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 What 'Her Story' even is, is a matter up for debate. Brilliant re-imagining of murder mystery non-linear story-telling? Interactive movie fraudulently masquerading as a game? The official Steam blurb is this: "A woman is interviewed seven times by the police. Search the video database and explore hundreds of authentic clips to discover her story in this groundbreaking and award winning narrative game." Viva Seifert plays the woman in question, and quite well by most accounts. Her Story Trailer How can you make a LP of a FMV game with nothing but screenshots? One subtitled image at a time. How far are you going to go with this? I am aiming for completionism here; there is a known total of 271 clips, most commonly ranging from a few seconds to 20-30 seconds. I will not consider myself done until I have gotten to all of them, or run out of ideas for finding the remaining ones. Spoiler Policy None whatsoever. I learned more about the story than I wanted to just in looking up a couple of technical/mechanics question, but I'm going in as blind as I reasonably can and am not going to spoil the parts I do know. No spoiler tags, none zip zero zilch nada forget about it don't do it. Discuss, debate, flame, praise, criticize away regarding what's been seen in the thread up to the current point, but anything about what we haven't seen yet will result in me doing two things: - Politely asking you to remove the spoilerish material. Perhaps somewhat less politely if it becomes a pattern. - Requesting post deletions by mods if cooperation is not forthcoming in a timely manner, by which I mean roughly 24 hours. NO EXCEPTIONS. Please do not ruin the story for people who don't know it yet. Her Story So Far Getting Started Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5 Session 6 Session 7 Session 8 Session 9 Session 10 Session 11 Session 12 Session 13 Session 14 Session 15 Session 16 Session 17 Session 18 Session 19 Session 20 Session 21 Session 22 Session 23 Session 24 Session 25 Session 26 Session 27 Session 28 Session 29 Session 30 Session 31 Session 32: Confession (of sorts)? Session 33 Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Feb 25, 2023 |
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Oct 28, 2022 04:48
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 It's hard to get more basic than this as the entry point for a game. Piano mood/elevator music plays.  Left to right, each letter fades to black in turn after you select Start. A computer whirs to life, then after a bit various beeps are heard and the music is now completely gone.  And here we are. Whoever we are, we will not be moving from this computer for the duration. It is our world. There is nothing outside of it. It is purposefully basic and low-tech, even a bit retro. The X at the top right of the CornerStone application, and the Log Off icon in the upper-left of the background both do the same thing.  If you Quit ...  It's back to the main screen, and the music kicks backs in. There is no fail condition, no way to lose progress. For that matter, there is no official win condition either. You just keep investigating and searching until you've found everything you can, or at least enough that you don't care to find any more.  We can move the CornerStone application window around - here is the full background behind it. Hmm. South East Constabulary. That would seem to indicate we are either in the UK or Canada.  The clock is actually functional. One wonders if we have a limited-time access to this workstation. Her Story was released in 2015, so at that time it was set seven years into the future.    The Readme.txt file is apparently our tutorial. I don't know what LOGIC stands for. The reference to Portsmouth would indicate southern England. That might not be where we are - it could just be the source of the information - but it fits with the logo on the desktop, so I'm going with it. We're searching for keywords and can assign our own custom tags. Got it.  The REALLY_Readme!!!.txt tells us we are only going to get one side of these conversations since the detective's part isn't available. Who the notation 'SB' belongs to, or even if this was necessarily directed to us, isn't apparent.  The DB Checker looks important. The Refresh button functions, but apparently doesn't do anything right now; still 1 Volume missing. Possibly that will come into play later on.  I'm sure these were moved here for a reason. I probably shouldn't mess around with them. I will anyway.  Ah yes. Old-school computer fun. Let's see what else this has.    'Cracks With Class' you say? Why do I not believe you?  The game itself is Reversi. It is playable, but there is no computer opponent - you need a human to play each side, or play against yourself. Perhaps an amusing diversion, but that's not what we are here for.  This is what we're here for; the CornerStone app, giving us access to the Logic Database. No further clues on our identity, merely indicating we are 'AUTH_GUEST. Combining the default search term of MURDER with the fact that the Readme.txt told us we are reviewing footage from a 'Homicide & Serious Crime tape archive' gives us a clear indication of what's at stake. We're not looking to solve a jaywalking violation.  