because she's reusing a bookmark. Ambiguity!
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Aug 30, 2013 06:57
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It's pretty heavily implied that the book and book mark are from Rick. You find it on top of Leaves of Grass, and while Rick may not have MEANT for it to be taken as a sign that he had romantic feelings for her, I think it's supposed to be another piece of the affair chain for the player. http://i.imgur.com/CLhPSXI.jpg edit: Actually, I see what you're saying now, although I think it's still supposed to be a piece of the affair chain for the player, whether you interpret it as him giving her the book with the book mark, or just her using the bookmark with Leaves of Grass. Ungodly fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 07:15
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I thought it was purposefully left ambiguous between the various interpretations but since this itself is an interpretation it's not like there's a way to adjudicate between our varying views.
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Aug 30, 2013 07:28
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TychoCelchuuu posted:I thought it was purposefully left ambiguous between the various interpretations but since this itself is an interpretation it's not like there's a way to adjudicate between our varying views. If you take gameplay mechanics into consideration then it's part of the Mom's affair plot because most/all items in the game advance one plot or another but if you're not getting that meta about things then it could also be Mom's totemistic bookmark that makes her think of Rick. Plots are fun when they're not conclusive, because real life rarely is!
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Aug 30, 2013 15:41
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Well, of course it's part of the plot, but it's an ambiguous part of the plot.
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Aug 30, 2013 16:06
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I am surprised so many people think the father's story has a positive uptick at the end. To me it seemed like he was starting to go a little bit crazy and then the reprints of the book were exploiting him as a crazy outsider artist. When he tried to get them to publish his newest book he sounded really desperate and I don't think the publishers wanted anything new from him because the books they published originally were as a sort of freak show.
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Aug 31, 2013 01:55
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I don't think anybody thinks he's becoming the next Stephen King or whatever, but his novels got reprinted and are finding an audience, his wife is seriously working on recommitting to their marriage, he quit his awful job reviewing AV equipment and is back to writing fiction, overcoming writer's block, and maybe his depression/alcoholism spiral is being broken. His youngest daughter ran away and his third book probably won't get picked up and his wife still has a job where she has to commute three hours a day, so it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but he's starting to see a way out of a really dark year.
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Aug 31, 2013 02:45
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He also seems to be finally confronting his issues with Oscar molesting him, what with the third book being all about the spy getting sent to save himself instead of Kennedy.
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Aug 31, 2013 03:05
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Whoa what I must have completely missed that.
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Aug 31, 2013 03:06
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Yodzilla posted:Whoa what I must have completely missed that. All the stuff about Dad's fiction, namely the letter from grandpa and the synopsis of the third novel have completely different meanings once you know about the molestation.
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Aug 31, 2013 03:10
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About Oscar (spoilers obviously).
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Aug 31, 2013 03:14
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Podcast with Steve Gaynor (one of the devs) that I haven't listened to but which I guess has information about ~~secrets~~! I can't get this game out of my head, and that hardly ever happens. I'm going to go through it at least one more time and just try to find everything. On my first playthrough, I planned to check everything out, but I ended up just doing a quick search of the main rooms and telling myself I'd come back later and look over everything, but I ended up getting caught up in it and forgetting. TychoCelchuuu posted:About Oscar (spoilers obviously).
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Aug 31, 2013 05:25
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OatmealRaisin posted:After playing Gone Home I can't say I'd mind if certain games did away with "gameplay" as we currently know it. Two games I'm thinking of off the top of my head are Walking Dead and Deadly Premonition. Have you tried watching the television show Twin Peaks? Deadly Premonition is so heavily based on that show that they had to change a lot of the game to avoid a lawsuit.
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Aug 31, 2013 07:06
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Doug Lombardi posted:Have you tried watching the television show Twin Peaks? Deadly Premonition is so heavily based on that show that they had to change a lot of the game to avoid a lawsuit. With regards to the father's third book - it sounds like he doesn't even need to have it published; it was a very speculative offer he made to the publisher. He was clearly writing it more for his own benefit. I don't see why the new publishers wouldn't have picked it up though, it sounds like the sort of thing they would also print.
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Aug 31, 2013 11:31
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I figured that whether or not I was going to like Gone Home, it would be worth 20 bucks to play it without getting to spoiled. It's awesome, although if the whole game was a two hour long lead up to a halloween mask jpg jump scare I would have laughed my rear end off and also loved the game.
