kaputt

Her Story

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Her Story is a game/narrative thing that seems pretty cool, at least I enjoyed the half hour I played of it today.

It's a non-linear narrative game in which you need to decipher what happened with the protagonist's husband. You do it by searching videos of her hearings in the police station, the search is done by using through keywords you think that might lead to some important points of the story. The game is basically this old PC search engine interface and FMVs of the protagonist telling her story.

I really enjoyed what I played of it, specially because the last video was at the same time revealing and mysterious, it's almost like she was talking about something else. Looks like they how to make use of non-linear storytelling, kinda psyched to finish the story, but I need to sleep now.

Here's the steam page of the game:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/368370/

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The non-linear storytelling in this is just mindblowing. I haven't found half the video clips yet but I've come across some major revelations. Mostly I've been trying to wrap my head around how this thing was designed. You only ever get the first five chronological clips from a keyword, so if you search for something non-specific then you can only see the very beginning of the interview. The whole script must've been written with some idea of where words show up so that you couldn't stumble onto a major plot twist from a keyword you heard in your first or second search. I'm really excited to get back in, I lost my momentum because I got hung up on a specific video clip that I'll put in spoilers.

 

Seriously don't read this unless you've played more of the game than me!

I must be doing something wrong with the "knock code" part, because I can't get anything meaningful out of her taps. It almost looks like she's tapping out the two names, but I can't make them match up with the 5x5 grid. I might be way off with this but is there significance to her switching hands? I thought it might be two sides of a conversation she was tapping but it makes even less sense that way. I'd appreciate any hints that would point me in the right direction, even if it's just "ignore it and watch more videos".

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This is a sort of a hard game to talk about because of the non-linear nature, right? Like, where do you start? I watched about 75% of the clips last night before I had to put it down and go to bed, but there's no guarantee that someone else who's also watched a similar percentage of the videos has the same information as me.

 

Depending on what rabbit holes they went down with the search terms and what assumptions they made about what might yield new information, they might not have the same context for things.

 

 

Really cool game. I would definitely recommend it.

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I bought this last night but haven't had time to play it yet, looking forward to it!

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Only 45 mins in but it's super great so far. I have all the notes. I am the truest detective.

 

edit: ...and done. super great. if you're stupid like me and trying to get 100% unlock after the credits roll...

don't be proud and try to do it without using the "show me a random clip" cheat code thingy they give you at the end of the credits. really. there are a bunch of clips from the polygraph sequence that are literally just "yes" or "no" making them impossible to find by normal searching.

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It's on my wishlist, sounds like a fascinating game. Also quite amusing watching gators bleating about how it's "the usual SJW misandrist stuff" on the Steam forums and whatnot. Losers.

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This is on my list of things to buy. I'll probably end up getting it on iOS since it seems like it'd be a good fit. Anyone else get it on that and can comment on the interface?

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This is on my list of things to buy. I'll probably end up getting it on iOS since it seems like it'd be a good fit. Anyone else get it on that and can comment on the interface?

Works great on my iPad mini, the interface is basically an old Windows Desktop with a police search engine opened.

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I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the clips I "missed" at the ending weren't really that important at all.

 

The fact that you can search terms in any order might "ruin" things a bit.

 

One of the first terms I searched for was tattoo and then I realized she didn't have it in some videos. OK, actually it took me quite a while to notice...

 

Can we discuss tags? At first I used it to add words I wanted to search for mentioned in the video, but in the end I just wrote them down on paper. How did you use the tags?

 

Also, I noticed I was in the credits... I don't remember KSing the game, but I did preorder it?

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This may be the best detective game I've ever played. Reminded me a lot about what I've heard about Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. 

 

"Finished" it in 3 hours according to Steam (and 8 pages of paper), saw maybe 85% of the clips and could't find the right words for the rest. I'm pretty sure I figured out everything important though.

 

I think I'll also take a look at Aisle over the weekend.

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Wow, Aisle is a game made for IF interpreters? I haven't played one in ages! I'll try it out one of these days too! :o

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Gah.

I dragged a clip down to the bottom bar by mistake, couldn't figure out how to remove it. It's labelled "user session", so I tried the "delete session data" and that reset the entire game two hours in.

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Gah.

I dragged a clip down to the bottom bar by mistake, couldn't figure out how to remove it. It's labelled "user session", so I tried the "delete session data" and that reset the entire game two hours in.

