Is storytelling in video games a product of good gameplay, or can you get by with just a bunch of cut scenes? Do you even need the gameplay at all? In fact, what is gameplay? Is it a set of concrete, skill-based tasks designed to test the reflexes of your thumbs and fingers, or something far more nebulous than that? These are the questions that my overworked, Gamescom-addled brain found itself pondering after half an hour with Tacoma, the second game from Gone Home developer The Fullbright Company.
These are questions Gone Home raised too, of course. Like that game, Tacoma is a very different kind of experience, one where the story is the star, and where traditional video game mechanics and tropes are few and far between. I expect it'll prove as critically examined as its similarly inventive predecessor. But Tacoma is also very different; the transition from family home to futuristic space station means Tacoma is a little less intimate, a little more intimidating, and with a grander narrative at its core.
Sci-fi tends to do that, of course. The vastness of space lends itself well to stories with universal consequences. The trick with Tacoma, though, is that it's trying to keep itself grounded with a personal, exploratory story set amongst the stars.
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