NOCLIP Pocket E25 - Well Made Plays - Her Story

So, did you figure out why she did it? Recorded the podcast?
Welcome back! Today, we’re going to be talking about Her Story, Sam
Barlow’s desktop simulator mystery game, which has you searching
terms in a database of interviews to find clips that each tell
small parts of the story, and assembling the answers from those. Of
all the games we’ve played for Mystery May (or Nancy June, this
year), this game relies the most on your own ability to figure out
what’s going on and only rewards your intuition with terms that
provide progressively more context. The game doesn’t even have a
traditional ending, instead allowing the player to determine when
they are satisfied with what they know. All this adds up to one of
the most unique games we’ve talked about and one that is actually
pretty difficult to analyze in our usual way. We’re going to talk
about design in a game where the player has complete freedom within
its mechanics, how the premise is sold on aesthetic and great
acting, and about a horrible CG lady. Thank you for listening to
NOCLIP Pocket this week, and we hope you’ve enjoyed our choices for
mystery games this year. This is one we’ve considered doing for
years now, but it’s surprisingly intimidating to talk about a game
that we like this much for reasons that are so unusual. Next time
we’re going to be talking about Sayonara Wild Hearts, so we hope
you’ll check it out then.