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Aug 31, 2013 15:26
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I finally played through this game last week-end and forgot to post my impressions here. Here goes: This game owns, people who don't like this game are dinguses. That is all.
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Sep 1, 2013 03:46
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I liked the game but it still has a big problem that stops it from being great: Everything is written down. When I started playing I thought it was neat they had an answering machine so the game wasn't just going to be looking to letters hidden in obtuse places but, then, welp. I mean, it got ridiculous when I started finding diary pages in the wall. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game, I just found that aspect disappointingly cliche. ThatPazuzu fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Sep 1, 2013 |
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Sep 1, 2013 18:50
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The entire genre is "people write stuff down/record audio logs inexplicably" and I felt like things were done pretty naturally, given that the diary entries you hear aren't things you find just scattered around but are rather coming from a diary written explicitly for you to explain this stuff, but yeah, I can understand wishing that things were more understated. There's a menu option to turn off diary entries and just explore the house more naturally - that's probably the thing you wish the game had been built around, and I can totally see why you'd want that. Hopefully Gone Home inspires people to make games like that. (In a way, Thirty Flights of Loving is like that, except the pace is breakneck so it's not so much exploration as it is a rollercoaster ride).
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Sep 1, 2013 19:15
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Welcome home guys! I loaded the dishwasher for you! Kitchen interactivity - 5/5
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Sep 2, 2013 03:30
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Nice placement buddy enjoy having to run that at least one more time. 
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Sep 2, 2013 03:49
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The voiceover work for Sam by Sarah Grayson is some of the best I've seen in a game. Not technically complex, but so perfectly matching the tone of this game.
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Sep 3, 2013 03:54
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tirinal posted:The voiceover work for Sam by Sarah Grayson is some of the best I've seen in a game. Not technically complex, but so perfectly matching the tone of this game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXvFNMtgrsw
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Sep 3, 2013 04:11
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TychoCelchuuu posted:You say you like technically complex? I'm sure it was more complex than the raw audio recordings the System Shock audio guys had to work with. Stupid Sam, stop speaking with emotion, it's difficult to make you sound like a robot!
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Sep 3, 2013 12:24
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A weekly review show I like to watch (ABC Australia's Good Game) is reviewing this tonight but I'm yet to play it. Is this the sort of thing where any information should be avoided beforehand or are reviews generally safe?
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Sep 3, 2013 12:39
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I went in as blind as possible and I think the game benefited from that. I'd avoid even the slightest possibility of spoilers.
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Sep 3, 2013 12:53
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I think every podcast/interview I've listened to have said "if you haven't played this game yet, stop listening NOW and come back after you've played it".
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Sep 3, 2013 12:59
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Make sure you put your souls in stamina. Christmas duck scales with faith, but there is a soft cap at 40.
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Sep 3, 2013 14:00
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I created a timeline of events in the game, to the best of my ability: http://bit.ly/17zT6Wm (Pretty long so I shortened it.) It's missing a bunch of stuff, namely with Terry's publishing career. If there's something you have a date for that I should add, just let me know and I will put it in.
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Sep 4, 2013 19:53
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ExtraNoise posted:I created a timeline of events in the game, to the best of my ability: I don't have anything to add but thank you for doing this.
