I'm running this thing on the lowest settings, but it still runs at a crawl. I am using a quad core Lenovo T520 with a Nvidia NVS 4200M. I've had to switch over to the integrated graphics due to the Nvidia card heating up and overclocking. Is there any way to make this thing stop running like a slideshow?

EDIT: I thought I had found a fix here, but now the game is hanging on trying to resume. It seemed to work the first time, until I had to alt-tab out, then the game crashed upon trying to get back in, and now pressing resume causes the game to crash at the loading screen.

EDIT2: Turns out the game was hanging because I had my browser open in the background. Seriously, who the hell coded this abomination? Lucas Pope managed to put out a game all by his lonesome, and even he made sure that the game didn't poop itself if the player did completely foreseeable crap like that. Also, the fix I thought I had found did not work.

For what it's worth, I've had my browser running in the background whilst playing Gone Home before, and it ran just fine. Perhaps there's something else related to the browser on your end that's causing it? A plugin, or something?

In any case, I hope you enjoy the game! I think it was great! :)

I managed to play the game in short spurts in order to get to the end. Concept was interesting, subject matter appreciated, but the execution left me cold. My character was so inconsequential that it begged the question of why I was controlling her, and the romance at the end was highly unsympathetic; I'm bi, I've been in relationships that my family would not have approved of, and I kept everything under wraps as tightly as possible so as to not endanger my family paying for college, so asking me to sympathize with someone who blows their cover over a teenage fling and thus will be unable to pay for college (effectively abandoning her amazing scholarship) or at least only being able to go by taking on highly irresponsible amounts of debt, is a bit of a lost cause with me. I'd like to see more games that deal with stories of this kind, but i need to be more involved in the events of the story before I can become invested, and any romantic relationships portrayed should ideally be one that doesn't make me feel distant from the participants.

I think your character being inconsequential is part of the point though. This is not a game where you have any influence on events, but one where you take a step back and watch as they unfold. It's one about discovering what happened, not actually [I]making/I] them happen.
I can certainly understand you not liking this style as much as one where you have direct input and can change the story in turn though. It's a very divisive game and some people like the style of gameplay and others hate it.

The romance, well, I personally enjoyed it and I think the point was more focussed on 'the importance and sacrifices of true love' than anything else. I get what you're saying, but realistically, it's quite possible that a teenager may run away with their partner if they really believe in the relationship, even if it is a little irrational. (When I was a teenager, I knew several people who did this. Some of the relationships worked out, others haven't)
To Sam, this wasn't a "teenage fling". This was the first real love/romance she had, so obviously her feelings would be rather strong. She likely believes it to be 'true love' and can't bare to be separated from Lonnie, so I think it does kind of make sense. Though relationships like that often fail, I still sympathise with her.

I haven't played the game in while, so some of the details elude me, but if Sam has a scholarship, isn't it quite possible for her to still attend college and stay with Lonnie?

I can get behind not having an effect on the plot, but I need the plot to in some way affect my character. The PC has almost no characterization, so any impact that the plot has on her is about as meaningless as Dead Space trying to make the player feel sad for what happened to the family of Isaac Clarke, who never once so much as opens his mouth in the original game. If the only role that my character has in the story is discovering what happened without any reaction, then it feels more like I'm playing a game that is failing to utilize the interactivity of the medium and could just as easily have been done as a book or film. It's a shame, because the worldbuilding through miscellaneous documents a la Penumbra is really quite good, but the main plot is woefully lacking.

As for the romance and college, not necessarily. Sam has a nice scholarship, but it is not a full scholarship, and will still be paying through the nose as a result; 75% off (iirc) still leaves you with a pretty sizable chunk to cover, even in the 90s. Either she's going to have to get her dick family to help fund it (unlikely) or she will need to take out enough loans to bury her in debt for the rest of her life. If she doesn't go to college, then this being the 90s, she's just in time for the dead zone of not being able to get even the most basic of job without a Bachelor's. Long story short, on the college front, Sam is screwed. I might not mind so much, except the game never addresses that particular elephant in the room, which is a shame, because then it could have made the player think on the fallout of Sam's parents' homophobia, but the game treats the ending as sweet and uplifting, when in reality it's horrifying and tragic.

tl;dr: base content was ok for the romance, but the decision to treat it with anything other than horror and tragedy was severely misguided. It almost felt like stopping Romeo and Juliet before everything went horrifically wrong.

