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Indie hit 'Gone Home' is coming to iOS December 11th
Gone Home, one of the most acclaimed indie games of the last few years, is making its way to iOS. Just a few months after hitting Nintendo Switch, it will be available on iPhone and iPad December 11th for $4.99. It's yet another platform on which you'll find the narrative-focused game, which was originally released in 2013 -- you can also play Gone Home on PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4 and Linux.
'Gone Home' won't arrive on Switch until September 6th
Gone Home, the hit debut from The Fullbright Company, was supposed to be released for the Nintendo Switch today, but the launch has been delayed. Annapurna Interactive, the publisher bringing the game to the Switch, tweeted that the new launch date is now September 6th. So it's not that long of a wait, but still a bummer for those looking forward to it. Some good news could be on the way, though. The tweet teased that the company "might have some additional news to share" on the new release date.
Indie gem 'Gone Home' will arrive on Nintendo Switch August 23rd
The Nintendo Switch's reputation as a haven for indies got a little more support today. Gone Home, the breakout hit from The Fullbright Company will be released to the Switch's eShop next Thursday, August 23rd. Sure, it's a bit late, having originally been released on PC way back in 2013 and on consoles a few years after that, but like its contemporary Firewatch, this new platform means a new audience. And honestly, it's hard to be mad about that; the more people who play the introspective '90s-set experience, the better.
'Tacoma' brings space-sleuthing to PS4 on May 8th
Last August, Gone Home developer Fullbright released Tacoma on Xbox One, PC, Mac and Linux. It was an ambitious adventure game set on an empty space station in 2088; you played as a sort of space detective with access to immersive 3D recordings and personal files on crew-member computers. Now, Fullbright has announced that it's bringing the game to PlayStation 4 on May 8th. The experience will be identical save for a new "Developer Commentary Mode" that includes two hours of writer, designer, artist and programmer insight. If you're interested, the title is available for pre-order now with 20 percent off the usual asking price.
The evolution of video-game cyberpunk: 'Ruiner' and 'Tacoma'
What does it even mean, cyberpunk?" It's a strange question coming from Magdalena Tomkowicz, the narrative designer of Ruiner, a top-down action game that takes place in an anime-inspired cyberpunk world. It just landed on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this week from Polish studio Reikon Games, but fans of gritty sci-fi shooters have been looking forward to this one for months. The thing is, Tomkowicz and Creative Director Benedykt Szneider never intended to create a cyberpunk game. They're simply products of the 1980s, pulling inspiration from their favorite childhood stories -- Alien, Die Hard, Ghost in the Shell -- to create something of their own. Tomkowicz is also a former journalist who covered emerging technology and consumer trends, and her professional curiosity informed Ruiner's aesthetic far more than any desire to re-create the world of, say, Blade Runner. Besides, the traditional Blade Runner version of cyberpunk -- dense, dark city streets coated in smog and grime, eerily illuminated by walls of neon -- is out of touch with today's reality, according to Szneider and Tomkowicz. This aesthetic made sense in the '80s, but sci-fi is all about extrapolating from current technological and social trends, not clinging to 35-year-old ideas about the future. Blade Runner completely missed the advent of cellphones, after all. "It's like it's actually a retro-futuristic genre and something that is locked in its bubble," Tomkowicz says.
Watch the first 10 minutes of Fullbright's 'Tacoma'
Tacoma feels a lot like its predecessor, Gone Home, even though its environments couldn't be more different. Rather than leading players on an emotional journey through an abandoned family house, Tacoma places players on an abandoned space station. The feeling of familiarity comes from the game's design and mechanics: Players are encouraged to explore all the nooks, crannies, notes and recordings scattered around the station, while the layout of the winding metal hallways and air locks quietly guides them through a mysterious, dangerous storyline.
'Gone Home' follow-up 'Tacoma' pushed back to 2017
Fullbright, the studio behind the critically acclaimed Gone Home, has delayed its new game Tacoma. The sci-fi mystery was penciled in for the second half of this year, but it's now been pushed back to 2017. The reason for the delay is quality control. Tacoma has been in development for two years now, and was pretty far along (and enjoyable) when we tried it out last summer. It played out similarly to the narrative-driven Gone Home, but added additional gameplay in the form of gravity-based puzzles, and more than a little of System Shock's eerie tension thrown in for good measure.
Indie darling 'Gone Home' hits UK consoles next week
It's been an agonising wait, but Gone Home will soon be available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in the UK. The game's console debut was originally slated for mid-January, however some last minute certification issues meant its European release was put on hold. (It was still released in the US, however.) Those problems appear to have been sorted now, as The Fullbright Company today confirmed it'll be arriving on the continent, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Russia, on February 12th.