The clock to the right of the Search button shows us Query History. Any searches, along with how many hits we got from them, will be displayed here. We can go back to any previously seen video clips in this way.  The Repair Icon button next to that actually brings up Settings. We'll be leaving Subtitles on. The Anti-Glare Filter initially is one of those items most people will instantly want to turn on because of how annoying it is. The reflections aren't just cosmetic though, so we're leaving it off. Delete Session Data is the 'start from scratch' option, erasing all progress, query history, etc.  Here's what it looks like if we turn on the Anti-Glare Filter. Everything is so much sharper and cleaner.  Time for a search. We'll start with Murder since it was suggested. Who doesn't like a good progress bar?  We have four hits.  We can put these down in the lower area, 'user session', for viewing later. One use for this is if we want to get a better sense of continuity about what order certain statements were made in, or maybe look at clips on related but different subjects. At least for now, we just want to get as much information as we can about what is going on here; and much more annoyingly, there is actually no way to remove videos from user session without using the Delete Session Data which, again, erases all of your progress. This has confused, and angerered, many players. They are not wrong. The dev said at one point it was intentional; 'those 90s police databases were fairly poor on user experience'. Then they said they would look at adding a way to remove clips from the user session in an update, then didn't ever actually do that. Not a point in Her Story's favor, to put it mildly. So I just won't be using the user session I think. Having dozens or, help me, hundreds to randomly sort through on the bar just doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me.  Clicking on a video brings up this, allowing the add to session but also changing the tag(s). They all default to BLANK. We can also see the location, timestamp, and length of the videos.  If we enter BLANK in the search bar, or just leave it empty, we get this result. This is how we know there are in fact 271 video clips to find. Also, ACCESS LIMITED TO FIRST 5 ENTRIES. Well that complicates things, and explains why we can't just watch them all sequentially and dispense with the keyword searches, or just search really commonly used words such as 'and', 'the', 'or' ... we have to put in some effort to get access to everything. The idea that the database can be searched for any word(s), but can't just play them in order has been another criticism. I see it as one of those conceits that you either are willing to deal with or you're not. It's not realistic of course, but it's a simple if transparent effort of putting you on a path to search for bits of information, which leads you to more, which leads you to more ... and you either enjoy that process of disconnected reveals or you don't. If you can't get past the absurdity of it, Her Story probably isn't for you. We have an idea of where we are and what we are up to. Next time we'll start hearing from the Her in Her Story. New Clips Viewed - 0 Completion - 0/271, 0%
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Oct 28, 2022 04:56
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Hey, cool - a game I was curious about but was probably never gonna play. Looking forward to it!
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Oct 28, 2022 05:49
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Strategic Sage posted:
Hey now, they still are absolutely terrible and famously badly coded, so are the evidence extraction and preservation tools, the big secret of police IT is that it doesn't really actually have to work.
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Oct 28, 2022 10:59
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SEGSEGV posted:Hey now, they still are absolutely terrible and famously badly coded, so are the evidence extraction and preservation tools, the big secret of police IT is that it doesn't really actually have to work. I'm regularly impressed by how much you seem to know about a wide variety of subjects. Quackles posted:Hey, cool - a game I was curious about but was probably never gonna play. Looking forward to it! Thanks! Even better if you're still positive about the experience by the end 
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Oct 29, 2022 09:51
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Knowing about police IT being poo poo is just the side effect of an interest in infosec, it's legendarily bad and the more custom and serious it is, the worse it gets, the usual joke is software made to copy seized hard drives that tries to brick the device it is on if the copied drive has a non standard configuration.
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Oct 29, 2022 12:06
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Even poorly coded software knows that ACAB.
