Developer: Sam Barlow
Publisher: Sam Barlow
Rrp: £4.99
Released: 24th June 2015
Available on Steam, GOG.com and their own site
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
FMV… those three letters still send a shiver down many a gamers spine. There was a time when a game having FMV (Full Motion Video for those not in the know) was something to be proud of, triple A publishers would tout it on the front of box art. Then the tide turned and people realised just how badly acted and shot the footage was. Older games that had FMV got relegated to bargain bins and the industry as a whole avoided it.
Lately though several indie developers seem to have taken a liking to it again. Cameras that can record high quality footage are now within the average persons budget and independent developers are taking advantage of that. It helps that they aren’t constricted to the same few genres that triple A developers and publishers seem to feel they need to cover. This means they can explore whole new possibilities of gameplay and create new genres, Her Story is one such game.
Her Story is a game in which you look at short FMV clips trying to piece together the events and understand what actually happened. These videos are part of a Police archive that you gained access to, seemingly through legal means. Each video is quite short lasting about three minutes at its longest and any you haven’t seen are given a icon of an eye.
You add the clips that you feel are relevant to your session, to which I haven’t found an upper number. The game ends once you have found the right ones and added them to your session, I don’t think if the videos have to be in chronological order because I swear I had them out of order and it accepted them.
It seems that the LOGIC database (the one you use in the game) has some limitations and will only allow the player to view five clips for any given search, this means the player has to listen carefully to what is said by the person in the video and find further terms and refine the results.
This game will test your powers of deduction, reasoning and memory… unless like me you kept a pen and paper to hand to jot notes with. There is a ‘Query History’ function available so that you can see what terms you’ve already searched up, but a pen and paper still helps.
You can also add tags to video’s to help with your searching later, as you may need to rewatch a video to check your facts.
What’s interesting about this game is that you have the whole desktop to play with, although its been restricted for a guest user. You can open text documents, look through the recycle bin etc, none of it helps you particularly (with exception of the text documents, which act as tutorials).
I also had to like the little touches where the creator has injected a few things that ‘date’ the footage, mentions of older technology, the way the actor is dressed even a few terms spoken give the videos a very 90’s feel.
Sadly my own screen and video capture software refuses to work with Her Story, meaning that while I can continue to create screen shots I can’t give an example of the video’s being played… Sorry.
This is one of those titles that brings up that nasty question of ‘what is a game’. To me this is a game, sure it doesn’t have a failure state, but then neither does Kirby’s Epic Yarn and I doubt anyone will claim that’s not a game. True it is about watching videos, but its watching videos to piece together a story, hunting for clues etc. Either way I think its pretty good and a unique concept, I enjoyed having my brain taxed trying to work out the stories plot.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Papers Please
Murdered: Soul Suspect
Cloud Chamber
