Written by Hunter Kuhlemeier
My Her Story Experience
Going into Her Story, I had no idea what to expect beyond the fact that it was an interactive film game. My fellow co-players and I were faced with a mock computer screen, complete with a video-viewing program that had “murder” typed into the search bar and several clips pulled up as a result. We began by investigating the desktop, revealing a “ReadMe” file that told us how to proceed in the game: by typing keywords into the program search-bar which would then reveal to us more clips with the eventual goal of piecing together the full story of what happened. Viewing the initial clips we discovered that the story of the game revolved around a man who had been murdered, and that the woman in each of the clips was his wife. What followed was a long and, at times, frustrating and confusing journey of trying anything we thought could possibly be relevant in order to reveal the full scope of what went down.
At first, the story felt very simple. We learned more about how the couple met, the details of their wedding, their struggles with a miscarriage and infertility, and the state of their relationship. Additionally, we uncovered details of the case such as the evidence found around the body (a broken watch and a shard of glass for example), the wife’s alibi, and the process that the police went through from the time he went missing to the day the body was discovered to weeks later as they continued their questioning. As we were discovering stuff that felt useful, we also began to uncover scenes that left us confused and uncertain. These included scenes of the wife (Hannah) singing a dark song about a sister being killed and her telling the story of Rapunzel and her childhood obsession with fairytales.
Rather suddenly, we discovered clips where she was no longer referred to as Hannah, but rather as Eve. This was when the real confusion set in. Had we mixed up the names somehow? Was this a multiple-personality situation? Twins? Doppelgangers? An elaborate act to clear her name? We dug deeper and deeper for answers, eventually revealing the (questionable) truth, that Hannah and Eve were twins who had been separated at birth, who reunited in their youth and began to live life as a single person. That was until they met Simon, the now deceased husband. Hannah got pregnant and in her love forbade Eve from being overly romantic or sexual with Simon- driving the two to live apart as they could no longer continue their ruse. Unbeknownst to Hannah, however, Simon met Eve in a bar and began an affair with her, which eventually led to pregnancy. Hannah and Eve reunited, deciding to tell Simon about their story, but upon the introduction Hannah realized that they not only knew each other, but that Simon was the father of Eve’s unborn child. Thus began the night that eventually led to Simon’s death at Hannah’s hand.
Is Her Story a “Narrative of Investigation?”
Whether or not Her Story is a narrative of investigation is a complicated question. To one degree or another, we, the players, were engaging in the act of investigation, however the narrative within the game was not really a narrative of investigation. Yes, it was a crime story, but there was no detective (or equivalent) discovering new clues or unraveling mistruths. In fact, we were told from the beginning that the crime had already been solved, but that for whatever reason we were going through the old video evidence. If we accept the premise that the story within the game is not one of investigation, then that begs the question as to whether or not the players doing all of the investigating makes it a “narrative of investigation.” As previously mentioned, we were certainly doing a level of investigating while playing the game. We were listening intently to the clips to try and notice potential words or phrases that could be helpful in finding more, and constantly theorizing about what had happened and trying to piece it together before it was revealed to us. However, I would argue that this process was rather shallow. Generally, other than a few clips we struggled to discover towards the end, it felt pretty clear what we needed to be searched for. If a new name was mentioned, it was probably wise to give it a search, doubly so for pieces of evidence.
We did get the classic mystery experience of throwing out theories and trying to figure out if they were true, such as the nature of Hannah and Eve and who truly killed Simon. One could fairly argue that this makes it a narrative of investigation, that you, the player, create the narrative. However, I half-disagree. The reason it is only half is because there is an aspect of an investigative narrative within the game itself, which is that you are playing as Eve’s daughter who is trying to discover the truth of her mother’s past. That being said, there is essentially no indication of this until you get to the end of the game. There are moments where you see flashes of the daughter reflected in the computer screen, but these are never explained. There is no chance to embody the character in this experience, you are disconnected from what is happening within the game and therefore there is little emotional weight and no sign of this narrative existing until it is revealed. This is not a situation like in analog roleplaying games, where the game facilitates a player-made narrative; instead it just clumsily tries to add one in at the of the game to give some reason behind why you’ve been doing all of this work in the first place.
Ultimately, I don’t believe that Her Story is a narrative of investigation, or at least not a good one (which is not to say that it is a bad game) Yes, there are elements, but in the end it is more of a puzzling database than an actual narrative experience. Yes, the players could create a narrative of their own, but the game doesn’t facilitate this in any way, instead it just plops you in front of a computer with no reference as to what is truly going on and tries to tack something on at the very end to no satisfaction.
Intermittent Mechanism 