The design of free exploration learning: lessons from Gone Home

Gone Home, according to some computer games players, is one of the best games of 2013, and according to others it's not a game at all. Like the now-legendary Myst, it's a first-person exploration game, but with a naturalistic setting of 1990s small town America: your character, Katie, arrives at the family home after a pre-college European trip to find the house deserted with a note from her younger sister Sam on the front door; the game consists of your going round the house discovering notes and objects in order to find out what's happened. There are no hidden menaces, no jump scares (though the building's reputation as "the psycho house" and the dark and stormy night in which the events take place may mis-cue you into thinking there's a horror theme); just the real stuff of people's lives, their conflicts and disappointments - and, perhaps, a few inklings of hope and redemption.

Those players who get into the game seem to really get into it; those expecting something to shoot or even puzzles of a clearly-defined kind (as distinct from puzzles of interpretation) are disappointed. (The game's designer has produced a wickedly funny spoof trailer for a version of the game reworked as the first-person shooter - "Gun Home" - some players would clearly have liked it to be.)

As a learning designer, I was interested in how the game is designed to allow free exploration and yet lead you forwards on a journey of discovery; locked doors, filing cabinets, and so on, are used to prevent you from seeing certain things until you've seen others, so that you can't experience the backstory in the wrong order. Mum, Dad and Sam each have their own storyline, though Sam's is privileged; her audio journals to Katie give you direct access to her thoughts, and the attic - the final room you can reach - includes the objects which mark the conclusion of her storyline.

Like many players, of both genders and sexual orientations, I was both engaged and moved by the story of Sam's developing relationship with another girl from school, but I was also taken with the father's story: author of a moderately successful thriller some years ago, he failed to follow it with anything other than inferior sequels and he's now reduced to writing reviews for hi-fi magazines. After completing the game (as I thought), I was surprised to discover just how much of the father's storyline I'd missed. As this online comment shows, there are enough clues distributed around to reconstruct what happened to him as a child and why the house (which originally belonged to his Uncle Oscar) was known as "the psycho house", and also to give his storyline a happier ending than I originally thought. I wouldn't have seen all this without help though, because the game doesn't put pressure on you to uncover it, as it does with Sam's secrets.

That's the problem with designing games, or online courses, which are based on free exploration: you need to reconcile yourself to spending time and effort on developing features or branches which some of your players or learners are never going to experience.