Have You Played... Gone Home?
Going home again
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Gone Home opens as Kaitlin Greenbriar returns to her family after spending a year abroad, but rather than a welcome party she finds a curiously empty house and a missing sister.
The game sees you work out what's been happening in your absence as you pick through your family's new home, uncovering old stories, school papers, newer letters, mix tapes and zines.
The space of the house, marooned in the mid-nineties has been created with incredible attention to detail - as well as the materials I mentioned above there are VHS tapes which you can tell from the labels have been re-recorded over and scribbled notes for Chun Li moves.
But there's also a delicious gothic layer. It's a stormy night as you explore the gloomy mansion and its creepy past; the content you dig through has an air of the tragic thanks to Kaitlin's father's subplot and of heightened teen emotion thanks to the unfolding story of sister Sam.
It's a great piece of work which uses space and design as part of its excellent storytelling.