Virgin-Tesla takes you to space in Gone Home studio's 'Tacoma'
Fullbright struck a nerve with 2013's Gone Home, its emotionally haunting tale of a 20-something who returns from Europe in 1995 to find her family home deserted. That indie game darling not only became a critical success for the small Portland, Oregon-based studio, but also won a BAFTA in 2014 for best game debut, and two VGX awards -- one for best PC game, the other for best independent game. For Fullbright's follow-up, the near-future, set-in-space sci-fi tale Tacoma, the studio has some undoubtedly high expectations to meet. It's a good thing then that Microsoft, which has partnered with Fullbright to make the game an Xbox One exclusive, is there to lend a deep-pocketed helping hand. Tacoma is very much still in development and won't be out until mid-2016. But that didn't stop Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor and level designer Tynan Wales from trotting out a short 30-minute demo that gives a glimpse of the augmented reality and artificial intelligence that pervades Tacoma's world. I recently had a chance to chat with both Gaynor and Wales about avoiding the sophomore slump, their sci-fi inspirations, a possible HoloLens demo, killer AIs and why space could be a very gay place.
Tacoma, the next game from Gone Home developers
The next game from Gone Home developer Fullbright is called Tacoma, and it's a decidedly sci-fi, Rapture-esque journey due out in 2016. Fullbright debuted the game and fresh teaser trailer at The Game Awards tonight. The game has a site and a Twitter account. The YouTube description reads, "What mysteries await you, 200,000 miles from Earth?" Welcome to Lunar Transfer Station Tacoma, everyone :-) - Tacoma (@TacomaGame) December 6, 2014
Terrorists invade Gone Home in new Counter-Strike map
If you felt that critical darling Gone Home featured too little gameplay and not nearly enough gunplay, today's your lucky day: A Counter-Strike fan going by the name of "Nipper" has recreated Gone Home's idyllic suburban location within Valve's beloved first-person shooter. Designed for up to 32 players (but recommended for far fewer), cs_gonehome essentially transplants the tenets of Counter-Strike into the meticulously detailed home that served as the setting for Gone Home. Each new round sees players purchasing weaponry and gear before setting out to hunt down the opposing faction, while hostages are spawned at random each time the game resets itself. Despite this, many commenters on Steam are quick to point out that the design of the Gone Home house doesn't lend itself well to Counter-Strike's gameplay. Complaints range from a lack of lighting in the cellar, to too many areas in which campers can hide and narrow corridors that make Counter-Strike's most overpowered guns even more effective. "There are several ways in which the map doesn't work all the well in [Counter-Strike], but that's hardly the point, I think," writes Steam user Space Hamlet before describing the map as "a fascinating intersection of the design of two games." [Image: Valve]
Gone Home developer rebrands as 'Fullbright,' just Fullbright
The Fullbright Company, development studio of Gone Home fame, is nixing the "company" part of its name and is now simply called "Fullbright." The developer released a new logo to mark the occasion – we feel a strange thirst for root beer for some reason. Fullbright also announced that it's hiring. After Johnnemann Nordhagen left in June to form his own studio, Dim Bulb Games, the group requires a replacement programmer. Fullbright is also seeking a character animator. It would seem that, unlike Gone Home, future projects from the team will feature moving characters. The multiple changes don't mean a shift in attitude, though. In the announcement post revealing the news, it's stated that the company ... er, group ... will continue to focus on "creating immersive, unforgettable story exploration video games." We're okay with this. [Image: Fullbright]
Game length in MMOs and elsewhere
Back when I was in college, when we asked a professor how long our papers should be, he answered thusly: "Like a skirt-- short enough to keep it interesting, but long enough to cover the subject." More and more, it seems that you could say the same thing about videogames. In days past, the length of a game was a selling point-- the more gameplay you could get out of it, the more the game was worth. And so MMOs especially ask for a lot of investment, and were asked to give a lot of gameplay in return. I used to beat old NES and Game Boy games in minutes, and now, like Fullbright, I've got days and weeks logged in the MMOs I play.But is that a good thing? I hate to keep harping on it, but Fullbright brings up Portal for me (a game that seems destined to redefine what we think of as games this year)-- there's a game that only takes a few hours but delivers an experience that lasts much longer than that. In terms of MMOs the current trend seems to be both towards shorter gameplay and less investment for that gameplay.MMOs may be the exception here-- you sit down to create one character, and heading into a persistent world should make you want to be there. But with many MMOs on the market than before (and an older, busier audience than ever), the trend seems to be headed towards shorter games, not longer. That's not to say that a great game shouldn't cover the subject (no game should end before its time), but designers are feeling more and more pressure to make things short enough to keep it interesting, rather than throwing in random FedEx quests to brag about a few more hours of gameplay.[Via GSW]
