Her Story is a live-action crime story, now on Greenlight

Her Story

Now this is interesting. Live action in games may give you flashbacks to a bald man trying to conquer the world in Command & Conquer (or, gods forbid, Night Trap), but I've long suspected it could be used in less, er, camp situations. Her Story looks like just that: it's a crime fiction game in which you search video interviews stored in a police database.

It's being created by Sam Barlow, who wrote Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and... actually, let's take a quick tangent.

***A TANGENT***

Sam Barlow also made Aisle, an interactive fiction game created back in 1999. It's a remarkable game—a single action story that changes its context based on what you tell your character to do. It was also remarkably effective as a tutorial for the genre. With one action to make, you're free to explore the limits of the text parser without consequence, letting you get a feel for what's possible to do. It's well worth a play.

***END OF TANGENT***

As for Her Story, it sounds like it'll be pretty easy to get to grips with. "If you can Google, you can play Her Story," writes Barlow on the game's Greenlight page. "The mechanic of searching for clips in the database is so simple that anyone can pick up and play. But it’s a mechanic that quickly reveals its richness and complexity. At times it can feel like you’re engaged in a genuine dialogue with this woman and her story. It’s a unique way to interact with a narrative, a sculptural way of viewing a story -- and something that can only be done interactively."

If you're interested, you can vote for the game on the aforementioned Greenlight page. Alternatively, head to the official Her Story website.

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.