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posted by martyb on Monday August 14 2017, @07:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the 127.0.0.1 dept.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/08/how-gone-homes-creators-rewound-time-to-find-their-sci-fi-future/

At most offices, the employees don't take kindly to a stranger rifling through their personal and professional effects. But most offices aren't Fullbright.

You may best know this game-development studio as the makers of Gone Home, the 2013 video game that ushered in a new era of "interactive narrative" hits. Gone Home focused on characters and plot, not action and puzzles, as its audience slowly uncovered a mysterious—and personal—story through found objects. Delightfully, similar things can be said for the company's follow-up game, Tacoma, out this week on Xbox One and Windows PCs.

I was fortunate enough to be invited into the studio's modest warehouse office space just outside downtown Portland. And between interviews, I busied myself by being a total snoop. I opened up books, flipped through greeting cards, examined toy dioramas, peered at screens, and cataloged entire walls of private notes.

The six employees on hand that day, including studio co-founders and directors Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonja, didn't complain. I figured they were distracted with work on last-minute tweaks and fixes, but later I realized something else was going on. Gaynor and Zimonja have a long history of littering their games' floors, tables, and cabinets with juicy bits of story. Bioshock 2 (and its beloved, weird DLC pack, Minerva's Den) did this with audio diaries and reflective story moments. Gone Home had crumpled letters and secret family discoveries. And now, the studio's triumphant return to form, Tacoma, adds time-shifting and augmented-reality twists to Fullbright's enticing storytelling formula.

This game studio had simply trained me to do what I was doing: to pick through its belongings; to find the stories hidden in the cracks; to replay the past.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by crafoo on Monday August 14 2017, @09:12PM (2 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Monday August 14 2017, @09:12PM (#553842)

    Most of the people I've talked with think the first game built tension and didn't deliver. It quickly unwound at the "attic reveal" with a completely pedestrian and PC cliche. Also the various "hidden" stories, especially the father's, were carefully targeted SJW feel-good bait.

    In terms of storytelling.. they had some high-rez textures for notes and photos on consoles. I guess that was innovative?

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @10:00PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @10:00PM (#553856)

    Video games these days suck. We were better off in the days of Metroid and Super Mario Bros, and later DOOM.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday August 14 2017, @10:56PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 14 2017, @10:56PM (#553877) Journal

      Video games these days suck. We were better off in the days of Metroid and Super Mario Bros, and later DLOOM. [wikipedia.org]

      My point: have non-action games sunk into oblivion** today? Like TIM [wikipedia.org]?

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      ** Not "Elders Scroll" related

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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford