The Novelist is a narrative-led, sort-of-stealth, sort-of-point’n'click-adventure game by Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows, and BioShock 2 dev Kent Hudson (with playtesting help from a remarkable number of renowned developers, according to the credits) in which you direct and decide the fate of a tormented family who’ve gone to stay in a remote house for the Summer, in an attempt to resolve their respective career and relationship difficulties. But they are not alone… (more…)

Everything starts somewhere. Even the greatest of successes have humble beginnings, and Gone Home’s previously known origins were already pretty darn grassroots. That makes this revelation about its start as an Amnesia: The Dark Descent mod double-humble>, as far as I’m concerned. What I’m saying is, Gone Home could be in a Humble Bundle all by itself. It is that humble. But anyway. Frictional and Fullbright have unearthed the very, very early Gone Home Amnesia prototype, and you can play it right now. Details after the break.

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First-person ’90s ‘em up, Gone Home, receives a free update on the 22nd of this month, in the year 2013. That’s today! Fullbright’s tallest developer, Steve Gaynor, explains: “All of the developers on the game, as well as Sarah Grayson (the voice of Sam), Chris Remo our composer, and (in a super weird & cool twist, to me) Corin Tucker from the bands Heavens to Betsy and Sleater Kinney, recorded audio commentary.” This is a free update, and it’ll work as it does in other first-person games, with triggers around the game where you can hear folks talk about some game-relevant.

Gone Home has proven rather popular, shifting over 50k copies, and making Alec do a biographical skit.

As you didn’t notice, I’ve been away for the last three months, to focus on helping raise the child which will one day destroy the universe. In between prising the crushed, partially-chewed remains of smaller star systems from her tiny, iron grip, I managed to play a few videogames. Some for a while, but most only for a couple of hours. Despite myself, it was difficult not to have opinions about them, and to want to write those opinions on some manner of ‘web’ ‘site.’ I bided my time. I waited. And now here I am, able to force you to listen to my single-sentence opinions on 13 recent videogames – the likes of Saints Row IV, Gone Home, The Bureau, Papers Please and even that car-stealing thing on console. For the first time on RPS, I have even included a rating for each game. > (more…)

Level With Me is a series of interviews with game developers about their games, work process, and design philosophy. At the end of each interview, they design part of a small first person game. You can play this game at the very end of the series.

Six years ago, Steve Gaynor started as a level designer at Timegate Studios on the F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate expansion pack. Then at 2K Marin he worked on BioShock 2 and lead designed Minerva’s Den, one of the few respectable DLCs ever made. After a stint at Irrational Games to help with BioShock Infinite, he went indie with some former teammates to form The Fullbright Company. They all made a lovely thing called Gone Home that has won oodles of awards and emotional acclaim. (more…)

Gone Home has been out for a little while now, and in that time it has captured the heart of literally every human being on Earth. Also Alec, but we don’t really know what manner of creature he is. So then, what’s Fullbright up to these days? Resting on its laurels? Basking in the motivation-searing afterglow of past success? Finally realizing that – oh crap – they totally forgot to add in all the guns? Turns out, the answer is none of those things, despite overwhelming plausibility. The next immediate step, then, is more content for Gone Home, but not the sort that might muck up the game’s musty, lived-in history. And after that? Well, probably don’t expect Gone Home 2.>

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Valve? Making its own OS for living rooms? Madness. Pure, coldly calculated and entirely premeditated madness. But SteamOS’ success is far from guaranteed, and it’s got some serious hurdles to overcome before it can establish a New World Order. Last time around, I gathered developers of games like Project Eternity, Gone Home, Mark of the Ninja, The Banner Saga, and Race The Sun to discuss who SteamOS/Steam Boxes are even for and the relative “openness” of Valve’s platform in light of, er, Greenlight. Today, we dig even deeper, into the strange, nebulous guts of Linux and what sorts of challenges and opportunities Valve’s crazy, newfangled controller presents. There are even some hands-on impressions from Dejobaan and Paradox. Read on for THE FUTURE.>

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You probably haven’t heard, but Valve’s officially going forward with its plan to launch its own Steam-centric OS, living room hardware, and a crazy, touch-pad-based controller to back it all up. I know, right? It’s weird that no one has been talking about it incessantly. But while Valve preaches openness and hackability, it’s downplayed an ugly reality of the situation: smaller developers still face a multitude of struggles in the treacherous green jungles of its ecosystem. SteamOS and various Steam Boxes, however, stand to bring brilliantly inventive indie games to an audience that doesn’t even have a clue that they exist, so I got in touch with developers behind Gone Home, Race The Sun, Eldritch, Mark of the Ninja, Incredipede, Project Eternity, and more for their thoughts on SteamOS, who it’s even for, Valve’s rocky relationship with indies, and what it’ll take for Steam to actually be an “open” platform.>

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Entirely understandably, the bulk of the deservedly rapturous reception to Gone Home has focused on its unseen narrator Sam, a teenage girl who gradually and powerfully documents her timeless emotional and social trials. While it was certainly the dénouement of Sam’s tale that prompted open tears from me and that will, I sincerely hope, see this game reach a wide audience of human beings, there are (at least) three other stories in this short game, taking more of a background role and enjoying no narrator, or indeed any kind of explicit call for attention.

I found a little extra personal resonance in a particular one of these, and it’s that which prompts me to interrupt my sabbatical from work and post about it now. Be warned that here be both spoilers and navel-gazing.> (more…)

You will be more interested to read about Gone Home after you’ve played it. And it will be more interesting to write about after everyone has played it. Gone Home is a wonderful game, and one that is fundamentally reliant on its being approached with a clean slate. If this is enough to convince you to give it a go, then perfect. If not, read on and I’ll do my best to say as little as possible while relaying why it’s so compelling. Here’s wot I think:>

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