Her Story is an interactive film-based video game made by Sam Barlow. In the game, the player is given access to a computer with a database of video clips from a series of police interviews, which they watch to solve the mystery behind a man’s disappearance and eventual murder. The person being interviewed in these videos seems to be a woman named Hannah, but as the player pieces together more of the mystery, they realize that this is not entirely true. Because of its mature themes and its engrossing narrative, Her Story is definitely targeted towards young adults who are fans of story-driven games, especially mysteries.
The simple search-based database that forms the core gameplay experience of Her Story
HOW THE SIMPLEST MECHANICS CREATE THE MOST COMPLEX OF NARRATIVES
Given that the core premise is so simple at first glance, it would be a fair question to ask how Her Story is much different from just watching a typical police procedural TV show. That’s where the open-ended non-linear nature of the game’s interaction comes in.
The ingenuity of Her Story is that it that has a very simple gameplay. Players are literally just playing videos on a computer. They get to search for terms that might be present in a video and view the first 5 search results by chronological order. Given that the core premise is so simple at first glance, it would be a fair question to ask how Her Story is much different from just watching a typical police procedural TV show. That’s where the open-ended non-linear nature of the game’s interaction comes in.
In his essay on Narrative Architecture, Jenkins walks readers through the distinction b/w plot and story. Plot is simply the set of events that we see or hear as they’re presented to us whereas story is the viewer’s mental model of the chronology of those events. This simple notion is at the core of Her Story’s design: players have access to all the puzzle pieces (the video clips) that construct the game’s narrative. But they don’t know anything about the order in which to go through these pieces. This means that they have to emulate an actual detective’s role in that they’re thrown deep into a mystery and just have to figure things out on their own by parsing all the information that comes to them (plot) into a coherent flowing explanation (story).
…The open-ended nature of the game’s mechanics means that every player may find these clips in a completely different order. This makes players feel that their experience to playing the game is inherently unique to themselves…(and) helps to create a uniquely personal interaction while playing the game.
Thus, Her Story’s simple mechanics enrich the game’s narrative in two ways: first, rather than passively consuming the content in the video clips (as you might for a standard TV show), players are forced to constantly theorize and draw new inferences from any clips they watch in order to access more data through new search terms. The game virtually puts them in charge of teasing out the narrative and they’re made to feel like an actual detective.
Secondly, the open-ended nature of the game’s mechanics means that every player may find these clips in a completely different order. This makes players feel that their experience to playing the game is inherently unique to themselves, since they unearth videos in a specific order and tie together clues in manners unique to how their mind works. Even though players are playing as a fictional character, this mechanic helps to create a uniquely personal interaction while playing the game, and makes the narrative that much more immersive.
MYSTERY FEEDS NARRATIVE, NARRATIVE FEEDS MYSTERY
Unlike other games where the mystery might be a means to an end for the narrative, Her Story is unique in that its mystery is the narrative and its narrative is the mystery.
Since the entire game rests on learning what happened with Hannah (and her twin sister Eve), Her Story’s fun requires the player to explore the often symbiotic relationship between Hannah and Eve’s narratives and the mystery of their dead partner. Unlike other games where the mystery might be a means to an end for the narrative, Her Story is unique in that its mystery is the narrative and its narrative is the mystery.
The player has to dig deep into Hannah (or Eve)’s narrative in order to figure out more of the mystery…At points, the sheer absurdity of the story leaves players guessing as to whether Eve is even real or a mere figment of Hannah’s delusion. Thus, the designers use the game’s narrative to make their mystery more alluring and utilize the mystery to make Hannah and Eve’s narrative more immersive.
This is seen from the start and goes all the way to end of the game. At the very beginning, the game designers tactfully place the prewritten query of ‘MURDER’ in the database’s searchbar. The vast majority of players (including myself!) are immediately drawn to search this query, and what they find are a series of short clips that set up the basic mystery. Then, the player has to dig deep into Hannah (or Eve)’s narrative in order to figure out more of the mystery. This not just includes what they’re saying but also how they’re saying it, their behavior, reactions and even contextual clues like which interview they said it in and what order these interviews took. But in this process, the background narrative of Hannah and Eve’s complicated childhood only serves to make the mystery more complex. At points, the sheer absurdity of the story leaves players guessing as to whether Eve is even real or a mere figment of Hannah’s delusion. Thus, the designers use the game’s narrative to make their mystery more alluring and utilize the mystery to make Hannah and Eve’s narrative more immersive.
In short, Her Story’s simple and open-ended mechanics, combined with its seamlessly interwoven mystery and narrative, craft a unique experience for the player where they’re constantly puzzled about what happened but always engaged in learning more.
