Been playing this for about an hour and a half and I have to say I'm really impressed. Her Story is a throwback to the old FMV games that were made back in the 90s, only this time it isn't ♥♥♥♥, it's actually surprisingly great. The purpose is to try and find out - by going through archive footage of numerous police interviews with a woman that took place two decades earlier - what happened to her missing husband. This is done through keyword searching, so it's best to play this with a pen and paper handy as a video will throw up another clue or word that could be vital in your investigation.

As an exercise in non-linear storytelling Her Story is incredibly well written and a huge amount of thought has clearly gone into not just the dialogue and plotting, but also into the length of the videos. Some of them can be as short as 3-4 seconds and at first viewing seem absolutely redundant. As you delve further into the archives, however, they can take on a whole new meaning. The actress who plays the subject of these interviews deserves huge credit for her work here, her performance only truly reveals its brilliance the further you progress and you begin to notice her intonation, mannerisms and overall demeanour are all absolutely perfect.

If you're after something truly different, interesting and original then look no further. Her Story is a little gem of a game. Recommended.

Nokkela muutaman tunnin peli jossa yritetään kuulustelunauhoja kattomalla selvittää tapahtumien kulkua. Peli raottaa tarinaa vaan tipoittain joten jännitys pysyy hyvin yllä loppuun asti, etenkin jos haluut selvittää muutakin ku mitä tona yönä tapahtu. Ota kynä ja vihko käteen jonain sateisena sunnuntai-iltapäivänä ja pelaa läpi yhellä istumalla. Osta pois jos kakkosella saat, ei oo ihan kuuden euron arvonen mun mielestä.

In a medium where evolution is typically measured in polygons and development costs, it’s fitting that possibly the most innovative game of 2015 would be something so unassuming.

Her Story places you in front of a computer monitor circa 1994, and lets you loose to dig through hundreds of police videos revolving around a single woman and a very peculiar case. You are told nothing other than how to operate the software needed to access these videos, and then left alone to attempt to crawl through the archive.

Her Story doesn’t lend itself well to trailers or quick descriptions. It isn’t flashy nor does it immediately show its brilliance, but that subtlety is an integral part of why it manages to do so much with so little. The low rent aesthetic provides a texture – aged video footage, a faux 90’s desktop, dated clothing – and then drapes it over the narrative to fully pull you back in time as you attempt to put the pieces of the mystery together.

How Her Story looks though, or even what it has to say to a degree, isn’t why it’s so fascinating. To be sure developer Sam Barlow does an incredible job setting the tone through familiar, nostalgic imagery, smartly opting to omit authenticity where it isn’t needed while still nailing the feel of the 90’s. It’s all remarkably well-considered, but where Her Story pushes games forward is in how it approaches narrative as nonlinear and undefined.

Because of the limitations of your in game computer, you can only ever access five videos at once, using the search box to scrub through video transcripts for keywords. What this means in practice is you have to search out every bit of the narrative for yourself, being locked out of broad searches so as to require you to actually think like a detective and put the puzzle pieces together for yourself. Her Story is the first game I’ve played where I actually felt as if I was the one solving the case, following a trail of breadcrumbs I had to seek out and which often didn’t lead in a straight line from beginning to end, requiring I go back and dig up old clues to find a new lead.

I became exceptionally diligent in making sure to check up on every name, every address; any random detail that had the potential to lead me to a breakthrough. Her Story demands a lot from the player in order to see and understand everything hidden inside it, but the depth of its narrative and the intricacy in which it’s woven together rewards those who put more time into learning its secrets. Her Story puts a lot of trust in the player to follow through on their end of the bargain and not cheat their way to a resolution, but it backs this up with such an engaging plot (delivered entirely through a masterful, demanding performance by Viva Seifert) that anyone who doesn’t give it the attention it deserves is only cheating themselves in the end.

Her Story doesn’t look like much, nor is it easy to do it justice through words alone, but it’s nevertheless a game that’s going to be talked about for years by anyone who takes the time to look below the surface. It breaks entirely new ground for narratives in games, and is perhaps the biggest proof that FMV has a place in games beyond basic comedy. It’s a very difficult game to talk about in any capacity without ruining what makes it so great, but it all the same demands discussing and is a game I see creating ripples through the industry for a very long time to come.

You can read more of my writing on Kritiqal[kritiqal.com].

It was enjoyable, get it on sale if you like to sort stuff out.

My wife and I played this game together. She's not a gamer in any way, shape or form, but she loves mysteries and stories, so she was game, and we both enjoyed the time immensely.

Some tips below, but no spoilers. BE SURE to read number (1) if you plan to buy the game.

1. Be very very careful in the "Settings" box. There's a button in there that says"Delete Session Data". You might *think* like I did that this will clear out the clips you've added to your "user session" with the "Add to Session" button that shows up on each clip, but it does much more. It resets your entire game. With no warning! Ugh. Don't press this button unless you really want the equivalent of "New Game" with no opportunity to restore your progress. You lose all tags you've added to videos, and the state of each video goes back to unwatched.

