Specifically they were setting out to make a game where you learn the story by exploring an environment, so it was in the 90s to avoid everything getting digital; it was in the PNW because they had just moved there; it was a family home in part because of manageable scope, etc.— Naomi Clark [暗悪・直美] (@metasynthie) September 27, 2018
Finally: ok, it’s a mansion with nobody but you, because no scope for NPCs, obvs. Why don’t you call the cops? Why can’t you turn TV on? Well, because the power is out. All of a sudden it was a spooky game, unintentionally. They knew people would interpret it like this.— Naomi Clark [暗悪・直美] (@metasynthie) September 28, 2018
(Of course this is in part because even though Gone Home is set in the “real world,” game-players have almost no context for this and interpret it as genre, as Ben Abraham describes in this old piece: https://t.co/SNxRgsca7d )— Naomi Clark [暗悪・直美] (@metasynthie) September 28, 2018