Backlog Beatdown: Watching Her Story with Her Story

Her Story is a game that came to my attention last year; a lot of the Youtube pundits I follow were giving it an intriguing amount of coverage. Not much – there’s not much you can do with this game on Youtube without spoiling it, and that defeats the whole objective of the game – but enough for it to remain on my radar long enough to buy it.

You’ll have heard some questions about it. Is it a game? Is it not a game? Is it an interactive movie? Is it good? Is it worth it? My answer is that while it comes within the broadest definition of the word “game,” it’s certainly an experience, and one that is well worth the five pounds I paid for it.

The premise is that you are looking through a series of videos from seven police interviews with the same woman in 1994. The videos have all been edited into clips that last anything between a few seconds and a couple of minutes, for evidence purposes. You use a search function to find key words in the videos to unlock them, and piece together the story they tell.

But have they???

But it’s not that simple. The videos are old, saved on an antiquated computer with very limited functionality. You type in a word to search for the videos, but however many matches the computer finds, it will only display the first five results. You have to refine your search, and search for more clues in the videos available. You can try to arrange the videos in the right order, but it’s a massive faff. The game starts off with the keyword “murder,” and displays four videos taken from different stages in the interview process. It sets up the idea that a man named Simon has been murdered, he has some connection to the woman in the videos, and she denies murdering him and shows confidence that the police have “nothing.” (None of this is a spoiler, as it’s the first thing you see in the game and most of this are shown on the game’s trailer.)  This demonstrates that all is not as it seems, and does a good job of hooking you in, but it’s up to you to dig deeper. You’re not going to get much help from the game after those first few videos.

I like that idea. I enjoy games that keep the tutorial separate from the game. Far too many games hold your hand for anything up to the first few hours, which makes starting one a rigmarole. I prefer being shown the core mechanics of the game, and after that I’m on my own, which engages me straight away.

Here's an interesting idea: A UI that's awful
but actually adds to the experience of the game.

The game is presented brilliantly. Viva Seifert, the actress who plays the woman, does a fine job; not always with the emotion one might expect but that adds to the character the game eventually builds. The film footage was recorded onto VHS before being digitised into the game, which does a fine job of representing the time period. The screen shows the glare you might expect from early 90s monitor, which adds to the immersion although there is the option to turn this off. Also you never hear the detective’s questions, only the answers, further increasing your need to fish for context.

I’ve seen a lot of coverage on more experimental games like this. There’s a whole debate about it that could potentially run into a whole book. If you’re going to make an unconventional game, you need two things:

1.      A strong core gameplay loop,

2.      A satisfying payoff.

Her Story certainly has the former, although it would have worn thin had the game lasted for any more than a few hours. Whether the payoff is satisfying is up to you; if you are engaged with the story and are keen to hear more, then you’ll probably enjoy the game. Without wishing to spoil it, I’ll say that the game saves one last surprise for you right until the end – an ‘Aha!’ moment, if you will. Not everyone will enjoy it but that was never the point. If you want a break from the latest online multiplayer game and are looking for a different experience, you could do far worse than this.

As a post-script, I’ll add that while this is not a game that you ‘beat’ in the usual sense, I did find all the videos. However, through looking on the steam forums I found a way to beat the game without even trying. I won’t tell you what, but there is a way you can access all the videos in the right order from the start. It’s not a ‘cheat;’ it fits in with the mechanics of the game and I was astounded that it hadn’t previously occurred to me, but it’s not exactly fair play either. I’d found 75% of the videos before I did this, (I know because I got the achievement for it,) but there were some videos that I’d never have found without this method because it’s keyword was so obscure it wouldn’t even have occurred to me to try it. Despite this, there was only one major plot point I found using this method. If you figure it out, you’ll probably have to do the same, but try to make this a last resort, rather than a way to get through the game.