I guess you're right in that Gone Home probably could have been made as a book or film, but arguably, being able to interact with the world, even without Katie having much characterisation, is still a superior way of telling the story.
I really don't see any problem with giving 'Katie' or the main character no personality. It depends how things are tackled. I can understand it not being very good in the case of Deadspace, but here, your character is not the point or the central focus. Katie is just a means for you to move around and discover what's going on, and ultimately she has no purpose in the overall story.
Assume for a moment that Sam's story in Gone Home was presented as a film or book. The story itself stands on its own (though you may disagree). You don't need another character, you just need Sam. Unlike in Deadspace where you kind of need to already have some background on Isaac to actually feel upset, here you do not. Sam's story does not rely on your character. It does not rely on you having known her in the past, or anything.

I don't really think it's failing to utilize the interactivity of the medium. Not every game has to necessarily play the same way and there are many different ways of telling a story. You may not enjoy some, but I don't think it's exactly fair to call it a failure. Games like Visual Novels usually have very little interactivity, other than the occasional choice, and you often play as a character devoid of personality, but should we consider them failures?
Many games, not just Gone Home, give the main character no personality or reactions, because for some, this helps make [I]the player[/I] the main character. Not some avatar, not some predefined character, but you. It makes it feel as though the player is really in the game. Your reactions are your own. The game doesn't have to make them for you.

Okay, well that's a fair enough point. I couldn't remember if she had a full or partial scholarship, so that does add complications. But as I said before, I think the game's focus isn't really meant to be on the harsh realities of the world, or even about not being accepted by your family due to their homophobia (though the game does include that theme), but rather on the love a couple can share. The blind sort of love that makes you forget about everything else.
So yes, while running away with Lonnie does have its complications, for them, at this moment, it doesn't matter. They're putting all of that aside to be with each other, and depending on how you look at it, it is somewhat uplifting in this day and age where careers seem to mean everything over relationships and the divorce rate is incredibly high.

In any case, there are always possibilities for the future. If someone wants to succeed, they can, even if they are in an unideal position. There are many people who can’t pay for college and build up debt, but eventually make it through and pay it all back (although to be fair, I’m sure there are many more who never do). Universities or other establishments will sometimes help some students in need (especially those who have some form of scholarship) by providing board. Sometimes local governments provide funds for students who live alone or away from their parents.
She, or Lonnie, or both could possibly get part time jobs (though, I know you said getting a job in the 90s would’ve been hard).
The average yearly fee for a 4-year college course (I don’t know how long her course is) in the early 90s was around $7-10,000. Let’s say Sam got into a good college and her fee was $20,000 a year. With her partial scholarship, she’d only need to pay $5,000, and that’s assuming the worst. It’s really not too much and it’s conceivable that she could make up the money somehow.
And besides at the end of the day Gone Home has a very open end. We don’t know whether or not she’ll reconcile with her parents, or what will happen to her.

I think this ambiguity in the ending is somewhat intentional. Here’s a comment someone made about it, that I think is very true:
“All three of the Greenbriar family stories are about committing despite the risk of failure, and they are all in a state of uncertainty at the end of the game – the mother’s recommitment to their marriage, the father’s bid to publish another novel and Sam’s bid to be with Lonnie. So, the sense of risk I think is intentional – Sam knows who she is, now, but that’s the start of another story.”

But yeah, anyway, sorry for rambling! :)
I didn't originally intend for this to be as long as it ended up!

I guess this is just something we'll have to agree to disagree on. I enjoyed Gone Home at the end of the day, and I agree with you that it’d be good to see more stories in games like this.

Thanks for the discussion!

