Steve-Gaynor
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Stories we tell in quiet houses and alien invasions
Video game experiences aren't wholly relegated to what designers have deliberately laid out for you; through gameplay, a unique narrative emerges. We all have our own stories: a car chase in Grand Theft Auto V, a battle within a hidden cave in Skyrim, an ore-rich chasm in Minecraft. These discoveries highlight the promise that, if we just keep looking and keep testing a game's boundaries, we might find something that's uniquely ours. Thanks to franchises like BioShock, Fallout and Grand Theft Auto, the idea of player-driven narrative is being explored in different ways. From collectibles to character customization and sprawling open-worlds, video games today are littered with tools people can use to manufacture stories that belong only to them. But that doesn't mean the role of the developer has been in any way diminished. On the contrary, designers now have more work to do than ever, subtly and precisely tailoring their games so that players can get a full experience without feeling like they're being led by the nose.
Gone Home finds 250K sales, most on Steam
Gone Home, the emotional exploration game from indie studio The Fullbright Company, has sold 250,000 copies, founder Steve Gaynor tells Joystiq. Roughly 80 percent of those sales were through Steam, he said, and 50,000 of them were in the first month. Gone Home was a favorite of ours last year, hitting No. 6 on our Best of 2013 list – but not everyone shares our taste for suburban mystery and familial letter-writing. On our first DICE podcast this week, Gaynor discussed the suggestion from some players that Gone Home "isn't a real game," during which he shared the following story: Gone Home Designer Karla Zimonja was heading home on the train in Portland, and she had an email from Gaynor open on her phone with the game's name in the subject line. Someone read it over her shoulder and tapped her arm just to say, "Oh, Gone Home? Yeah, I don't think that's really a game." Hilarity ensues on the podcast after that tale. The first DICE podcast also features Rami Ismail of Vlambeer and Davey Wreden of The Stanley Parable (a game that suffers from a similar player response). [Image: The Fullbright Company]
Hit List Q&A: Gone Home's Steve Gaynor
In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Steve Gaynor, co-founder of 'Gone Home' developer The Fullbright Company. Steve Gaynor is co-founder of independent game studio The Fullbright Company. He was the writer and designer of the Company's critically lauded first game, Gone Home. Prior to this, he worked for a number of years as a designer on the BioShock franchise. At the 2014 DICE Summit, Steve will deliver a talk entitled Strangers in a Strange Time: "We live in a strange time. Is it a golden age, or a gold rush? The landscape is changing – because we're at the crest of the wave of first-generation indie success, and the indies that made those breakthrough games are now about to release their second titles. What does this mean for new indies now entering the field – and for the rest of the games industry?"
Gone Home developer preparing free commentary track
The Fullbright Company is working on a free in-game commentary track for its inaugural outing, Gone Home. "We're working on a commentary mode right now, and we're going to release that as free DLC," Fullbright's Steve Gaynor told RPS. "If you have it on Steam, you'll just get it. We don't have a date for it yet, but it'll be relatively soon. We're aiming for the short-term, and we've already recorded most of it." Commentary will involve "background stuff," some easter eggs and Corin Tucker, riot grrrl musician, speaking a bit about her involvement with the game. In our review of Gone Home, we lauded the game's restrained environmental storytelling and well-voiced letters. Gone Home launched in August and, over the course of its first month, has sold 50,000 copies. The game is currently available on Steam for $20, for the PC, Mac and Linux.
Gone Home review: First-Person Snooper
You have returned and found your house bereft of its family, but littered with material proof of their lives. If you've ever been left alone to ponder mom and dad's unexpected absence (always leave a note!), you'll know the mystery can swing between the wild and the mundane: Burglars. A late-night ice cream run. An ambulance. Ghosts. Kidnapping. The Rapture. Wait, isn't that just kidnapping the nice people? Gone Home is a game about what happened while you were gone. Your co-identity in exploration is Kaitlin Greenbriar, the older sister who drops her bags on a Portland porch after a year-long trip to Europe. What you imagine her finding in drawers, on bookshelves and in crumpled notes – the physical counterparts of everything she's missed – is going to be grander and far colder than what develops here so elegantly: a warm, uplifting relationship that outgrows the very place built to enshrine it. Effective world-building, it turns out, can start with a single house and a tender voice inside it.
