Group 2, 4 Corners Exercise
"Gone Home also plays with player agency by subverting expectations about danger and complicity. The first moments of the game create a sense of mystery more frequently associated with survival horror: the abandoned house is cast as unnatural and threatening, with the player invited to explore it suspiciously, suspecting some external danger behind the apparent disappearance of the family. That danger, of course, turns out to be internal, not external." (131)
According to Reed et al., Gone Home messes with the typical player agency in traditional video games. In particular, it uses its eerie environment and soundtrack to provide a false sense of external danger to the player, while the danger is actually internal in the form of a broken family.
"Gone Home" does a great job with subverting expectations with the environment. The opening of the game creates a creepy space that influences the player's attitude toward the game, but throughout the game, the player becomes emotionally invested into the story and the characters; it builds a sense of agency that keeps the player invested before they gain any understanding of what is happening.
The opening scene on the front porch creates a creepy environment that sets a mysterious tone for the game.
"Gone Home" has a superficial element of horror that creates suspense to engage the audience in the plot of the story which has already happened instead of playing a game in which the environment changes in response to the player.