I would try to talk about the finer points of game design, but (a) I suspect that we would quickly get nowhere as we seem to be approaching the subject from perspectives so far apart that the amount of time needed to at least enable us to understand each other on the topic would be more than I am willing to commit to right now, and (2) it would largely get sidetracked by me pointing out just how bewildered I am that you actually think that the ending can possibly be uplifting, let alone with the rationale you followed it with.

Relationships are important. You know what else is important? Having a job that enables that relationship to not fall apart for want of basic necessities and the inability to support one's own partner. Abandoning everything 'for wuv' might be uplifting in the moment, but give it a few months and things will have gone to shit. It's fine that Sam made an idiotic choice, it just pisses me off that the game refuses to acknowledge the inherent problems with her choice; I get that some people fall in love in a way that makes them act like idiots, and I have no problem with fiction portraying that, but what I can't stand is when that type of 'blind love' is treated as somehow precious as opposed to suicidal and self-destructive. I think Rantasmo put it best when he described the way that fanfic writers coming up with 'fixed' endings to Brokeback Mountain was ultimately disrespectful to the story, saying that taking a tragic story that people go through to this day and manufacturing a happy ending that those people don't get is a little insulting.

And tragic that story is. Firstly, Sam is going to either not have a bachelor's, effectively meaning that she will be unqualified for anything but barely living on a minimum wage job (unless the corp she happens to work for is feeling generous enough to pay more) in the service industry which will work her for insanely long hours; she might be able to support herself, but she sure as fuck isn't going to be able to support Lonnie; Lonnie might try her hand at a similar job (assuming she doesn't get arrested, but more on that later), but that will only allow her to support herself, and it won't pay the college bills. Maybe she can do it if she takes out a fuck ton of student loans that she will pay off for the rest of her life, assuming that the hours of her job don't prevent her from completing her work in a timely manner of fuck with her sleep schedule enough to make getting to class on time and staying awake during class impossible. Either way, even is Sam does manage to get a degree and all that, it still doesn't change the fact that she put herself in this position over a high school crush; I don't give two shits however much she thinks she has found 'the one', my experiences with teenagers and my time as one tell me that that's about as likely as finding a reference to the Holy Grail in a Bible (here's a hint: they don't exist).

Actually, let's talk about Lonnie, now that I think of it. Lonnie signs up with the military, gets told to report to duty... and then runs away, going AWOL with Sam. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that constitutes deserting, which can get you in all kinds of legal trouble, so unless Sam and Lonnie plan on getting scooped up by the law, they will literally be unable to settle down long enough for Sam to go to college, short of them going to extravagant lengths to create fake identities for themselves (which will be insanely expensive, costing money that they barely have if they have it at all). And that's saying nothing about what will happen to Sam if Lonnie gets caught; she's going right back to the prison of her home, where her family will doubtlessly be even more tyrannical over her life, maybe pushing them over the edge and subjecting their daughter to either abuse at a camp for 'troubled youths' or trying to 'cure' here sexuality through therapy with less scientific validity than studies linking vaccines to autism.

Sure she 'might' pull through on any number of random windfalls you brought up, and she might get all of them if she rolls nothing but natural 20s for the rest of her life, but statistically, Sam running away with Lonnie is overwhelmingly likely for her to find herself in poverty or debt and in danger of being seized from her new life by the law.

Let me be clear, lest I come off as someone who can't possibly relate due to never having to worry about my family disowning me: I have been supported by my family through college and law school. I was impulsive when I was young, but even then I knew that it was in my best interest to not piss off the nice people paying my tuition. After making it halfway through college on a generous scholarship, I realized that I was not only bisexual, but that under absolutely no circumstances were my parents to ever find out. Love and freedom are good, but I wasn't enough of an idiot to realize that I had no marketable skills and that my nonexistent credit rating would preclude me from getting loans to finish school,and that even if I did so the loans would keep me in debt for the rest of my life. So, I bided my time. I buried myself in my studies, saw people on occasion, concealed their existence from my family, and lied about any indication that they existed without shame. When my partner came by my hometown to visit me during the holidays, I plotted with them on how we could meet without risking my parent's eyes and how to cover our tracks in the event of our failure. This went on for three more years at law school, where the scholarships were even more generous but still left an insane amount of tuition to be paid. Three years later, and I am stuck in my parents' basement while I hunt for work to ensure that I can afford my own place so that I can move somewhere where I don't have to worry about them finding out about the delightful local person I am currently seeing while under their roof.

