Gone Home: Micro-narrative

1.Was the use of micro-narrative objects in your chosen game(s) engaging? Explain your answer.

The use of micro-narrative objectives in “Gone Home” did not engage me in the game as a player.
Most of the micro-narrative objects supported the diegesis but didn't add anything new or interesting to the narrative.

As the player searches through the house they can find a “cassette” that one of the story nodes explained was a gift from Lonnie to Sam containing her favorite music. Once the player puts the cassette into a cassette player it plays the music which makes the diegesis feel realistic but makes the micro-narrative feel meaningless as it doesn't add anything more to the narrative.

The story nodes the player finds by searching throughout the house are in a particular order and if the player finds them in the wrong order can make the narrative feel jarring and makes the player lose their agency.

Throughout the game the micro-objects the player finds seem to be building up for a believable horror narrative; when the player finds the “basement”, they find a table with a pentagram drawn on it and candles sitting on top and some of the letters the player finds mention an Uncle who had died inside the house. All of these micro-narrative objects give the player the impression that the diegesis is setting up for a convincing “horror”, but once the player reaches the end and finds the final story node all of this built up becomes meaningless as the story was more about Sam running away.

"Gone Home's" micro-objectives did not engage me as they didn't add to the story, they just supported the diegesis. The objects make the game believable but not engaging.