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Oct 29, 2022 18:48
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Session 1 What kind of update name is 'Session 1'? Well I thought of just naming them via the keywords I'm using, but that would be spoilerish in some cases. And basically I couldn't think of anything better to do, so I'm going with 'boring but functional'. You know, like the database software we're using in the game.  The first of the four clips from the Murder search. We're in room 'MT-2003', and it's June 27th of 1994. For now we'll call the person on camera 'the interviewee' for lack of more specific information. She looks and sounds genuinely surprised here, especially the way she pronounces the word 'murder'.  After steady eye contact on the first line, she gradually looks down and to the side as she says this, more matter-of-factly.  Looking to the right here, she was looking to the left for the initial line. It appears that are multiple interviewers. This one ran 11 seconds, a roughly typical length. We don't get anything to really go on for future searches. My first impression is generally that we're not looking at the murderer here, she appears genuine and innocent - but we don't have anything about the crime itself other than it appears to have been a homicide.  The yellow eye icon is now missing from the first clip. That tells us which ones we've watched and which ones we haven't.  A week later on July 1. Same location though, MT-Room 3. Likely insignificant, but she has a glass of water here instead of an foam cup. After 'Yeah', she slides what she's looking at slightly towards her and leans forward a bit before confirming 'That's me'  Shakes her head from side to side while saying 'But February'. Looks up for the second line.  Looks back and forth at the two interviewers, appearing quizzical and unsure. Now we've got some strands to pull on. What happened in February? And we have the name of a victim, Simon. Secondarily, perhaps there are other months we could search.  July 3. Two days later. The clips for any search term are always sorted earliest timestamp first. Also, we're not in 'MT-2003' anymore. We're in 'INT-ROOM B'. Meeting Room and Interrogation Room perhaps? Nothing on the table this time. Beyond that, the plot has definitely thickened. She's being accused of the murder, and tosses her head slightly before delivering this line.  I'm not as convinced by her mannerisms at this point. Doesn't sound angry or defensive, smiling slightly and trying to convince the interviewer with a more charming approach.  New scene, about a half-hour later but the same day. There's a cup with a straw now. She forces a smile and glances downwards before saying this.  A bit of disbelief in the 'please' here, shaking her head and looking to the right.  There's at least the appearance of confidence here, definite emphasis on 'nothing'. Cocks her head to the side with a sly mile after saying this.   Again shaking her head and glancing downwards before this final line. Basically calling the interviewer's bluff at this point. They don't believe her, but she doesn't believe them either. At least on the surface. I'm wondering what kind of weapon was used. That seems like a good search to do, perhaps lawyer as well. We've got a number of options here, but the victim - or at least one of them - seems as good a place to start as any. I run a search for 'Simon'.  It appears this was a good idea. 61 hits! We'll only get a small early piece of what she said about him here.  This is the earliest scene we've seen yet, back to June 18th, in the evening this time. The interviewee takes a drink for a moment before looking up and speaking, a barely audible 'mmm'. We've got a last name now, that's definitely another possible search.  She seems relaxed and comfortable. Some more good info here for sure, the name of the employer is quite specific, and glass/windows/other related terms might be useful to try.  A bit of emphasis on 'special' here.  Her head bobs some here, voice is steady and confident.  Some apparent admiration/respect in the word 'beautiful', and a bit of a smile as she says it. Clearly she knows Simon at least fairly well, and has a positive opinion of his work. That was a longer one, almost 20 seconds. But we're getting a clearer picture of Simon, at least professionally.  Immediately afterwards, this runs almost half a minute. Nods and thinks a bit before speaking, shrugs on the 'average build' part.  Laughs here when talking about Simon's beard.  More smiling and laughing here, reaching across the table some with her right hand talking about the ginger hair.  Reaching down to get something from a bag or purse presumably.  I get the impression by this point that the interviewee is here by choice, not at the invitation of the authorities. Best guess is she reported Simon missing?  Looks at the photo while talking, then hands it across the table.  