I hear you on the open-ended nature of the ending; that sort of thing can go a long way, as was the case in Deus Ex's multiple endings. The thing is that Deus Ex at least paid lip service to the downsides of plunging the world into another Dark Age, putting the Illuminati back in power, or leaving the world at the mercy of Helios; Gone Home doesn't do that. All it does is show how happy Sam is to have left, and how awful her home life was. There is not a single mention of her having any qualms about her choice; even if she as a character dismissed them and did it anyway, as a literary technique it would have injected some much needed ambiguity to the scenario by reminding the player that things aren't necessarily going to get any better, and that they might even get worse. Ignoring the downsides means the game is implicitly saying that nothing bad is going to happen, which is simply not the case.

tl;dr: Sam's choice doesn't just have 'complications'; 'complications' would be if the bike that they were riding on had a flat tire. What Sam has effectively done is lock herself onto an almost certain path toward a deadend life in a crappy job. That the game sees fit to only display it in the most positive of lights without any mention of the downside is simply sick, and I say that as someone who has been put in a comparable situation with my family.

I wouldn't be opposed to discussing 'the finer points of game design' at some later stage, but it would make more sense to discuss it elsewhere, possibly PMs, considering it no longer directly has much to do with Gone Home.
It's your call, I guess.

Anyway, I realise that having a career and being able to afford to live is very important. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. All I was saying was that it's refreshing to see a focus on the romance side of things here. Far too often nowadays games, and even other media, have darker stories, with heartbreak, death and a general absence of light-heartedness. Stories where characters would choose their career over love. I'm not saying that I dislike stories that are dark - I very much enjoy them - just that it's nice to see something different.

Realistically, of course, pursuing love over an education, or a career is generally fraught with failure. It's a completely irrational, naïve thing for someone to do and more often than not, they end up regretting it. Despite all my talk, I myself would probably never do it.
But as I've said before, in some cases it can work, and I like to believe that Sam and Lonnie could make it work too.
The main reason I find it somewhat uplifting is because I'm looking at it in a positive light. I'm not looking ahead at the other possible problems which would inevitably present themselves, when there are plenty of positive situations to consider too.
If we were to look at any sort of teenage romance story (not that I'm generally a fan), be it on TV, in a book, manga, whatever, we find they usually have 'happy endings'. The boy gets the girl and they seem happy. The end. Of course, if we stopped and thought about it we'd realise that their happiness is likely fleeting. They're in highschool. What about after? What happens then? In reality, it's likely they'd break up and go their separate ways. Very few teenage relationships succeed in the long run. Why does anyone ever find those stories uplifting? Because to look beyond the confines of the story itself is missing the point.
The whole story in Gone Home focusses around Sam and Lonnie’s relationship. And for a large part, it’s tinged with melancholy at the prospect of the two being separated. So, when they finally are together, presumably ‘for the long haul’, I think it’s a least a little uplifting.

Just briefly regarding your mention of Rantasmo and Brokeback Mountain fanfic, I get the point, but I wouldn't exactly call fanwriters making a happy ending to the story 'disrespectful'. It's disrespectful if they know that their altered endings can insult people and do it anyway, but not if they just wanted to make an alternate ending because they enjoy it.
Say what you will about fanfic writers, they are often a very passionate group who get very attached and involved in the stories they produce fanwork for. I imagine some of them were upset or depressed by the 'real' ending of Brokeback Mountain and so write their alternatives to act as some sort of closure. It may well be cathartic for them, so I think it's unfair to call them all disrespectful. Some of them, maybe, but all of them? No.

