Games+Learning+Society 10 Conference

Gone Home, Playful Narratives and Classroom (de)Constructions of Contemporary Culture
Kelly Bergstrom, Negin Dahya, Paul Darvasi, Jennifer Jenson, Karla Zimonja, David Simkins

Gone Home is a first person exploration game that unearths a compelling family drama by means of discovering documents, artifacts and personal possessions in their home. Players become intimate with the family’s history that includes a queer young person “coming out”, a depressed and alcoholic parent, and another implicated in infidelity and spousal neglect. It is a highly visual, interactive and non-linear narrative that exemplifies a game’s power to relate a compelling story.

This panel provides a unique opportunity to converge three perspectives relating to games and learning: Gone Home’s developers, the teacher who used the game in his high school English class, and a team of university researchers with a focus on learning through play who observed the classroom where Gone Home was played and deconstructed as text. Presenters will explore intriguing directions for the future of games and learning in formal and informal schooling through narrative-based play.