Stories Untold

Absolute cinema

Love the ambiance and sound design. Second episode is my favorite, I loved figuring out the machines and hearing the doctor over the radio only really added to the atmosphere, and episode was 1 simple but effective and eerie, the writing almost beautiful.


Episode 3 was good but i could could barely read the manual, it was so bad i had to look up half the codes. I liked the story telling through the radio and i usually love puzzles like that but it was literally impossible to read some of the manual and it took me out of the immersion to keep having to look up what its supposed to say. Witch is a real shame because i really loved the voice work, the creepy monotone voices of the radio, and the feeling of being a sitting duck while you hear the progression of things going on and you can do nothing but work.


I'm mixed about episode 4. I liked that you had to do the puzzles from the previous episodes in a different context to regain your memories, that was very clever. But I don't like the actual story and reveal. I do think having the events of a story not be real and instead were a way to interpret the world around you when you were in an altered state of mind CAN be done in well, but this was.... not that. There simply wasn't enough tying it cohesively together, separating it into smaller different games really didn't help. And the story that was 'fake', the aliens, was much more interesting than a basic 'oops it was a coma'. And while 2 and 3 go together very well, 1 doesn't have any overlay with either, so mushing them all into one story just felt very out of nowhere. I think episode 1 and 4 could have been there own thing if they have been more focused on and given more connection and a few tweaks, and then have 2 and 3 be there own thing just as they are.


Overall the gameplay, atmosphere and puzzles were really solid, but i would only reccomend it in a "sum of your parts is greater than the whole" type of way.

I love this concept and especially enjoyed chapter one. HOWEVER, the amount of precision you need to have without any help understanding the puzzles is frustrating. And I encountered a game breaking bug in episode 4 that prevents me from finishing the game. That's irritating. I even walked away from the game and came back to it but no, still not working. If you're not frustrated by tedium then this game may speak to you. But the game breaking bugs are frankly unforgivable on a game of this age and overall steam rating.

Dear esther in 80s

This game is seriously super good. There are 4 episodes, and each one has a different theme and gameplay style, yet they all manage to relate back to the same story. All 4 episodes are really good and definitely had me hooked from the very beginning (my favorite was episode 3). I really appreciate that the devs incorporated so many different gameplay styles (e.g. text-based adventure, code decoder, adventure puzzle game, etc.)--it made each episode feel really unique.

This game strongly reminds me of Firewatch--in both games, it is implied that something sinister is afoot, and you as the protagonist are completing various (often unrelated) tasks, and the story unfolds around you as you live your life doing everyday tasks. Both have very compelling storylines that just reel you in, and you can't stop playing until the game is done. Some parts of the game also remind me of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes where you have to consult manuals and follow directions based on what you see in the game.

The achievements are very easy. There are comprehensive guides online you can follow to ensure 100% completion in the first playthrough. It took me about 2.5 hours to 100% the game.

I was seriously freaked out by some parts, as the game is really engrossing and creates a spooky atmosphere really well. Definitely a must play for horror genre lovers who enjoy interactive stories (e.g. The Walking Dead series) with some puzzle elements.

<3

This game told an all-too-common story in a unique way. The actual gameplay was an interesting combination of text adventure, point-and-click, and puzzles. While I pieced together the reality of the story in the final half of Chapter 3, the path to getting to that point and the unraveling of the truth in the final chapter was a great ride.

The most frustrating part of the game was using the microfilm reader in Chapter 3. Until I realized there was a way to zoom and clarify the images (the white sliders above the panning and rotating buttons), I was guessing at some of the text lines that I had to read. That chapter took longer than it should have, as a result. Total playtime for the full story was ~3 hours, plus another 30 minutes to back track for missed achievements.

Thrilling short horror stories with an unexpected twist. You need to power through some hardcore number puzzles but the overall experience is worth it, especially when the game is 90% off.

Quiet unusual, not a normal game experience, there are no jumpscares or lots of thing happening but you feel very tense and invested all the way. Awesome little short game.

they tell you the story don't worry

Unfortunately the game broke for me on the first section (while streaming at that) so I cannot give it a thumbs up. Been on the store too long to have game breaking bugs unpatched.

