Her Story isn’t like other games. Hell, it’s hard to even classify it as a game, really. As soon as you begin, you’re shown a 90s-era CRT monitor with a search engine open for the word “MURDER.” Some notes on the desktop indicate that you can search other terms and find videos (actual taped videos, like the infamous 90s-era FMV games) from a police database regarding a murder case.. This experience makes up the entirety of the game: you watch videos of the same actress testifying in the case, take note of potential keywords, search for them, watch “new” videos, and try to put together what happened for yourself. As you dig deeper, it becomes clear that the murder itself is just a jumping off point for a much more complicated story about this woman’s past.

The thing that is going to make or break the game for a lot of people is whether or not this non-linear player-guided storytelling approach is enough to warrant the experience. In a way, there is no real goal or ending here. After watching a certain percentage of the in-game videos, a text-chat window will pop up asking if you’ve seen enough to know what happened. If you answer yes and quit out, the credits roll, but it’s largely arbitrary. I had a pretty complete concept of what happened long before the chat prompt, and players are free to keep searching for more videos long after the game “ends.” The story (which is quite interesting, albeit far-fetched) is definitely the draw here, not the gameplay itself or the satisfaction of completion.

But regardless of whether or not it functions as a “game,” Her Story is an interesting experiment. There are a lot of risks involved in giving the player this level of freedom in discovering the narrative. The story unfolded in a fairly intuitive way for me, but if a player decided to search randomly (or, say, search the game’s title, which finds a VERY significant video) they might have a different experience. Either way, I imagine that there’s some satisfaction in taking new information and applying it to previous videos that you came across. Some major details are hiding in plain sight, and stick out like sore thumbs after you’ve pieced most of the story together.

For people who are interested in experimentation and narrative in gaming, I would highly recommend Her Story. At the very least, there’s nothing else like it on the market, and you can pick it up on Steam for only $6. It can also run on nearly any modern PC, with only a 2 gb RAM requirement. It’s an exciting example of how diverse video games can be, and a great entry point for those who don’t typically pick up a controller.