In Open Roads, you either explore everything or miss out

polygon.com:

There are some secrets that feel too big or too painful to share. It’s easier to take on the burden yourself, you say, to withhold knowledge in the desperate desire to prevent someone else’s pain. Open Roads, the Gone Home-style road trip game published by Annapurna Interactive, is about those secrets, and what happens when those secrets slip — no, explode — out into the world.

Open Roads begins at home, specifically a home that once held three generations of women: the recently deceased grandmother, Helen; her daughter, Opal; and Opal’s daughter, Tess. Much of the simple, two-story house has been picked through by estate sale shoppers by the time the game begins, but the stuff left behind leads to a whole lot of secrets. Players begin in Tess’ room, where you’re encouraged to pack up her things, since with Helen gone, the house will be sold.

It’s also where developer Open Roads Team defines the next two hours. Like Gone Home before it, this story rewards curiosity, because the narrative is told mostly through the items you pick up. You’ll learn about the family by checking out items in Tess’ room, and then elsewhere in the house — namely the basement and attic — many objects untouched by strangers’ hands. Helen was a single mother and an accomplished potter, and she kept her business close to her chest. Opal, on the brink of a divorce, is struggling to keep her community theater alive. Tess has a different idea of success than her mother and, like most teenagers, feels misunderstood. Each of these women has her own secrets that define her, but it’s one major revelation, discovered in an old suitcase in the attic, that sets Opal and Tess out on the titular open roads.

Though, for a game called Open Roads, you don’t spend much time physically on the road. Each small but important location — the secret family summer house, a mobile home, a motel room, and a houseboat — is stitched together with a brief moment in the car, where you, as Tess, fiddle with your phone and