4 stories, takes from 30mn to 1h to complete each. Very nice visuals, cozy 80's horror/scifi vibe, light puzzle solving. Don't expect a lot of actual gameplay, but if you're looking for a short atmospheric horror game, Stories Untold is perfect. get out of the car

Stories Untold is an episodic mixed-media adventure game with the sleek presentation of a Netflix horror series.

I say mixed-media as while the game's meat is text adventure, it is presented in the context of an external 3D space that sees you manipulating equipment outside of the 'game' and looking for clues in your environment. This is uncannily clever and I find myself disappointed that no one has hit upon it before. If it had been done right, the game could have been flawless with groundbreaking immersion for what is predominantly a text adventure.

But let's be clear: this game is not flawless. I can tell it was made by a small team and not enough time was put into fleshing out the text parser. It is one of those games that is looking for answers that are sometimes obvious only to the developer, and commits the sin of occasionally not giving the player the necessary clues to progress. The story is very rigid, and these two things combined break the immersion they're trying so hard to cultivate. You will on occasion likely have to reference a walkthrough in frustration. That said, buried within all this is a story that is genuinely horrifying and sticks with you after the game ends, as well it should!

As a proof-of-concept this is great, and I recommend the experience especially if you are a game developer looking for inspiration. For most people it will be a novel game that is unlike anything else, but it probably won't land well with everyone. The spoiler-free walkthrough available on Steam's community page smooths the process of playing the game considerably so I can suggest giving it a try with a freer conscience than I might otherwise; especially if text adventures were well before your time.

TLDR: Stories Untold modernizes the text adventure in ways that feel obvious and elevates the genre but doesn't do enough with its text parser to be more than just a proof-of-concept. Occasionally frustrating, the mystery of the horror story and how it's presented keeps you invested. In order to truly be great the game needs a more complex parser with more branching story paths but this is a good start and they are on the right track.

It's certainly an interesting take on a horror game.
The game is split into 4 chapters or minigames that each has their own game mechanic that makes them unique to eachother.
It's hard to talk about the gameplay elements of each chapter without spoiling things that will be revealed.

But the game does an excellent job of having you interact with various machinery and solving various "puzzles" to progress the game, and these were quite fun to do.
The game uses the "text based game" mechanic quite a lot and is done fairly decently, however by using this archaic type of game, it also comes with all of the issues that text based games had.
Where the most common message you'll be seeing is "i'm sorry i don't understand what you're meaning" since you have to be quite specific on what you need to write, so if English isn't your first language, you can have a hard time figuring out what sentence the devs wanted you to use.
But when it's used in the game, it is still supported by great atmosphere and genuine tension.

Graphically it looks great and each chapter is distinct, not much to fault on that department.

The sounds are great and further drags you into the atmosphere and immersion of the game, only critique i could say is that the "startup" sound of the textbased game is immensly hard to listen to, but i dont know if that was made to sound authentic or to be unnerving.

The story is you trying to unravel some sort of incident that has happened or is happening and while it does have a lot of intrigue at the start, the end result was still fine, but less than i was expecting.
But at the same time, it was predictable and i had already started to piece things togethere between the second and third chapter.

In regards to horror, i'd say the best in that department was chapter 1 and 2, the first for the usual uneasy horror feel and the second chapter for more the discomfort of what you're watching.
The other chapters didn't really feel as good on that department.
While the 3rd was the weakest on horror, it was the most fun in it's gameplay mechanics.

While i still will recommend it to people, i got it on sale for dirt cheap, i wouldn't probably have bought it at full price.
So my recommendation is if you're looking for some horror games that tries to do something outside the ordinary, i'd say give this a shot, but perhaps at a sale.

4 short creepy stories told through text adventure and more. It's a love letter to old school adventure games, 80's horror, and powerfully effective, especially as you start to infer that perhaps the stories aren't so separate after all...