I guess my problem is that I'm speaking from a point of view where I've known many people in similar situations to Sam. Not just 'running away with their partner', but just being generally poor, moving out, parents disowning them, etc.
I've known many people who have lived on their own, or with a partner who have made it through. And they had virtually no support from anyone. They too were going to college with no job or any real expertise, and some of them didn't even have a partial scholarship… and yet, they got through. They were able to either pay off their loans when they were finished, or they found some other means to pay for their education. I know people who even went into a Creative Writing course, just like Sam, with no scholarship, lived alone and ‘made it’. So obviously, this is going to affect my judgement. I firmly believe that most students could probably manage if they approach things in the right way, or contact the right people. The majority in these situations probably don’t always make it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they couldn’t. It’s not easy by any means, but possible? Yes. In regards to the game, it all depends on how you want to look at it, I guess.

Well, you’re right, Lonnie may well not be the one, and as I said earlier, highschool relationships rarely work out in the long run. But that doesn’t change the fact that the game is going for a somewhat realistic approach to the situation. And teenagers do stupid things. Many teenagers have and still do run away with their partner, sacrificing, or compromising their situation for it. You (and I) may not think it’s a smart thing to do, but it happens, so I think it’s okay for it to be included here too.

Okay, I concede on your point about Lonnie going AWOL. I never even considered it, and I guess that is quite a big oversight in the story.

I can certainly feel for you and your situation, and I never said, nor thought that you couldn’t relate. I imagine that many individuals have come out to their parents though, potentially jeopardising their funding.
And in any case, as I said before, I think there’s a very large possibility that Sam’s parents would still pay for her. For all intents and purposes, Sam and her family have all been a fairly close one, and I doubt that they would let this break them apart completely. Sam will have some time to herself with Lonnie, cool down and then likely return and confront her parents. I think that if it came to Sam leaving permanently, or for them to at least accept the idea of her being with Lonnie, they’d at least try. They may not be happy with it, remain in denial, or continue to claim it’s a ‘phase’, but I don’t think they’d completely disown Sam, so really I think this whole discussion has become a bit pointless.

You have repeatedly mentioned that the developer doesn't ever address the issue. Well, I think they do address it, but just in a more subtle, indirect way. They don't explicitly state anything. The game is full of interpretation, and I think that's the case here too.
While I have said I found the ending somewhat uplifting, I do have to say that I don't think it is merely just 'uplifting'. I think it has a very bitter-sweet tone to it. From the slow style and slightly sombre tone that Sam uses, to the music choice.
Compare the speed and tone that Sam uses there to some of the audio logs earlier in the game. Parts where she was very happy. It's quite different - it’s similar to points where she expressed her uncertainty and worry… and there’s clearly a reason.

Sam's final words during the ending are:
"...and you'll just know... that I am where I need to be."
This to me highly suggests that Sam knows that what she is doing is risky. She knows that if something can't be done, if the situation can't ultimately be resolved, she'll be out on the street.
It seems that she knows very well what can and will happen, but she's doing it anyway.
Life is one long journey, made up of many steps, and this is just her next step. Whether or not things work out is beside the point. This is 'where [she] needs to be'.
I think this is how FullBright are addressing the issue. Not directly, but with suggestion. You can interpret it as being completely uplifting, or not at all. But they do bring it up.
I don’t know, perhaps I’m just overthinking things. :p

I doubt we’re going to resolve this dispute all that much, but I just wanted to say, don’t at any point take any of my arguments as personal attacks or anything (as some have in the past). Despite our disagreement, I still have the upmost respect for you, and wish you the best!
Regards. :)

For me the game would give me 15-35 FPS when Shadow distance was maxed. I had to turn Shadow Distance completely off to get 60 FPS. Very sad and something that should have been patched a long time ago but probably never will. I am running an R9 280X with a FX-8350, both overclocked and I can handle a lot better looking games than Gone Home at better framerates maxed out. My CPU usage, GPU usage, RAM and VRAM aren't being remotely stressed by this game but I am getting 15-35 FPS if I want to max everything.