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Sep 4, 2013 21:03
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Phylodox posted:I went in as blind as possible and I think the game benefited from that. I'd avoid even the slightest possibility of spoilers. Same here, I liked the game and I also probably benefited from not knowing. It's kind of become a pet peeve of both LGBT and anti-LGBT-warriors, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. BlueGrot fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 21:23
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ExtraNoise posted:I created a timeline of events in the game, to the best of my ability: I took a ton of screenshots so I have a bunch to add if you want. I didn't realize just how many dates and things there were going on until I went through these. Album with the screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/RkCla Dates from the screenshots: December 10, 1965 – Oscar Masan sells his pharmacy to his assistant Samuel Onsteen for a very small amount, speculated to be “as little as one dollar”. July 20, 1972 – Kate and Sam's mom Janice Elizabeth Connelly Greenbriar becomes a citizen of the United States, naturalizing from Canada. February 26/28, 1973 – Oscar sends a letter to his sister, Mary Greenbriar (Terry's mother) begging for forgiveness. The letter is returned. August 13, 1973 – Oscar writes his will. April 9, 1985 – Sam writes an early version of her “Heaven at the Edge of the World” stories called “The Turtle People: Part 1”. Sam's second grade teacher writes a note to Sam's parents expressing concern over the stories Sam's been writing as well as “other tendencies” she has observed. December 1, 1992 – Sam writes one of her “Heaven at the Edge of the World” stories titled “The Green Glacier: Part 2”, where the first mate transforms into a female. October 3-5/6, 1994 – Jan Greenbriar supervises controlled burn of Boon County old growth forest. October 20, 1994 – Lonnie is suspended for the rest of the day for wearing a Pabst Blue Ribbon shirt to school. November 24, 1994 – Sam and Lonnie have Thanksgiving dinner at each others' houses. December 10, 1994 – Sam orders the heart pendant with S+L engraved on it. February 8, 1995 – Jan is offered position as Regional Conservation Director. March 26 (?), 1995 – Kate sends postcard from Vatican City. March 28, 1995 – Unknown Dimension Lit. reaches out to Terry, expressing enthusiasm about wanting to republish his books. April 10, 1995 – Jan is officially promoted to Regional Conservation Director. April 21, 1995 – Sam is suspended from April 24-28 for “distributing inappropriate materials on school grounds” (her and Lonnie's zine). May 10, 1995 – Kate sends a postcard from Barcelona, mentioning she is running low on money and will be coming home soon. June 2 or 3, 1995 – Sam and Katie's parents leave on an “anniversary trip” (Strong Pines Couples' Counseling Retreat) which is scheduled from June 3-7. June 4, 1995 – Rick (Jan's coworker's) wedding.
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Sep 5, 2013 02:49
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Oh and somebody earlier asked who the hell Uncle Harvey was, who the birthday card was from:  I couldn't find anything else about him, but I did find this mention, in the parents' bedroom on one of the VHS tapes:  Looks like he might have been a contestant on Jeopardy! vv Good idea, here's a screenshot:  vv
RightClickSaveAs fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 03:01
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I'd also suggest adding Thanksgiving 1963 (Forgot the exact date) and use a picture of Terry's measurements in the basement, considering that's most likely when Oscar molested Terry and he stopped coming to Arbor Hill until 1994. Also probably add the date of Kennedy's assassination too.
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Sep 5, 2013 03:03
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Upon finding Journal Entry 24, I poo poo my pants. Its not fair to be both hilarious and terrifying at the same time. Hilarifying.
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Sep 5, 2013 05:15
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tirinal posted:The voiceover work for Sam by Sarah Grayson is some of the best I've seen in a game. Not technically complex, but so perfectly matching the tone of this game. Gone Home is one of the few video games I've played where the voice acting sounds like actual human beings talking and not someone ACTING!!! their lines in Stock Voice Actor Voice #322. Bastion was another.
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Sep 5, 2013 08:09
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RightClickSaveAs posted:Nice work! That's really fun to go through. One nitpick, and I wouldn't have noticed this except it was pointed out here, but Jan doesn't actually go to the concert with Rick. The ticket is unripped. It's such a small little detail I wouldn't have ever picked up on it myself. This is all fantastic, thank you so much. I've updated the timeline with the contributions above and the suggested edits: http://bit.ly/17zT6Wm A couple of questions to fill in some gaps: Do we know Sam's date of birth? Why is there a financial planner for 1968 if Oscar sold the pharmacy in 1965?
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Sep 5, 2013 09:06
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I just finished the game, but I think I missed a lot of stuff. I apparently found the key to the attic before I opened up the second half of the downstairs, and never saw anything over there. I assume there's more backstory about Jan and the ranger on that side? That plotline ended kind of abruptly for me. I also didn't open the safe in the basement, so I missed whatever was there. Even without having the whole picture, the game is amazing and the story is really touching. I'll definitely go back and play through again when I have time. Edit: Couldn't resist. Went back and opened up the stuff I missed. It definitely filled in most of the story. WhiteHowler fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Sep 6, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 23:14
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I hate horror movies and games and I was on the edge of my chair ready to see something terrible until finally I ran through the final room of the house to see that yes, the coast was clear, and no, nothing was going to pop out at me. I'm sort of confused why they took this approach. It's really strange to have such a touching love story framed within such a scary environment and intertwined with such terrible stories the other family members endure. Does anyone have guesses to their thought process behind this? Also, can anyone tell me what the 24th journal entry is?
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Sep 6, 2013 06:53
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They framed it that way because it helps draw you into an environment and makes feel like you're actually there, which helps pave the way for you to connect personally to the various stories present in the house. It's not a horror game, but as somebody else in this thread mentioned, it's an excellent spooky basement simulator.
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Sep 6, 2013 07:15
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