While the premise is interesting, and I always love a good unreliable narrator, the technical limitations of the text-based segments, vague puzzles, and rushed ending left me feeling just "okay" about this game. This game is not worth $10, and at the 90% discount I purchased it at, I still considered refunding.

The story starts slow, ramps up with an interesting cliffhanger and fun, engaging game play, then comes to a halt and dumps the rest of the exposition on the player in an unsatisfying ending. Aside from wrapping up too quickly, the story also comes off as hypocritical because it refuses to acknowledge other characters' mistakes and insists that the protagonist is solely responsible for the central conflict. I can't take the messaging seriously when complicity is excused in favor of creating more perfect victims.

I can only recommend playing this game with a spoiler-free guide on standby, because it really was that annoying to advance the story in multiple instances. It had the right idea using Episodes 2 and 3 to build intrigue and subvert the players' expectations, but the negatives make the final product just okay; don't expect much from the story and just have some fun with the game play.

I don't remember how Stories Untold wound up in my Steam library. I'd probably have clicked right over it to another forgotten sale item if the trailer's voice acting didn't grab me so quickly. But something clicked and despite being tired of games, too tired to even start, something pulled me in. And if you let it, it'll give you a fantastic creepy ride that's never grisly but instead hair-raising and thought provoking.

I'll admit I nearly bounced right off it, though. The end of episode one had a prompt that disappeared, and I couldn't recall it so I gave up and lost progress. And episode 2 has a LOT of strobing effects that made me feel like if I wasn't yet epileptic, I might be about to find out I was. But I blocked the screen for some of these and powered past. (seriously though, don't play if you think that's a problem for you; that bit really needs an off-switch to pop up early on).

It's probably only 2-3 hours in total if you use a guide; maybe even less. But the voice acting is superb, the music on point for the mood it's trying to evoke and the scripting was tight and concise enough to get its point across without too much diversion or distraction.

This game bad touched me emotionally.

I didn't expect this game to be this good, all the chapters are haunting and the gameplay is really creative, plus the overall narrative of the game left me speechless.

The horror of Command Not Recognized.

Played up to chapter two and then got stuck at the text adventure part.

I rarely play text adventure games, but then I feel like I don't have that many options in making choices and it seems you have to type what devs want somewhat closely to advance the story. I guess that's how most text adventure games work, but then waiting until the error message is fully typed out every time I get the input wrong is really annoying.

Whenever you backtrack to an area, you have to wait for all the sentences about the scene to be typed out before you are allowed to make any input as well. I guess this kind of inconvenience existed long ago, but this is 2024. Please stop wasting player's time.

Story was pretty subpar from what I've seen in chapter 1 and 2. Doesn't matter even if it's a dollar on sale. Your time itself is worth way more than a dollar. Spend your time on something else. Refunded.

What a spooky game, it turns out the character was drunk the entire time!

Don't buy this game, it's not worth $10. At the time of this review, the game is 90% off and costs $0.99, for that price I guess buy it if you plan on taking a shot every time the game tries to do something scary and fails miserably. Just don't drive your car after playing, especially if you have a family member in the vehicle. Don't go into the light!

Bad game, don't play.

go in blind, try not to use a walkthrough

I don't have much pity or remorse for drunk drivers. Stupidity isn't an excuse. The game would have been much better with a different plot or a likable character.

brilliant game, however the puzzles were wayyyy too hard

Fun and short. There's a lot of good tension for how quick the game is and it does a good job of implementing the text-based gameplay along with other mechanics that still keep the text central to the game. I've done one play through and have not completed all the achievements so imagine there is some replayability if you want them all.

Starts off super strong with a great premise, unfortunately stuff that would have been more fun to make your own conclusions with with gets explained away in a drawn out predictable manner, while also disregarding any creative fun it had in the first half as part of a narrow conclusion in the later half.

I still had fun throughout the game anyway. If text adventure games don't scare you away, give this game a try as it's an impressively creative start.

From here it's spoilers below.