Just a twinge of sadness, or possibly concern?, on 'best one I have'. It feels like Simon is a close relative, possibly her significant other although she seems too relaxed and in control for that. Definitely feels like a missing person case initially from the whole description routine. ginger, holiday, Rome, possibly travel are more fodder for searches.  New scene, but another continuation right aftewards on the same day. Puts her left hand behind her neck as she speaks.  Glances away as she says 'run by a nice couple'. I'm curious if that's just a mannerism or if she's hiding something here.   We're learning about lots of new people here.  Continues to be a somewhat more fidgeting, glancing to the side than in some of the other scenes. I think there's something she's uncomfortable with here, but I'm unsure what it is. Guessing that what led up to this section is some sort of question about where Simon was last seen possibly? So we have an establishment, the Rockington Arms/Rock. Peter and Susan the owners/operators, and Helen a barmaid. Simon is at least a social drinker. This was a really a treasure trove of specifics. I think this is a good point to take a breather. I've got about 15 possible search terms and we have a couple more clips to go on Simon. I wouldn't be surprised at guilt or innocence for the interviewee, and we need to find out more about her - we don't know her name or have specific confirmation about her relationship to Simon. There's a lot we don't know yet. New Clips - 7 Completion - 7/271, 2.6%
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Oct 29, 2022 23:14
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I appreciate the level of detail you're going to in describing how the interviewee conveys herself throughout each of these clips, it's going to be a ton of work to keep this up throughout the whole LP but this is a game where the details really do matter.
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Oct 29, 2022 23:20
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Here's someone committing multiple counts of forgetting to say she wants to talk to a lawyer. And it's generally at this point in this sort of game where I run into the tarpit of wondering exactly on what level the game wants me to take body language. Also the tarpit of reading it at all.
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Oct 30, 2022 00:11
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Since every clip is initially tagged with 'blank' and searching for 'blank' does pull up videos, that means you could get your way through every clip just by searching for 'blank' and untagging every video with it after you watch it (maybe adding tags of your own). Would probably be quite a boring way to play, though.
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Oct 30, 2022 02:49
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bewilderment posted:Since every clip is initially tagged with 'blank' and searching for 'blank' does pull up videos, that means you could get your way through every clip just by searching for 'blank' and untagging every video with it after you watch it (maybe adding tags of your own). Good point, that does work. Podima posted:, it's going to be a ton of work to keep this up throughout the whole LP but this is a game where the details really do matter. I think I'll gradually do it less over time as we get used to how she acts in the different sessions. But you're right about the details, no question. SIGSEGV posted:multiple counts of forgetting to say she wants to talk to a lawyer. I wonder if that's part of the reason it was started off as it is; her apparently contact the police first, so that's it not quite as obvious a 'you know, you really shouda done that'. On body language - I don't know much about it other than the really obvious stuff and have fairly low emotional IQ, so there are definitely people who would see more/draw more conclusions ... but whether that's good or not,  There's a lot here I wouldn't notice if I wasn't watching it more closely than usual for the sake of the LP. So basically ... I dunno?
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Oct 30, 2022 11:34
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Don't worry too much about body language, every research into it found that most people aren't great at comprehending it. Besides as an officer of the law you are interested in hard evidence, you can't request a search warrant if all you got is a vague impression. At least I hope not.
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Oct 30, 2022 12:10
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Yeah, body language analysis, like many of those ways to easily analyze or categorize people, runs into the fact that human beings are complex, don't react in set ways and often just don't make sense at all, so the real question becomes "what do the creators of this thing expect me to see there?" and that's a bit of a pickle. Although cops reading far too many things into people's behaviour like this would be very realistic.
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Oct 30, 2022 13:48
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I'm guessing there's probably a clip where she asks for that water.
