Upon playing Gone Home, I was immediately struck by the accessibility of the various parts of the house of the game, and from being able to interact with something mundane such as the faucet to something of great importance such as being able to read a crumpled note containing clues about each family member’s gossip, I couldn’t help but think back to my nostalgic days of playing Sims. One of the biggest reasons why I loved playing Sims so much as a child was because of the idea that I could be anybody I wanted to be and do anything I couldn’t do in my real life via the computer. However, I was always particularly annoyed by the fact that I was never able to fully embody the character, and only able to play God, specifically in the sense that I could control my Sims from the top down only.
Side note: it was only through researching today that I realized Sims 4 allowed you to be in first person when you chose to. But still, in my youth, I would’ve appreciated a more advanced version of Sims first person playing, more of like a crossover between GTA 5 and Cooking Mama.
I was initially enamored by how you could touch so much of the game. Even though the term “walking simulator” wasn’t necessarily well-received by the public at the time of the game release, it now is considered its own genre. A large part of horror to me is the ultimate relatability of incidents. The eerie situation that we are placed into within Gone Home totally could’ve been a reality, and the entire game itself is very lifelike in the way the storyline progresses. The adrenaline factor came not from having to react quickly to intense events, but instead came from the storyline that you were able to uncover yourself. The large imposing house was filled with things that could’ve existed in your own house: a comb, a stray soda can, and a poster of Sonic Youth. The house was also structured in the way every house usually looks like, with clutter and the usual appliances. The biggest difference that I felt that contributed to the eeriness of the entire place was really the tone of the colors as well as the slightly depressing sheen of each item, no matter how mundane they were.
If Gone Home had been something more along the lines of a game that had fictional monsters or ghosts with jump scares, it would’ve been less lifelike and perhaps less eerie in its implications (and more panic inducing instead). However, even though you aren’t faced with any “enemy” or “monster-at-large”, and even though you are pretty sure there are no jump scares in the game, the feeling of eeriness was one that was unshakeable. As you opened a closet door, there was always the possibility of something creepy being within, just as how there was always the possibility of something horrible having happened to the family that you could’ve uncovered. With the immediate environment being so creepy, it was almost so life-like that it made you want to look around over your shoulder in your own room to see if anything was immediately there.
Ultimately, I wanted a Sims game that was as much like real life as possible, and I would’ve appreciated something that allowed me to achieve first-person actions within the realm of the Sims. I wanted to practice jobs in first-person that would earn me money and advance my career. It also would’ve been cool to have that first person aspect in having conversations in Sim-lish in order to advance relationships and uncover cool facts—almost like a dating sim. The closer the first-person Sims would’ve been to reality, similar to the Gone Home reality of interacting with certain things, the more it would’ve felt like another parallel reality and less like building a village.
This seems to bring forward why we play the games we play. The Sims is designed as a bird’s eye God simulator, where you happen to have the lives of a family in your control. If The Sims wanted to go full first-person life simulator, then they could definitely look to Gone Home’s approach to the house.
I think you have a very interesting take on why Gone Home is a scary game–the realism of it is what creates a sense that being rooted in reality, these scary experiences are all too real. I think this is why, as a creative writing major, and even just a consumer of media, I tend to find myself gravitating more towards media with realistic storylines and events, as I (this might be a No Duh moment), find it much easier to relate to the real world. In my opinion, when games/movies/other media tries too hard to make a scary monster, it ends up taking me out of the experience as I realize that despite how scary a jumpscare could be, I just don’t find it to be the type of thing that keeps me up at night. With this, I could even relate this aspect to Soma, while not exactly rooted in modern realism, the existential dread is the type of thing that is a struggle faced by literally anyone who has thought about death before, a very real struggle.
On the point about Sims, I do agree that I always wished there was more interactivity, but I wonder if there are other games which are able to accomplish the type of thing you are looking for. Perhaps virtual reality? I’m unsure of the state of VR at the moment, I know a few games but I wonder if in the future there will be a niche to fill of even horror in VR, something I could see as being almost a next level of horror.
I also love the Sims 4, and recently got into it over the summer. However, I felt that the main attraction of the Sims was the fact that you weren’t necessarily playing as another character. I felt that the Sims whose lives I was controlling were separate people, not a representation of an alternative self. I don’t think a first-person interactivity would have added to that experience, and would have ultimately made Sims 4 a very different game. I would say perhaps you’re looking for a more RPG experience, such as Skyrim.
In regards to Gone Home, I definitely agree that being able to touch mundane objects added to the life-likeness and relatability of the game. You don’t really know what you’re looking for, so maybe that toilet roll in the bathroom IS related to the story somehow, you won’t know until you progress further. Part of the horror of Gone Home is that it’s mostly in your head. There isn’t anything to fear but fear itself while you play. Often times the notes can be misleading to thinking something terrible has happened, and the game purposely makes you think of horror cliches that lead you to thinking about possible bad endings, but that’s the whole point. Sometimes the ending isn’t always what we think will happen.
I agree with other comments that the draw of the Sims wasn’t necessarily to experience things directly but rather to control others as you watch them experience things. I had so many personal qualms with the Sims 4 when it introduced different zoom mechanics and angles of viewing as well as the first person mode that it took me a couple of years to even consider switching over from the Sims 3. That being said, I’m not sure if too big of a comparison can be made between the Sims and Gone Home. Gone Home’s interactivity is unique in that interactions either serve the narrative purpose or do not. The Sims, because it does not impose a narrative onto your gameplay (excluding certain expansion packs like Into the Future), means that all actions are simultaneously of importance and useless. Turning on a faucet has no implications in Gone Home but, in the Sims, using the sink means your cleanliness meter rises. I think the intentions of these games are very different and so are the purposes of the interaction mechanics.
I feel like there’s actually a different genre of games that more accurately reproduces the feeling you wanted from the Sims. Namely, that of the “life simulator.” Games like Second Life, for example, are built around the idea that you play as a single character.