When you hear the name Fullbright in gaming circles, the first thing that comes to mind is Gone Home. Don’t get me wrong, Gone Home is a wonderful game, fully deserving of a spot in this series; but it was Tacoma that fully captured my mind and spirit.
Maybe it’s just my inner sci-fi kid.
Welcome to another installment of Hidden Gems! Today, it’s all about the 2017 adventure game Tacoma, from Fullbright, a Portland-based independent game developer.
(Spoilers for Gone Home and Tacoma will ensue.)
(Read my last Hidden Gems column on Giant Sparrow and What Remains of Edith Finch)
Origins
The Fullbright Company was formed in April of 2012, from three veterans of development of Minerva’s Den, the single-player Bioshock 2 expansion, including Steve Gaynor, the expansion’s lead designer. With Gaynor was Johnenmann Nordhagen and Karla Zimonja.
In a blog announcing the start of The Fullbright Company, Gaynor wrote “we all worked together for years, then parted ways for a while, and now we’re back together, starting up our own thing in beautiful Portland, Oregon.”
Their intent was simple. They missed working on games with a small team, on a small project that would tell a story in a “player-driven way.” Their goal was to make great games.
And because Steve says it in a far better manor that I ever could, I’ll wrap up this section about their origins with this:
A memorable experience that you’ll be drawn into, and keep thinking about after the game’s turned off, and want to come back to again someday. An experience that gets away from the constraints of ossified game genres, while relying on what we’re good at as a team: creating immersive places to inhabit, and a deep, personal story to explore at your own pace. A nonviolent game in an unfantastical locale; an experience that not many games provide, built out of techniques that only video games can employ.
Gone Home
Gone Home was Fullbright’s first game, released all the way back in 2013 for Windows, OS X, and Linux, 2016 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and 2018 for the Nintendo Switch and iOS platforms.
The game takes place in 1995, and you play as 21 year old Katie. You’ve just arrived home after a trip overseas only to find out that your home is deserted. Not a sign of your mother, father, or 17-year old sister Sam. Moving boxes litter the house, but there’s a note on the door from Sam asking you to NOT investigate what happened.
Of course, you start searching the house to try and figure out what happened. (Because with missing parents and a missing sister, of course you’d want to figure it out.) You find out that Sam had a hard time adjusting to her new school, but eventually made friends with Lonnie DeSoto, a JROTC cadet, and the two bonded over different things like punk music and games.
After sneaking out to a concert and events at school, your parents found out about Sam’s relationship and went into denial about it. Meanwhile, Sam was also dealing with the fact that Lonnie was going to have to leave to continue her military service and she was distraught.
Lonnie makes a decision about her service that effects Sam greatly, to a point where she packs up her things and leaves. You also find instead of camping, your parents are attending a counseling trip. There are various other clues that are findable throughout the house leading to more tidbits about your parents as well.
Gone Home was nearly universally praised; holding a Metacritic score of 86 (PC Version), being praised for its attention to LGBT issues, environments, and realistic story. It won several awards in 2013, including Excellence in Narrative at the Independent Games Festival, and best “Debut Game” at the BAFTA Awards.
Tacoma
Fullbright’s follow up to Gone Home, Tacoma was an action exploration game, set in 2088 in a world where corporations rule. They’re responsible for everything, including artificial intelligence, space travel, and even living in space.
The Venturis Corporation is one of these, and they operate a great deal of the stations that currently orbit Earth. Among these stations is Tacoma, abandoned by its six crew members. Still on board is its AI, which you’ve been put in charge of retrieving from Venturis.
You begin to piece together why the stationed is abandoned as you begin to explore the different areas. One of my favorite mechanics of Tacoma is how you see that information; you have an augmented reality device that essentially acts like a remote to a “recording” of events that have transpired. Not only that, but it also relays clues to you that help you progress in the game.
Those recordings served as your way to get to know the crew and what happened to them; it’s pivotal to the rest of the story. And, while you never actually met the six crewmembers of the Tacoma, I got to know them and their story and want to save them.
It turns out the station was struck by meteors, damaging the oxygen tanks and communications. This essentially has set a timer on them; they’ve got 50 hours of oxygen left. Three of the crew members voluntarily put themselves into cryogenic storage while the other three tried to build an escape pod to get to the moon.
That doesn’t go well, and the game gets REAL when it explodes. Two of the three remaining crew members who weren’t in stasis are injured, and the final member ends up, after hints from the AI ODIN, at ODIN’s physical hardware. The reveal here is HUGE.
In retrospect, I probably should have seen it coming, but the fact I didn’t says something about how Fullbright crafted this tale.
Tacoma was favorably received by critics, netting a 76 on Metacritic (PC Version). Several reviewers praised the connection you were able to form with the NPC’s in the game, and called out the short length of the game as a negative. (I didn’t think so. I mean, not everything has to be a 50 hour adventure.)
It was nominated for various awards in 2017 and 2018, but had stiff competition.
(I did a series a few years ago on my YouTube channel if you’d like to check it out. Full Let’s Play/React.)
What’s Next
Fullbright has been tight lipped on what their next project is, but you can be assured it’s going to be a story driven, single player experience, that’s for sure! You can’t follow what the studio is up to on Twitter!