Her Story
Storytelling Reinvention:
employs the act of searching through a database as a storytelling technique, slowly revealing pieces of narrative information
Game Information
Release Date: June 24, 2015
Developer: Sam Barlow
Publisher: Steam Greenlight
Rating: Teen
Genre: Database, Exploratory
Price: Steam: $5.99
Website: http://herstorygame.com
Her Story, released on June 24, 2015, was created by Sam Barlow of Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories fame. He left Climax Studios to “work on the kind of material he wanted to work on” and became an independent developer (Edge). According to Sam Barlow, he knew “it had to be spent on something he loved, and because it might be his last act of rebellion…he drew from the publishers’ rejection pile” (Edge).This was the idea behind Her Story.
Sam Barlow took it further by combining database, real video, in a series of police interviews for the player to experience. He wanted to create a game that could be “understood by anyone” (Edge). He ended up creating a storyline to go along with the police interview process and created web documentation for every character of the game (Edge). Her Story is a crime fiction game that has a non-linear story where players take on the role of a person in the game. It is interactive with the game “centering on a series of seven fictional police interviews from 1994" (Smith; Rad). The object of the game is to go through the interviews in order to solve the mystery of Hannah’s missing husband and what happened (Wikipedia).
The development of Her Story was funded by the support of the Indie fund (Smith). What makes this game so innovative and enticing is that it is leading the way for game designers, directors, and the industry to think about new ways of puzzle solving. In Her Story, the player becomes a part of the game by watching the live action videos and by interacting in a way that is groundbreaking to the way that the users think. The game is a pure origination and gives new meaning to video games.
References:
1. Contributors, Wikipedia. Her Story (video game). 7 February 2016. 17 February 2016.
2. Rad, Chloi. IGN. 3 June 2015. 15 February 2016.
3. Smith, Scott. Her Story Game. 2014. 17 February 2016.
4. Staff, Edge. Gamesradar. 29 September 2015. 15 February 2016.
Research: Neita Hopkins
