Triggers within the game include:
- VHS video tapes, hand-labelled with period TV programme titles
- Cassette tapes and midi hi-fi dual cassette player
- SNES game console with spoof title game cartridges
- Posters for period-style punk revival & grunge bands
- TV listings page showing a number of contemporary popular & cult programmes
Design choices
Not everything is 1995-themed, though. The house itself is Victorian, and many of the furnishings are antiquated, in keeping with an old house. Fashions often cycle in generations: the 1960s & 1980s tended to echo the modernist feel of the 1930s; by contrast, the 1970s & 1990s played up antiquated themes like floral patterns and natural colours, as noted in my own research.
In my opinion this dark Victorian look therefore adds semiotic reinforcement, enhancing the feeling of having stepped back in time.
The game itself was built using the Unity game engine (the same engine I'm using for my own project work). In an interview on Unity's website, the game's designers explain that many of the key elements were built in-house using reference images from a 1992 Sears catalogue. (The team also made extensive use of pre-built assets purchased from the Unity asset store. This was a surprise to me, but makes perfect sense: it's going to be cheaper to buy some game elements than spend time & money building everything from scratch, especially on an Indie budget.)
Given the average age of the team it's easy to presume that the 1990s setting was driven by personal sentimentality; however, it came instead from pragmatism:
"We started from, 'we want to make a game that's about exploring a place and finding bits and pieces of the story scattered everywhere.' If it was more recent than the 90s, [too] much of that stuff would be in devices: an email message, a text box," he says. "It was a very practical decision of, 'we'll choose this era because that means people would be actually writing notes and leaving them for each other.' That physicality is important to the game."However, there was still room for personal memories from the game designers, raiding their own recollections to add realistic details to the environment:
"It came from the team's own memories -- what could they recall about their living rooms in 1995? Recorded VHS tapes off TV with written labels, two recordings on one tape to save memories, for example. Such details give the game its very lifelike and plausible texture." Gaynor also read blog posts about experiences of people growing up in that time, and was influenced by the memories of others.The TV listings page illustrates this well. Some of the shows listed were short-lived and have rarely aired since their original broadcast, so they may carry an enhanced affect if recognised. Examples of this include: M.A.N.T.I.S., Hangin' With Mr. Cooper, the RoboCop spin-off TV series, cult comedy Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and gritty sci-fi war series Space: Above And Beyond.
Anchoring the game with real-life 'pegs' is great but, as I've mentioned before, copyright & trademarks can be a thorny issue. The team have hit this problem themselves, and have managed to find a compromise of melding generic designs (e.g. the made-up-game SNES cartridges) with genuine music from the period:
"As there there are many cultural signifiers the team can’t use explicitly due to copyright situations, being able to license iconic music of the mid-90s has contributed a lot to the game’s tone and atmosphere."
— Interview, Unity website
Emotional response
There's a strong affect from recalled memories (as identified in psychological research) and this adds a layer of emotion to the setting. However, the primary emotional content of the game is formed from the exploration of the lives of family members (at the centre of the game's mystery) via notes and mementoes.
In my MA research so far, I've focused on the idea that nostalgia triggers can introduce an emotional "yank" into a game. However, in this game the triggers are being used to enhance existing emotional content.
That might sound like a small distinction but it raises a vital question, echoed by my tutor Josh: have I been paying too much attention to nostalgia as a bolt-on "veneer"? Should I instead see it as part of the overall charm of a game?
On reflection I think that Josh is right: I have drifted into reductionism, losing sight of the whole body of the game. Writing this post has acted as a timely reminder that nostalgic triggers cannot work in isolation. The relationship between game elements -- aesthetics, mechanics, story & technology -- is symbiotic.
That might sound like a small distinction but it raises a vital question, echoed by my tutor Josh: have I been paying too much attention to nostalgia as a bolt-on "veneer"? Should I instead see it as part of the overall charm of a game?
On reflection I think that Josh is right: I have drifted into reductionism, losing sight of the whole body of the game. Writing this post has acted as a timely reminder that nostalgic triggers cannot work in isolation. The relationship between game elements -- aesthetics, mechanics, story & technology -- is symbiotic.
Do the designers' nostalgia triggers actually work? Are they effective? I believe that these quotes from reviews answer the question:
"I was transported to a home I’d never visited, but that felt achingly familiar."
"Of course, when it comes to Gone Home stirring up my own memories, it helps that the game not only takes place during the mid-'90s, but evokes the era so accurately that playing it feels like using a time machine."
The Greenbriars, however, are only half of what makes Gone Home special. Set in 1995, the house [...] is as much a character as its inhabitants, a window into the past I never wanted to close. [...] The TV Guide outlines Full House and Boy Meets World air times, Street Fighter II arcade cabinets beckon new challengers at local 7-Elevens, and VHS tapes advocate old-school piracy with recordings of The X-Files, Airplane!, and Blade Runner. Gone Home allowed me to project my own memories onto each scene as I searched under every bed, beneath every pillow, behind every chair."The answer, then, is a resounding "Yes". The trigger elements have definitely "twanged" emotional heartstrings for these reviewers, demonstrating nostalgic affect in action. Case proven.