2. I know of no way to remove clips from the "user session" section once they've been added.

3. When you search, the videos are returned in chronological order. But when you "add to session" they are stored in the order you added them, and you can't rearrange them later. This fact, coupled with (2) makes the "add to session" useful only if you want to be lured eventually to the button of death that I describe in (1). Really bad oversight on the part of the developer, but the story makes up for it, and I'm still overwhelmingly positive about the overall game experience because the story is so good.

4. The DB Checker is pretty helpful - have a look at it early and you might figure out a way to tag your videos so that later, once you've uncovered most of them, you can watch them in chronological order. My system made use of (3) and made for an enjoyable replay of all the videos that we'd uncovered. I put post-it notes on my screen bordering the DB checker so I could more easily track rows and columns in order to tag for later chronological viewing.

5. Your search results won't show all matches, but rather only the first five. If there are more, there will be messaging below the search results saying that. I didn't notice this for quite awhile. By adding more search terms you can narrow the results and possibly see other videos beyond the first five, if that makes sense.

6. There's a message in the DB checker that makes it sound like more videos are available somewhere else ("one volume missing.") This had me intrigued for the longest time until I reread the readme files (I think) and realized that the other volume probably contained footage of the interviewering constables and their questions. That's my theory anyhow. I never did find any other "volume", and the walkthrough I watched later didn't mention anything about it.

Enjoy!

This should be experienced by 2 or more people, cooperatively, talking about it and making decisions together. My only regret is having played this alone. It's a great bonding experience as you figure things out and put the pieces of the puzzle into place.

This game is fantastic. It's just the right length at 3-4 hours, amazing price, and has a dead simple interface and low system requirements. I really feel like you could do another with a new script and new actor(s) with the exact same mechanic and it would be great. That Her Story is utterly singular is both a blessing and curse. I just want more.

Her story starts you off in an old looking computer with what looks like Windows 95, or perhaps a previous version. Once there you are presented with a database of footage from a 1990s, where you must piece together what happened.


Without spoiling anything, since this game is all story based, you are revisiting video clips of seven separate interviews trying to piece together what exactly happened. When you start off, you are placed in front the pc with the word “murder” already typed in. With this simple word, you are given, you must, delve deeper into the story, and form your own conclusion as to what happened, but the more you go deeper into the mystery, the more confused you may become; perhaps even discarding your previous assumption many times before coming to a conclusion that does not go against her story.


This game is not a conventional game in terms of gameplay. Instead, you are watching videos and finding potential terms that could lead you to more videos which will reveal more as to her past and what, and who was involved in this incident. Some might not like this, so if the idea of an exclusively story based game does not appeal, do not bother. It is an interesting concept, and very captivating if you play it without any distractions, perhaps more interesting if you play it with a friend and try to piece the mystery together (much like I did).


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Beautiful experience!
I would like to have more games like this one. It's short, but worth every second. There's a mystery to uncover, so I won't say anything more, because I don't want to spoil the experience. Definitely give "Her Story" a chance, if you haven't already.

Her Story is a taking a stab at what would it be like if we made an FMV game but made it more like a movie in that the only ending there was, was whatever you took away from it when the credits rolled. Didn't understand it? Too bad, please exit through the main door and come back and have another try if you like. Understand enough to be happy with it? Great. Want to go and find every single videolog? That's possible too.

Her Story is well made and acted but is quite predictable. Pick it up if you like FMV games and want to see them done a bit differently. Avoid this game if you need a solid ending to your games and dont like doing repetitive tasks. All that is required of you to play is to type in keywords which lead to video clips that contain that keyword. Once you have seen enough videos the game assumes you know what happened and will ask you if you are done and understand what happened. Which is a really strage concept. Like if Bowser asked Mario, "Do you think the princess is in this castle?" and then you say yes because that was what you were led to believe and then the credits roll.

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PROS

+ Oh the wind and the rain. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a girl and a guitar.
+ Great acting. Her Story is all done by one actress and she is quite convincing.
+ I like that you can turn off the monitor glare in the options because that really annoyed me.
+ The sound effects are nice little touches the sound of the keyboard clacking away as you type, the reading of the old HDD drive, the background music of the game.
+ It is a perfect length. Any longer and it might take a nosedive and become very tedious. It will only take you about 3 or 4 hours to play (I left it running once to idle it for cards, hence my 7 hours).

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CONS

- The Reversi game challenge for the achievement is a joke. I am not playing that game over and over just to get a draw. This REALLY irked me.
- Sometimes the keywords don't bring up the video even though the keyword is definitely in there. Feels like the game cheats sometimes to keep things from you for longer.
- No real ending. This game worked for me but only after I understood that the only ending of the game was what you thought you understood. It is blurring the lines between a game and the end credits of a movie. But that's not really what games are about. Games have ENDINGS. You could quite easily spend anouther 10 hours in Her Story looking for the 'Real Ending'....there isn't one.

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So there you have it. Is it the best game ever? No. Is it interesting? Yes. Is it worth the money? Maybe but I would recommend you pick it up on sale.

If I could give Her Story a new tag, I would tag it as Full Motion Video Game Movie.

This isn't so much a game as it is an experience. It's refreshing to play something so different - it's addicting. I haven't used a pen and paper to help me through a game since I was a child. You really feel like a detective.