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Oct 30, 2022 15:37
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Session 2 Picking up where we left off, there are two more clips in the Simon search, from the same session on the evening of June 18th   It's not clear to me why they're asking about a computer at this point.   The interviewee continues to shift between sometimes holding steady eye contact with the interviewer, and sometimes looking away or down as she speaks. Also, what kind of loser wastes time playing games? Oh wait ... We could try games, Amstrad, computer, printer, etc. here but it doesn't seem to be a particularly important topic so I'll make those low-priority terms. Last scene in this search:  Looks slightly upwards and shakes her head just before saying this line. Looks to the side as she says 'isn't the type' with emphasis.  Looks down while saying 'someone must have done something to him', eyes straight at the interviewer for the accident part.  Earnest and believable here. I think I can safely conclude that this case began with the interviewee reporting Simon as missing. 'Missing', 'search', similar words might be useful in digging at that more. Maybe try to find out when she last saw or spoke to him. Not sure how to best from that though. I'm definitely going with 'Smith' next. We've done the first name of a victim, let's inquire on the last.  Three hits. One we've already seen; one before that and one after. Clearly Simon Smith's last name is not a popular topic of conversation.  No longer just the nameless interviewee. Hannah. It would appear that this is the first interview, still on June 18th only a bit earlier.  Nods here a few times after apparently having observed the interviewer writing down here name.  Runs her finger back and forth along the desk to demonstrate. By her reaction at the start of this it appears the interviewer wasn't familiar with the term 'palindrome'.   Tosses her head at the start of this.   Relaxed and good eye contact through these last few. Also ...  Didn't even notice this at first - the thin reddish line. Shows up every time so it's not a 'game' glitch but a presumable part of the video. I'm sure it's just one of those 'we had cheap recording medium so here's what you get' bits of authenticity. Or so the Germans would have us believe ... /normmacdonald So Hannah and Simon are direct relatives; it seems that we can conclude by now that she is in fact Simon's wife. 'Hannah', 'Gladstone' could be possible terms to look for. Now for the last clip with 'Smith' contained:  We're back to July 3rd, which is the latest of the interviews we've seen so far. It seems that we've gotten to the point of a lie detector test.   It appears that what happened here is she realized they wanted only yes or no answers. Seems to be the beginning of the test. We could try 'test' or 'polygraph' or 'lie detector' and such. I want to find out as much as I can about Simon though. It feels right to focus on the alleged victim. Is there anything more about where he works?  Just the one we've already seen. Maybe just Ernst?  Nope. Seems that Simon's employer is not a focus of this investigation. How about more generally ...  Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Four more clips here.  Here's what the query history looks like now that it's populated, number in parentheses of course being how many hits you get.  The second in the 'glass' search; this is a longer one, and we're back to the first interview on the 18th. Shakes her head at the start of this. We also get another one of those 'red line' glitches, not as pronounced. I think I'll ignore them unless it appears that they mean something.  Slowly runs her finger down her shirt to demonstrate the location of the scar.   Before what? Before Hannah met Simon? Before some traumatic event? Something else?  Taps the picture as she speaks.  Smiles at the end of this line.   'see properly' is enunciated slower, with emphasis.   Still speaking naturally, shakes her head back and forth here a bit.  Bit of a smile here, and Hannah says this much more quietly, perhaps reflectively. There could be more about his glasses, TV, or scars - perhaps other scars if a crime scene ever comes into this. I'm also wondering if just searching photo might reveal anything else. This was a long clip, and the other results for 'glass' are part of later interviews. We'll pick up with those next time. New Clips - 5 Completion - 12/271, 4.4%
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Oct 31, 2022 00:37
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whitehelm posted:I'm guessing there's probably a clip where she asks for that water. Hold that thought ...
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Oct 31, 2022 00:39
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Oh, hey. I know broadly what happens in this, but it's interesting to see this take on it. I'll just be watching quietly.
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Oct 31, 2022 04:49
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Odd detail that probably means nothing: odd that she described him using glasses to read menus but not books. Of course the chances are that there's nothing to this statement, she could be mistaken or the man only used glasses as a fashion accessory or something like that.
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Oct 31, 2022 06:02
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All I remember about this game was Voidburger going steadily more and more exasperatedly nuts over it. I wonder if it'll read differently through a screenshot LP.
