Last night I played through Her Story, a game - interactive
narrative, really - from Sam Barlow, who was the lead writer and designer
on two of the Silent Hill games.
It was excellent, and very unique. I'm still processing it and will be for days. I recommend it to anyone and everyone, and I think it's on Steam for a handful of dollars. But it helps to go into it as blind as you can. (I went in under the impression that it was a game about a rape victim giving her testimony to the police - no idea where I got that impression, but that's one thing I'll say this absolutely isn't!) I'll say this much - the entire game consists of interacting with a mid-'90s computer in a police station trying to unravel a murder mystery based on different pieces of seven different police interviews. The clips are only accessible by searching for various keywords, so you can't just start watching them all, and there's no easy way to view them in chronological order (although each one is timestamped, so there's a specific order and chronology to them, for sure), so the process and method you use to piece together the story and unravel the mystery is entirely your own. I think there are something like 270 separate clips to view (most of them only ten seconds long) and I was able to "beat" the game in a little over an hour, but I kept hunting around for more clips for another hour, landing somewhere north of 75% of them. I might even go back and try for the 100% tonight.
It's an experience that sounds kind of lame, and at first it is. The only gameplay element is basically Googling things. But the interaction between your searches and the resultant clips starts to feel like you're running the interview personally. "I have no idea what she's talking about here, given the complete lack of context, but she mentioned 'Glasgow' off hand in this clip - let's press her on that... [search 'Glasgow,' 8 results] - wow, Jackpot!"
It was excellent, and very unique. I'm still processing it and will be for days. I recommend it to anyone and everyone, and I think it's on Steam for a handful of dollars. But it helps to go into it as blind as you can. (I went in under the impression that it was a game about a rape victim giving her testimony to the police - no idea where I got that impression, but that's one thing I'll say this absolutely isn't!) I'll say this much - the entire game consists of interacting with a mid-'90s computer in a police station trying to unravel a murder mystery based on different pieces of seven different police interviews. The clips are only accessible by searching for various keywords, so you can't just start watching them all, and there's no easy way to view them in chronological order (although each one is timestamped, so there's a specific order and chronology to them, for sure), so the process and method you use to piece together the story and unravel the mystery is entirely your own. I think there are something like 270 separate clips to view (most of them only ten seconds long) and I was able to "beat" the game in a little over an hour, but I kept hunting around for more clips for another hour, landing somewhere north of 75% of them. I might even go back and try for the 100% tonight.
It's an experience that sounds kind of lame, and at first it is. The only gameplay element is basically Googling things. But the interaction between your searches and the resultant clips starts to feel like you're running the interview personally. "I have no idea what she's talking about here, given the complete lack of context, but she mentioned 'Glasgow' off hand in this clip - let's press her on that... [search 'Glasgow,' 8 results] - wow, Jackpot!"
And, okay, I'll also say this - the "what happened" aspect of the murder mystery isn't all that interesting. The "why it happened" aspect is far more interesting, and it's something people are still debating in forums and threads to this day. Love it!
I
found the whole process to be extremely immersive and rewarding and I'd
definitely play more games like this one. Sounds like there's a spiritual successor from Sam Barlow in the works. I'm in!
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