Her Story

Unique FMV murder mystery where you discover more and more of what happened as you use a search engine to locate a series of videos from police interrogation. About one evening to complete it, so short but very well done. A big "aaaaha moment" when you figure it out...Recommended 8/10.

My wife doesn't play games and I thought this could be a fun cooperative experience for us. We were both engrossed for the 2 hours and change we played through it, several times exclaiming as a big reveal happened and the story unfolded. Think of it as a fun alternative to renting a movie and as a personal murder mystery party.

Before trying it I thought i would spend at most 3,4 minutes in this game, but after a few videos played me and two friends got really hooked in the story. very nice experience.

Her story is an experience i highly recommend going in blind, with the least amount of external help possible. The way this game shines is on the theory crafting you make while playing it, and how the game naturally leaves you on the trail to discover the main story without much difficulty.

The main premise is you're investigating an old case that goes way deeper than meets the eye, I spent these 5 hours playing this game paying so much attention, and got really invested in the story.

The only thing I didn't like that much is 100%ing the game after finishing it, kiiinda tedious...

9,5!

Her Story remains Sam Barlow's best work and at this point I'm not certain he can ever top this work.

Brilliant story, acting, game mechanism. I personally enjoyed all Sam Barlow games including this, Telling Lies, and Immortality, but this one is probably the best.

Her Story turned out to be an excellent game to play together with someone.

Mechanically, the game gives you access to a series of interviews conducted with a suspect in a murder case. The catch is that the interviews are cut into roughly 10-second-long pieces, and you can’t access them directly. Instead, you must use text search to find all the pieces containing a given word or phrase in the subtitles. To add to the challenge, you can only see the first five videos returned, so searching for something like “the” won’t get you very far.

You don’t have any specific goal in the game, but naturally, you want to watch all the pieces, reconstruct the interviews, and piece together what happened.

We stuck to a simple yet effective flow: watch the found videos, jot down any words that catch our attention, search for those words, and repeat the process. As I said, the game is ideal to play together. For one, the videos are short and easy to digest, and since the game requires little direct interaction, both players get essentially the same experience. Moreover, you can divide the tasks—one person keeps track of the words to search, while the other operates the game. This way, both players stay engaged, making it a true team effort.

Plot-wise, you won’t uncover a groundbreaking story, but it has its fair share of twists and turns. That said, the unique approach feels fresh and keeps you hooked until the very end.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498434070

If you enjoy novel game mechanics / unconventional storytelling, this is worth playing. It was recommended to me as being similar to Return of the Obra Dinn. It isn't, really, other than being a detective story. The search mechanic makes you think of solutions in a way I haven't experienced in a game before. That said, I think the concept could be put to better use. You end up using brute force more than logical deduction. Elements of the ending were satisfying, but I'm disappointed that so many of the clues I gathered didn't matter in the end.

"Her Story" is a innovative take on the FMV game and I really liked it. The cyber sleuth game play—although simple—was super addictive, enough for me to beat the game in one sitting. I love any game where I can take notes and while the "puzzles" are not big brain stuff, "Her Story" made me feel like at least a detective in training. Check "Her Story" out if it looks up your alley. 4/5

i played a lot of this and i probably still didnt get everything

Unique gameplay used to unravel great story.

Very Good.

Incredibly involving, oddly satisfying. Fitting the pieces together was like watching and odd picture taking form in front of you. Loved it and i like it doesn't take your hand or insult your intelligence. Also you can finish the game whenever you feel like you are done with it. It helps that i love unique experiences. 8.5/10

I loved the gameplay; searching for words to find the missing clips was quite fun. It didn't feel like a simple typing game as you do have pay attention to what was being said and extrapolate what word is important, and sometimes you can even get a word from visual observation which was pretty cool.

I really loved the 90s aesthetics as well. I looked up how the dev achieved this and it was a pretty cool process.

Viva Seifert gave a brilliant performance as the woman being interviewed. She really elevated the game and kept you captivated to the screen.

The story itself was quite well written. Very intriguing mystery that had me at the edge of my seat. The big revelation was a simple premise that's been done numerous times in other media and yet here it was executed wonderfully. Piecing together her story (heh) from the clips on this fictional police database was pretty fun.

Overall, a really cool game. It really was quite an experience.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Stars

Nice short game -- played it with my wife watching over my shoulder, which added a great co-op element as we went through the mystery together.

Definitely not for everyone -- it is non-linear and the story resolution may not satisfy everyone. But if you like unique narratives, and unique game play elements, this is worth the couple hours to play through.

I didn't understand anything but 10/10 game.

A very neat concept. I felt lukewarm about the acting and some of the writing. Those elements constitute most of the game, so I feel lukewarm overall.

Be patient, pay attention and take your time. It'll click... It might take days or weeks, might be a few minutes after playing or on the bus home, but just take it all in and try and figure it out before looking up any guides or reviews. There's a lot to unpack!

Beautiful story, good game, lovely narrative. Would definitely recommend to others that enjoy unfolding stories.

Yes.

It is certainly unique. The game does not hold you by hand and you are free to discover the story in your own pace. It's great to play with a friend and reach a conclusion together.

I've watched others play this investigative game before but it's still so much fun to dig through the evidence yourself.

beautiful story
interesting game style that rewards taking a few notes, crossreferencing, attention to little details.
100% may take some checking online and tenacity, but well worth seeing all those green database squares :P Wonderful performance and story without.

A fun game in a rather unique format.

What sets this game apart from other games of its genre, is the fact that its not easy to just joyfully run-through this game.