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Oct 31, 2022 09:58
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Junpei posted:Oh, hey. I know broadly what happens in this, but it's interesting to see this take on it. I'll just be watching quietly. Appreciated on both counts. By popular demand posted:odd that she described him using glasses to read menus but not books. I think most menus have smaller print than most books? I would guess that was possibly more true at this time than now ... dunno otherwhise. Samovar posted:All I remember about this game was Voidburger going steadily more and more exasperatedly nuts over it. I think in video form, assuming it's not highly edited, it would be harder to keep track of what keywords you've done, ideas for others to use, etc. I've got a still-growing list in the dozens of possible searches. Or was it more plot-related? Don't answer specifically yet if it means spoilering of course, I'm just curious what they were reacting to.
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Nov 1, 2022 05:04
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Strategic Sage posted:Or was it more plot-related? Don't answer specifically yet if it means spoilering of course, I'm just curious what they were reacting to. I remember it being more this.
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Nov 1, 2022 14:04
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This is an insanely good and interesting game, I am so pumped to see someone else piece together the plot for the first time. I blasted through the entire thing in an evening and then my girlfriend did the same the following afternoon with me looking over her shoulder, and it was equally fun both times. Good luck getting all the clips, especially the tiny seconds-long ones with just a word or two in them.
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Nov 1, 2022 15:31
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Wow, that's warp-speed. I expect to take a couple of months on this if everything goes well
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Nov 2, 2022 01:40
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Session 3 Before we keep going, I think it's worth occasionally doing a recap of what larger interview sessions we're aware of, and very generally what's happened in each one. - June 18th, evening. Hannah gives her name, address, description of Simon, his profession. Appears to be a missing persons report, arranged ahead of time. We've spent the most time here, trying to pick up basics. - June 27th. Hannah learns that this is now a murder investigation. - July 1st. Not much here. There's the photo from February, but a photo of what we don't know. - July 3rd. Last interview we've seen so far. Hannah is accused of the murder and there's some sort of lie detector test. We've got three more to go on the glass search.  June 25th, early afternoon. This is a week after the initial interview, but before the others we've seen. Judging by the cups, we're catching this after they've been here a while.  This gesture comes as she hesistates a touch before settling on 'simmering'. It appears all was not well at some point in the Smith marriage, though whether it was anything beyond typical domestic issues I don't know. Is it just me, or is she recovering from some sort of bruising on her face?  Emphasis here on 'nice'.  At this moment she said 'princess'. It's evident that Hannah placed a lot of value on the gift of the mirror. Engraved, this is the second time she's said princess so maybe there's more there, and perhaps mirror itself came up again.  There's quite a bit of emotion being portrayed here, subtly. OOC, this can't be the easiest kind of acting to do - speaking as someone who definitely can't act.  June 30th, mid-afternoon. We've now got a 6th interview. The second is a week after the first. Then there are 5 in 9 days by my count. What happened in that earlier week? Anyway, we've got an evidence bag here. That seems important.   She motions with her hands to demonstrate the idea here.   In this series of statements, she looks down at what I assume is a piece of the mirror in the evidence bag, back and forth at the interviewing detectives. Emphasis on 'he made it' and 'by hand'. Voice breaks just a bit at the end on 'to me', along with a weak smile. I find it easy to empathize with this woman. It seems that they're saying they found either silver or parts of the mirror itself on Simon's clothes. Probably they found his body then, sometime between the 18th and 30th? I'm assuming this is the same mirror the previous scene talked about.  Back to July 1st. Shakes her head repeatedly and looks down.  Because of a long interrogation, or because of something else?  Boy did we ever not get much useful out of that. A demonstration of how a search term like 'glass' can give us really good info, or be a complete rabbit trail. I'm starting to run low on obvious searches relating to Simon. I want to know if there's any more about where/when/how he was found though. I try 'body' - I'm thinking 'corpse' is probably not going to be used, a bit too macabre.  