Her Story is a game with a
unique mechanic I've never experienced before, and hope to never meet
again.
It's a game based around a story:
Hannah, a young married woman, visits the policed because her
husband, Simon is missing.
But the player is represented by a
young girl named Sarah. She has gained access to a policed database
through the aid of an unnamed assistant. It contains video files
from a case sixteen years ago.
The video is of Hannah reporting the
disappearance of Simon, and includes six more interviews spread out
over the following month.
Unfortunately, perhaps because of the
length of time since the recording, the files are corrupted and split
into 271 individual videos. Each averages about thirty seconds, but
can vary from three seconds to a full minute or two. In total they
add up to about an hour and a half of video, this being the entire
length of the game.
The video clips feature Hannah
answering questions and volunteering information, to the police. The
clips never show anything but Hannah sitting at a table, and the
questions of the officers remain unheard.
The game-play involves navigating
through the clips. Sarah (the player) accesses a computer terminal
which contains a database with the snippets of video. But the videos
must be located by a search tool. The search tool accepts single
words or phrases and then displays corresponding videos. The
database limits Sarah's search by only allowing access to five video
clips per word or phrase. It shows the first five chronologically
according to when the interview took place: day and time. If there
are more than five videos, the others remain unwatchable. The trick
is to attempt a variety of words and phrases in order to watch all
the clips.
In addition to the video database is a
helpful visual catalog which shows the clips that have been watched.
It has 271 little boxes, all colored red. When a clip is watched,
the corresponding box turns green. The boxes are in chronological
order and this allows the player to see when where clips are missing.
Players can tailor their questions to fill in missing clips.
When Sarah has accessed a certain
percentage of the videos, or perhaps particular ones, the game
reaches an end state. The person who gave Sarah access texts her and
asks if she is done. A no answer allows the player to continue, but
is ill advised. A yes answer leads to the credits, but no further
information. The only contribution the credits adds is two tools.
One tool, when entered into the
database highlights random clips. The other allows Sarah to see all
the results for a search, not just the first five. Both of these are
useful for a complete finish, but most players will already have a
reasonable idea of the plot before the end.
Ultimately, the game is a mystery
story. Who is Hannah, where is Simon, and what happened...
The mystery itself is at points
inventive, creative, and obvious.
Throughout the seven interviews
covering an hour and a half, a number of obvious odd behaviors by the
woman interweave with her story. Sometimes she asks for tea and
others for coffee. One day she has a bruise on her face, but the
next day it is gone. She re-discusses topics, but her opinion
changes if asked on different days. Two days in a row, when asked
the same question, she repeats the same answer, word for word.
Eventually the police begin to suspect her, when Simon's body is
discovered in the basement of their home. But not everything is as
it seems...
On a single play-through, much of the
effect, of the planning of the writing is certainly lost. Hints and
references are missed as the player is forced to discover the truth
in this mishmash fashion. For instance, on the fifth day there is a
segment where she is provided a guitar and asked to sing. The logic
leading to this clip, where the police would ask the woman whose
husband has been murder to play them a tune (and who is also their
foremost suspect), is obtuse, but the song she sings is full of hints
for the plot as a whole.
The writing is sometimes well
constructed, other times cliched. Hannah's dialogue is often
uninspired, but the many hints and allegorical references to the
truth sprinkled throughout surpass the other components of the game.
Finally the truth is revealed after
Hannah is forced to take a lie detector test. Since the game never
includes the questions asked by the detective(s), the player is
forced to conceded they have no clue what is happening, as Hannah
answers yes and no to a number of undescribed questions.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of
the game is that many of the clips are boring. Imagine watching an
hour and a half long movie where three quarters is irrelevant and
dull.
It's tedious because the game only has
one actress, always in the same place, and speaking in the same
measured tones. It would be difficult to call what she is doing
acting, because there is nothing to act around. She's reading a
script that has no emotion, no excitement, no conflict. Is she a
good actress is an impossible question to answer, because of the
set-up, but probably not. She is never convincingly disturbed,
overjoyed, or angry. All her lines are delivered with a relatively
deadpan style, which fails to engage the viewer.
The worst bit: the last day of the
interview, where the story is finally explained is about one third of
the entire game. So much of the game is the answer, but finding it,
piecing it all together is a chore, since the whole project of
viewing similar, repetitive video segments with many of them
unimportant and dull, ends up being as the video itself: tiresome.
In conclusion, I couldn't recommend
this game, but if one is interested, here is the link
to a video that shows all the clips in order.
Watching this is no worse or better
than the game, and that I feel no different about it, illustrates the
game doesn't need an interactive component, and therefore isn't much
of a game, at all.
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