The first episode alone in particular feels like a standalone idea. Rather than iterating on it, the overall story leans into a completely different plot direction. That direction is interesting only until the last bit of episode 3 where there's a plot twist that kills all the build up it was working towards. It feels like rushed writing to not realize potential in both the fiction of the character's mind along with the supposed reality they were in. I believe good writing builds upon itself without wasting parts or details and it's really disappointing to be snapped out of what was otherwise an engrossing premise.

What I believe would have been better, is to keep us in doubt what was real with seeing how fantastically weird things could have gotten. I still want to know what could have been in episode 4 regarding a new episode premise rather than a slow rehash. Maybe our character could have been a programmer for the game we're playing or something else creative. Instead we got a pretty drastic shift with episode 4 that tossed out our sense of agency or conflict, ultimately presenting a predictable climax that only succeeds in spectacle. It's easy for me to still feel it was worthwhile, but disappointing that it didn't maintain the same standard of creativity throughout.

Conclusion: Absolutely worthwhile up until the last episode. The last episode feels like it was either rushed or too eager to conclude. The end of episode 3 makes a quick cast of irrelevance to what was being built upon to that point and continues from there to focus on a slowly delivered and predictable answer that robs any mystery from the whole experience. You won't be leaving Untold Stories completed feeling like there's more to look into or dots to connect that leaves you excited to try experiencing again.

TL/DR: This game is like a meal at a greasy spoon restaurant. It's fantastic to taste, but is also likely to leave you feeling like something could have been off. Hopefully it settles well, but you'll be sure to tell others about how good it was anyway.

Love this little puzzle/horror game. It was very fun to figure out the puzzles and progress in the story. Finished it + all achievements in just under 3 hours, which is fine for what it is. I enjoyed it.

Really cool game with a good story.

Stories Untold starts off as an awesome horror text adventure that whets the player's appetite for more spine-tingling thrills. But, rather than continue with the established format, No Code confusingly opts for a complete change of pace with frustrating interactive tasks and first person exploration with perfectly rendered worlds that lose sight of the main appeal of text-based games: the player's ability to imagine. The narrative also unfortunately runs afoul of one of the most demoralising literary cliches (akin to Return to Monkey Island's 'meta' nonsense) which spoils the initially wonderful tension.

great game

Great little story game.

4/5 - Good

Very interesting little game. The first episode might be a bit off-putting, but persevere, it gets a lot better.

3-hour spooky drunk driving PSA

There is no love here.

Great game

yeag

This game has the vibe of a horror movie anthology in the best way. Great for a night of spooky fun, and a lot of the writing is quite good.

go to back
go to generator
go around back
go to around back
use generator
look at generator

HOW DO I GET TO THE FUCKING GENERATOR

Great Game

Good story, with interesting puzzles and great ambience

Fantastic little game. Probably 2 - 3 hours for a playthrough if you aren't rushing.

Picked up for a buck and it's the best dollar I've spent in a while.

Very interesting, sometimes is contraintuitive and you can get stuck and need a guide. But, overall, its and enjoyable experience.

The story is great, interesting and all. The gameplay/game itself is ass tho

Awesome game! very short but rewarding! Resist the urge to look up answers sometimes you just need to "look around" for clues.. or try saying the same thing in a different way.. very cool

A very good game, combining horror elements with fnatasy, sci fi, and thriller. Its a narrative game, with some light puzzle solving here and there, but nothing too complicated.

Spookie ookie retro excellence

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

It's an alright story told in a manner that, though interactive, does not really allow the player much agency. There are not puzzles so much as there activities and depending on how invested you are in translating Morse code, your mileage may vary. This is more akin to a kinetic novel with walking simulator segments than it is a text-based adventure game.

I did not buy it at full price, and cannot say I feel disappointed with the experience I got in return. Did I have a decent time? Yes. Would I recommend it to a friend? Probably not. It's a little buggy, a little basic, but it does float a few interesting ideas with what could be done with a sort of mixed-medium text adventure; even if it does not fully deliver on that premise.

Fun game/concept, but I ran into what I can only assume are bugs with the puzzles on two different episodes that prevented me from progressing. If its a misunderstanding I literally cannot fathom what it would be when it seems pretty straightforward. Didn't get to finish most of it which was disappointing.