Her Story

[JunkerSeed]

Was wondering if anyone around these parts has gotten a chance to check this out. I had a lot of fun with this and found it to be a huge breath of fresh air even compared to other indie games.

 

Her story presents you with some police interview tapes of a woman who may or may not be a suspect in a crime. You interact with the game by typing search terms into the database of video clips. All of the clips have been transcribed so you are essentially searching based on words that this woman may have said. As you listen to her speak, you learn information that you can use to come up with new search terms. As you search a term, only 5 results will show at a time, so you can't quite cheat it by typing in "the" and uncovering every clip.

 

The execution is rock solid. No one clip can spoil the entire story, and every clip is packed with so much many layers that a clip that did no more for me than introduce me to a character name could have felt like the climax of the story to someone else, depending on what they learned before that clip. The one game mechanic you have is incredibly simple, and clears the way for you to really think like a detective. I was alternately taking down notes, re-watching videos to catch anything I overlooked, and trying to brute force the system by typing in as many random searches as possible. Everything I did resulted in something that made sense in the fragmented way the story works, didn't give away the whole plot, and kept me interested.

 

It's a perfect length and price, and I would also say that the game format is brilliant for it's resourcefulness. With one actor and a really small team they made a game that they can sell for six dollars that is probably my favorite thing I've played this year. It's 2-3 hours long, but the amount of time you can spend arguing about what you think is going on is double that. Highly recommended, and if any of you have played it, I'd like to know your take on what the hell happened!