For this critical play, I decided to play “Her Story” on iOS. This interactive narrative game invites players to unravel the mystery of a woman named Hannah and her identical twin Eve, through the lens of a series of fragmented police interviews from 1994. The game’s mechanics focus on perusing an old computer interface where video clips of these interviews are stored. Through this format, the game builds an intricate narrative web that demands the player must resolve.
The game intertwines narrative arcs and loops with its gameplay mechanics, giving the player a unique sense of control over the pacing of the game. The narrative arc forms the backbone of the story, outlining the trajectory of Hannah and Eve’s story from Simon’s disappearance to the shocking reveal of his murder. However, this narrative arc isn’t presented in a linear fashion. The mechanics of searching keywords and tagging video clips make the player a kind of detective, piecing together snippets of the story in an order defined by their unique investigatory path. The game’s mechanics are instrumental in supporting these loops, encouraging the player to probe deeper into the narrative with each clip, repeating their analysis when necessary.
This intentionally designed dynamic further bolsters the overall sense of mystery. This fragmented narrative design fuels the intrigue, allowing the player to discover the truth at their pace and order. In this sense, the gameplay mechanics themselves become a narrative loop, as the player continually revisits the database to find new pieces of the puzzle.
“Her Story” illustrates a masterful marriage of narrative arcs and loops with gameplay mechanics to create an immersive mystery. The narrative arc provides a sense of progression, while the loops maintain engagement and emphasize key themes. The mechanics serve both to reinforce the loops and to advance the arc, generating a multi-dimensional narrative experience that relies on the player’s curiosity and deductive ability. The game demonstrates that narratives in gaming are not static entities but dynamic constructs that players can interact with, shape, and ultimately, solve.