 

I did the exact same thing, although thankfully I was only five minutes in. I see a couple of people on twitter who've done the same thing, I hope that gets changed soon.

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Just finished. It's great! But I'm still confused. I'll put it in spoilers, only for people who finished the game:

so, were they really twins, or she had a mental illness? For now I'm team twins, but the mental illness theory is attractive. If we consider that she had double personalities, it makes a lot more sense the theory of Eve being in the attic and her parents never noticing it, of them having the same pains, feelings and stuff. The final scenes with Simon gain an extra depth as well considering this. However, there are some clear signs that there is a twin sister, like the tattoo and the bruise. She could be faking it though. The alibi also speaks in favor for the true existence of a twin, but was that alibi ever confirmed, or just something that her crazy mind thought? What do you think?

Also, what's the reason for killing Simon? Just anger? Why would be important for he daughter to know this? Hell, I think right now I'm more inclined to the double personality theory, maybe Sarah that's the justification that they wanted to show the daughter.

I just wish this game had a better way of organizing the videos you saved, at least on ios, this is really important for figuring out the story.

Seriously don't read this unless you've played more of the game than me!

I must be doing something wrong with the "knock code" part, because I can't get anything meaningful out of her taps. It almost looks like she's tapping out the two names, but I can't make them match up with the 5x5 grid. I might be way off with this but is there significance to her switching hands? I thought it might be two sides of a conversation she was tapping but it makes even less sense that way. I'd appreciate any hints that would point me in the right direction, even if it's just "ignore it and watch more videos".

I'll just say

move on. I don't think that's very important to the story. People on the internet deciphered it and it isn't really relevant.

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Just finished. It's great! But I'm still confused. I'll put it in spoilers, only for people who finished the game:

so, were they really twins, or she had a mental illness? For now I'm team twins, but the mental illness theory is attractive. If we consider that she had double personalities, it makes a lot more sense the theory of Eve being in the attic and her parents never noticing it, of them having the same pains, feelings and stuff. The final scenes with Simon gain an extra depth as well considering this. However, there are some clear signs that there is a twin sister, like the tattoo and the bruise. She could be faking it though. The alibi also speaks in favor for the true existence of a twin, but was that alibi ever confirmed, or just something that her crazy mind thought? What do you think?

Also, what's the reason for killing Simon? Just anger? Why would be important for he daughter to know this? Hell, I think right now I'm more inclined to the double personality theory, maybe Sarah that's the justification that they wanted to show the daughter.

I think the twin theory is simply too contrived, at least if we are to believe everything Eve says (I can't type Eve without it coming out EVE every time heh). Baby snatching midwife who lives across the street, and that's not even half of it. I think the bruise and tattoo are just there to mindfuck you. No, it doesn't make sense, but whatever contrived logic you need to invent to explain away those two physical attributes will be less contrived than the twin story. I think that detail is there just to throw a wrench in the wheel of the much more plausible schizo theory. To me it doesn't feel like the game is written to have a conclusive answer, I think it's written to not have one.

 

As for the motive, yeah I think she was angry that Simon was "cheating"? on her and I guess giving Eve a present he had already given Hannah was the thing that set her off. It also sounded like she didn't mean to kill him, but I dunno, slicing broken glass in someone's face is going pretty far.

 

Also, the mirror game in the trash can. It's a two player game that you play against yourself.

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I'm with eot's interpretation, generally

in that it's written to not have a definitive conclusion

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I just finished it. Heres what I think.

The alibi thing of being in glasgow would mean there has to be two right? I presume that there is indeed hospital records of eves(officially hannahs) visit.

That said the tapping code kind of gets at the spit personality possibility. but maybe that was something you were supposed to think midway through the investigation until you realize there are in fact two people.

In either case I think it makes sense that Hannah was the murderous twin/personality. She was the one who had held Eve's head underwater and such.

 

 

Also what did everyone think of the acting?

 

I've seen quite a bit of praise for the acting but personally I thought it was terrible. It reminded me of a midday soap opera. It might be on purpose, shes supposed to be acting for the first interviews right? The thing is though I really have no idea what good acting is so I wouldn't say i'm qualified to judge.

 

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re: the acting, I thought it was super. Arguably she's "supposed to be acting" throughout depending on which of two main interpetations you buy into i.e. if there are twins then not so much but in the one lady/schizophrenia version then it makes sense that she's hiding things even in the last one.

