Her Story (2015) (PC) (Sam Barlow)
0For those of us who believe in the still largely untapped potential of Full Motion Video, the release of Sam Barlow's intricate and fascinating new adventure game "Her Story" is great news indeed. The unique premise of the game is that the player character is given access to a database of fragmented old police recordings originating from a murder investigation. By watching the videos (which have been conveniently transcribed/subtitled as well as "tagged" in the database), new keywords naturally present themselves and it becomes possibly to delve ever deeper into the database and discover as many clips as possible. The overarching objective is of course to piece together what actually happened, while being constantly on the lookout for discrepancies in the testimony which might shed some light on whether the suspect (intelligently played by actress Viva Seifert) is lying or not.
Even on the surface level this is a clever and innovative approach to the whodunnit adventure, but Barlow doesn't stop there. Partly a commentary on our media-fuelled voyeuristic fascination with spectacular court cases, "Her Story" also turns the player's inquisitive gaze back on itself and explores (among other things) our tendency to squeeze an often messy reality into neat little narrative constructs and reduce real people to mere heroes and villains.
Developer interview with Rock Paper Shotgun:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/23/text-lies-and-videotape-her-story-interview/
Offical website:
http://www.herstorygame.com/
Steam page:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/368370/