Only six hits?? That's surprising. But we haven't seen any of these. Is she actually holding a guitar in the 4th one? Holding an impromptu command recital in the constabulary while being interviewed? Well, we'll get to that. First three are on the 27th, late in the day, and these are all successive so we'll just run them together. Third of the six interviews we've seen.  Ok, hold on just a minute. There is a bruise, which I noticed on the 25th, so two days ago. That was not on the side of her face that she's touching here though. It was on the other side. Something's not right here.  Looking back and forth between the two interviewers here.  Shrugs, shakes her head and leans forward.   Lowers her eyes and speaks here, then looks down at her hands in front of her afterwards. For the first time, appears to be at a loss for words.   A second picture here as I thought the way she put her hand over her mouth at the end was interesting. Also, she found the body? Either they're talking about a different body, or she found Simon's body between the 18th and the 27th??  Hannah nods her head several times before speaking here, then exhales. Possibly listening to a question from the interviewer, or maybe working up to answering it.  Emphasis on 'thought'. This particular clip is over a minute long. If you click on it while it's playing, you can fast-forward or rewind using the bar above, or close it with the X. Click again and the bar goes away. So we can move around within a video clip if we need to.   Hannah is constantly fidgeting with her hands throughout all of this. Definitely struggling a bit talking about this. Noticeable pause between 'about' and 'old stuff'.  'baby' is spoken more softly. It's getting heavy. The Smiths lost a child at some point, along with having lived with his parents.  Briefly touches her nose when saying 'nursery'.  Not only did they lose a child, but apparently they never had any children, despite wanting them.   Gesturing a bit with her hands here, a small grabbing or reaching motion.  And then here, as if moving the boxes from one spot to another.  Exhales first, looking up and to the right as she speaks. Then she pauses, shakes her head a bit and mutters before continuing. There's a sense of the beginning of a terrible realization. You know something is wrong, but you're not sure for certain what it is.  Hannah off to the left at the end of this line, as if remembering or imagining what she saw.  She closes her eyes and is completely still after this.  Some gesturing here, but there's been no eye contact with the interviewers for the last few statements.  This isn't one continuous statement, there's a couple seconds pause after 'and'. She's saying she found her husband in bin bags at the back of a dark cellar. In their own home. There's a number of possibilities here for future keywords, but there's only so many possibilities here. None of them are a pleasant tale. It's been a long update already, but there's one more clip in this conversation and this would be a bad place to break it off.  This clip lasts 38 seconds, but for that amount of time Hannah doesn't say that much. There's a lot of pauses and breaks.  Nodding slightly here ...  ... and then putting her hand around her own throat.     Hannah pauses before the word 'thick', looking down and to the right and continuing to fidget with the ring on her hand.  Long pause before this, which is spoken very quietly, barely audible compared to the rest. This is getting into territory which is hard to convey in screenshots. The impression I get here is that Hannah is - a pale shadow, I guess I would put it - of the person in the first interview. More uncertainty, difficulty, less energy in the way she speaks. Not that any of that isn't entirely understandable, I'm just trying to be descriptive. It's fairly affecting, at least to me. It's a fictional character and all that, but it's one thing to read a story, and another to see it played out, realistically I think, to a degree where you establish a familiarity with the character. Anyone with a passing knowledge of reality, in history or the present, knows of far worse tragedies than this, but it's easy to view things as abstract when you just read about them. It doesn't 'feel personal', I guess? But this kind of presentation draws you in to view this woman in a way that's a lot closer to someone you know in real life than something you read about. I don't think I can really give the full experience of it in screenshots, other than to describe how it feels to me. Her husband is killed and dumped in the cellar of her own home. A fairly nightmarish crime, regardless of who is responsible. I have a hard time buying that it's of her doing. In any case, there's a couple more to go in the 'body' search. We'll pick back up with those. New Clips - 5 Completion - 17/271, 6.3%
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Nov 2, 2022 01:57