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I think it would be too contrived if there wasn't any twins, the police clearly suspect they are twins as directly ask her and even take fingerprints on a different day.

 

It would make no sense for her to fake being twins, why? To plea insanity? One of them clearly denies it, while the other, the one that was allegedly hiding all the time, confesses.

 

While I can understand it's never obvious they are twins, the story just falls apart if they weren't. The story is inconclusive, but it looks like the twins got pregnant, one lost the baby, the other didn't, Simon didn't want the baby anyway and probably had an affair. I think only one of them seemed to have morning sickness and one preferred coffee over tea? Why go that far to "fake it"

 

I don't get the blonde hair part, did they find blond hair on Simon from the woman he was having an affair with?

 

From what I gathered, one of them had an argument with Simon, slashed his throat with a mirror shard and one of them drove to Glasgow to have an alibi while the other hid the body in the garbage bags?

 

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Didn't know how FMV could be made interesting again, but here it is. While I didn't like how the game signaled to you that you found out an important bit, they weren't as invasive as they could have been and still let me connect the dots on my own. I really thought that the acting was great and the framing was novel enough that it kept me going. But while I enjoyed the game, I'm struggling to believe that it's as subtle as some of ya'll are reading it as.

 

A lot of the 'twist' plot points (abducted at birth, living in attic, shared life, shared lovers, incest (this detail was incredibly unnecessary)) are hard to swallow and there's some bits of heavy-handed writing (the numerous fairy tale references, the ballad) that kept on reminding me this was written by a person who worked in video games; particularly from the Silent Hill series. I think the tattoo and bruise clearly identify that a pair of twins is working together and while it might not be the most satisfying answer, it seems the most likely.

 

That said, those were the low points and this game had plenty of high ones that mostly came about from me having to connect the dots and make suppositions and deductions. For instance, I think that while Hannah is portrayed as the jealous, murderous one, I think Eve was the one that killed Florence and her parents. Florence died right after Eve read her diary, so she had the motivation as she felt both trapped by Florence and unloved by her parents who unknowingly abandoned her. I also do think Hannah did kill Simon b/c the one person she felt she didn't have to share ended up wanting to be shared. A combination of jealousy and betrayal just boiled up and led to murder.

 

I haven't watched all the vids yet, so if anyone has a counterpoint, I'd be more than glad to listen.

 

:tup:

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I don't get the blonde hair part, did they find blond hair on Simon from the woman he was having an affair with?

The blonde hair was from the wig that Eve usually wore, but that Hannah wore while pretending to be Eve.

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Man, I LOVED this game. It's not often in a game's story where all the dots are connecting in my head and there's nothing actually in the game popping up like "ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! YOU'VE FIGURED OUT THIS PART OF THE MYSTERY!" I think it's one of my top games of the year so far.
 
One lingering question:

 

There's one point where I think Eve touches the wrong side of her face when referring to the bruise (wearing orange). Was she pretending to be Hannah for that particular interview? I'm curious if those "orange" interviews have new meaning with that interpretation in mind. Also I'll be curious to watch the inevitable compiled interviews in chronological order when they come up on YouTube.

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One lingering question:

 

There's one point where I think Eve touches the wrong side of her face when referring to the bruise (wearing orange). Was she pretending to be Hannah for that particular interview? I'm curious if those "orange" interviews have new meaning with that interpretation in mind. Also I'll be curious to watch the inevitable compiled interviews in chronological order when they come up on YouTube.

The bruise being on different sides is one of the arguments for them actually being Twins (another one being that Hannah doesn't have a tattoo, I believe you actually see her arm in one of the interviews).

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I just got this game, and am really enjoying it. After a lucky search hit, I got a couple of clips that pretty explicitly explain what happened, and have watched considerably less than half of the clips. I like the structure with having only the first five videos showing up, so we have to be inventive. I also like the occasional sirens and lights reflected in the screen.

Here's what I have (major spoilers obviously)

There are two twins Hannah and Eve. Simon was married to Hannah, but was seeing Eve (who wore a blonde wig to look different from Hannah). He made them both "unique" mirrors; unfortunately, he gave the second mirror to Hannah, who was using the wig to pretend to be Eve; he had given Hannah her mirror already. Hannah smashed the mirror, and accidentally cut Simon's throat with a piece. They hide the body in the cellar, and use the watch to make it look like hannah had an alibi fir when it happened.

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This game. SO GOOD. There are at least 3 scenarios that I can imagine to explain what happened. So good. 

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