Got the achievement for finding 100% of the clips. Still trying to wrap my head around the story.
I have my version of events that make sense to me based on what was said but admittedly, there's some physical evidence that goes against my story.
Overall, this game is a roller coaster. Enjoy it.

For some reason, Steam has recorded me as playing this for 60 minutes, but I recorded my playthrough and it clocked in at about 4 and a half hours. Not sure why that's happened, but besides the point.

This isn't a very long game, as I say about 4 and a half hours to see absolutely all four corners of it, but it fits so much into the short runtime. I'd go so far as to say that any longer than the 2 - 3 hours and it would start to overstay its welcome somewhat.

I'm not gonna say too much other than that if you like games like Return of the Obra Dinn, you should definitely play this!

It's pretty fine

I had heard about this game a lot. I always thought that, what kind of a game is that. It looked silly to me. But the moment I got into the story...
It is really a good and challenging game. This is a game that takes non-linear story-telling into the next level.
Good Job!

Captivating puzzle game with only difference that the final picture would not appear on the screen. All the pieces you have to put by yourself, take notes or simply remember to unveil the secrets behind the investigation. Recommend to do it in one go.

Fun to put the pieces together. Not finished yet but I think I've discovered most, if not all, of the main points.

I was really enjoying the game. The game has a feature that lets you add videos to your "current session", i.e. your active window, but I didn't see a way to remove them. After having painstakingly gone through dozens (hundreds?) of videos, labelling all of them with various custom tags, I wanted to start a new clip collection, so that I could try to see all videos from a particular interview session.

So, I clicked on the button "Delete user session data".

It proceeded to delete my entire save, wiping out hours of work without even an explanation. Thanks, developer.

Enjoyable game!

no direction or point. not my cup of tea

I played the game a longer time ago, but I remember it was a unique experience, unique concept and mechanics. You need to figure out search keywords in order to discover fragments of videos, in order to gather the available data related to a murder case. And then it's your turn to interpret the data and come up with an interpretation.
I don't think I have ever played anything quite like this.

perfect game to finish in one shot.
I played with my wife like it was a movie night and we cooperate to reveal the plot.
Great time

What do you want from me? It's an FMV game. It has all the interactivity of scrolling through a DVD menu. But, hey, it's a fun little yarn while it lasts and maybe that's alright. Good to play with someone else to bounce ideas off of them, especially if they aren't enamoured of video games generally.

I remember and still love this game for its unique playstyle.
It really impressed me and made me buy Immorality too.

I would love to see more games like this on the market.

Reviewing dailies meta strat. I like the twist and want to play Immortality now.

I love the concept and it's executed really well here, setting wise. Surprised at how short it was, though it would probably get a bit more tedious.

Wow, I started playing this game due to a random recommendation and a steam sale. I was not expecting much from the game but after an hour I found myself engrossed in the story. The game is definitely best played blind as it will give you a unique path towards discovering what happened. The achievements are fun and to find the last couple clips I watched a compilation of the whole set of clips in order to finally piece together anything that I missed. Some may not like how basic the concept is but for less than 10 dollars it is definitely worth playing if you like games in this genre or if you enjoy solving mysteries.

Creative, intriguing and thought-provoking. But it doesn't excel in none of these aspects. It's more of an experience than a game. For those looking for a different experience

I most definitely was NOT expecting this when I bought this game. Loved all the intricacies in the stories.

Even after "finishing" the game, you still have many versions to the story, each with it's own set of problems. You are then left to make sense of this case on your own. The game has no "official" or canonical ending.

Very thoughtful game which leaves you to investigate and draw your own conclusions, very engaging.

I recommend Her Story for investigation fans!

Her Story has you uncover a twisting narrative by searching keywords in a database. The cool part is that you only get to see the first 5 clips by chronological order, so the obvious terms have too many hits, so you don't see the key information from the later clips. Instead, you have to find your way to that information by trying various terms you hear in the clips and following those lines of terms.

The game doesn't have a fixed ending. You can try to uncover every clip, or you can wrap up when you feel you have the whole story.

Innovative concept of the game, nicely engaging with my natural obsession of discovering all pieces of the story! The story itself was crazy enough to make its discovery rather entangled exercise. BUT. It's *no good* to set its own rules by the game itself and then playing a dirty trick with the player by deviating them! (Without spoiling, will just say that I'm pointing my blaming finger at YOU, lie detector!) I surely wasn't amused by being tricked this way and admit that it has made the game not 100% solvable for me by means of pure deduction and reasoning, hence had to search for spoilers for cracking that part.

P.S. Switching screen style to modern look in the options was a GENIUS feature saving my eyes from prospect of excruciating pain! Applauding the game designers for that.

7 guitars out 10

nearly a decade later and this game still stands as a unique experience. i always look for games that will fill the gap in the genre this game aimed to fill. leaved you wanting more, both to its favor and its detriment. a must for those who play games wanting to really feel like a detective.

What I Liked:
- Fun to play with others
- Unique gameplay
- Took enough hours to be worth the sale price of $5
- Had both overt and subtle hints to push you along, so you never got stuck

What I Didn't Like
- The ending was not as satisfying as I wanted it to be
- There is a segment that you can't get to yourself through keyword searches that seems like it will be super exciting but ends up being a let down.

Overall, a really really awesome game that I want more people to play, so I can talk to them about it.

Search through a database of short clips to piece together a story. I don't see a whole lot of replay value unless you want to see everything, but it was fun enough to go in blind.