I’m a big fan of true crime stories, particularly the ones where everything doesn’t quite add up and there’s more than meets the eye at first glance. It’s perhaps influenced by my upbringing, where my grandmother and other relatives watched far too many true crime television shows, but there’s just something rewarding about piecing together something bit-by-bit.
The notion of detective work is inherently rewarding – it’s like solving a hugely elaborate puzzle, after all – and many games before have taken this and used it to their advantage. None have quite gone to the extent of Her Story, which places a police database at your fingertips, full of little snippets of seven fictional interviews with a woman embroiled in a missing person’s case.
It’s not a true story, then, but in running with the fiction, Sam Barlow has managed to craft something which feels both real and yet surreal – it’s just wacky enough a tale to pique your interest, but not too outlandish to turn you away.
The main mechanic here is a simple one: you can’t simply access all of the videos – which vary in length, from seconds to over a minute each – but have to actively search for what you’re looking for, essentially putting your Google search skills to the test. You’ll likely start out with obvious words, but the genius part of this system is how you’ll be constrained to the first five entries for each keyword, so you’ll have to star to search for more niché terms, multiple words, or even specific phrases to unlock the next piece of the puzzle.
That’s what it’s all about:Â unlocking the deepest secret’s of Hannah Smith’s story, finding out exactly what happened on the fateful night her dear husband Simon went missing, and essentially putting together this wonderful jigsaw of videos to establish the events within your head. It’s a much more complex story than it might initially seem, but it’s all the better for it.
It is ultimately utterly compelling. At first, you’ll likely find videos easily, but as time goes on – and you want to know more – you’ll be jotting down notes, thinking of absurd terms, and playing detective as if you’re trying to put together a case. This is the only time where I’ve made two sets of notes while playing a game: one for this article, and another, fuller set of handwritten notes strewn across my desk, with dates, names, places, and the overview of the story as I understood it.
This comes soon after the success of the equally enthralling Serial podcast, and while the story here is a work of fiction, it’s still something you’ll find yourself wanting to discover every single aspect of. It’s an odd thing, yet every time I found an unwatched video, a sense of glee and excitement awakened inside me. Sometimes it turned out to be a seven second clip of Hannah asking for a cup of coffee, but at other times it was another twist in the tale which sent synapses firing, awakening the detective inside me.
Even now that I have a very good idea of what happened, as well as knowing most of Hannah’s backstory, I’m still trying to find those last precious few videos – having little luck as I attempt yet more nonsensical keywords – after all, they could reveal something new, and change the story yet again.
It’s the presentation that will really draw you in to Her Story, though. You’re essentially in control of what looks like an old desktop computer interface, with lights reflecting in the CRT monitor as an effect, and a few other bits of information – as well as a mini-game – on the desktop. This is backed up by a convincing performance from actress Viva Seifert; she lets it down in a few key moments, but most of her acting is superb, and she really is what glues the entire game together.
Her Story will undoubtedly come under fire for risking to redefine what a video game is. There is, after all, very little gameplay here, but it truly is one of the most compelling and rewarding games that I’ve played in recent memory. It’s refreshingly different, fantastically risky, and incredibly captivating, as you essentially set your own pace and objectives as you go, with the end goal being to discover the full story. It’s like nothing you’ve ever played, and it’s something everyone should give a chance.
Sitorimon
This sounds right up my street. It reminds me of a game called In Memoriam where the game took you to scouring internet pages for information on a kidnap case. It was so unlike anything else at the time I was captivated.
Blair Inglis
That sounds good too, I’ll have to look into it.