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"I found the body" is the sort of language you use when you are talking about finding a stranger's corpse. "I found his body", "I found Simon's body" is what most people would say when talking about finding the body of a loved one; the underlying light emphasis being, naturally, on the person you knew. "I found the body" is lightly clinical, detached, inherently separating the person that body used to be from the thing it now is; this is normal when you are speaking about, again, a stranger you never knew, a person you'd have no connections to, but not your family. The bruise and the story about the mirror are vaguely suggestive of DV, it'd be easy to read her as downplaying what's actually a regular occurrence as just "one of those arguments"; the biggest issue with this is the appearance two days later where she doesn't have it anymore and fobs it off with "my metabolism is really fast". We haven't seen enough clips to make a real determination yet as to if this was going anywhere; a possibly stretchy reading would be that this was an alibi she was considering (Simon beat her up on the regular and she killed him to protect herself) but discarded later. The story about how she found his body... there are a lot of details to it. It's really kind of involved. She has a talk with Simon's parents where his mom discusses the baby she never had while living with them, and suddenly remembers after eating dinner and locking up the house early that something which pointedly did not bother her a week ago was out of place, then goes down to check and finds bin bags that when opened revealed Simon's body. Before she recalls all of this, she pauses for a significant amount of time, and looks away from the interviewers. Lateral eye movements indicate that a question is hard for the person being asked to answer; she claimed previously that she'd already told someone else this story, and it's suggestive that she's got to work to tell it again. This is the sort of thing where it'd be crucial to find out what specifically she'd told the other cop; if the story is exactly the same that's a sign the pause is to remember not what happened but the story she told the other cop. Even without that, there's a lot of strangeness here; why didn't this bother her a week ago when she supposedly noticed it originally? What made her go downstairs a week ago to see that stuff had been moved around but not take any action about it? How could his body have ended up being placed there a week ago without her knowledge? There's a disturbing number of holes to find here.
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Nov 2, 2022 10:44
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This is definitely one of those fascinating games. It's one of those things I love seeing out of smaller developers, where it's just one of those ideas you won't see otherwise. If I was playing, I probably would've gone with an empty search first to get an idea of what the start was, before going with word searches. Though if I were playing, I'd honestly be terrible at nailing down what interview happened when, I have atrocious time sense.
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Nov 2, 2022 12:17
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I might have started that way also if they didn't have MURDER filled in the search bar by default. Seemed a rather apparent flashing neon sign saying 'start here'.
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Nov 2, 2022 18:56
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Interested to see where this goes. Never played, but just thinking out loud, if you get far down the path, and run out of search terms, I'd throw out "Did it" or "Do it". You always get interesting reactions out of people when you accuse them of something, and hearing her say either "I didn't do it!" or "You think I did it?" might lead to other results or paths.
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Nov 2, 2022 20:09
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It is kind of interesting that because so many of these clips are short, an LP of it via screenshots is actually viable and only gets unwieldy if the clips are longer or have extended speech. By comparison, Barlow's latest game Immortality is... pretty much impossible to do properly in screenshot form. There, the gimmick is that you're watching shots and behind-the-scenes from three different movies that all feature the same actress; at any time you can click on an object in a shot and it will take you to a 'matching shot' featuring the same or a similar object, as well as scrub back and forth through the scene (I normally scrub to the start and watch the scene in its entirety first). Also viewing certain scenes backwards at different speeds reveals... things. It's on Gamepass, worth a look if you're enjoying this LP.
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Nov 3, 2022 01:41
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The game he did before, Aisle, is a free text adventure where you only get one action.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:01
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Junpei posted:The game he did before, Aisle, is a free text adventure where you only get one action. Oh, this is the Aisle guy? In-teresting...
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Nov 3, 2022 02:10
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bewilderment posted:It is kind of interesting that because so many of these clips are short, an LP of it via screenshots is actually viable and only gets unwieldy if the clips are longer or have extended speech. Immortality is great. I'm not surprised the same dev made both of these and am really glad this genre exists. Junpei posted:The game he did before, Aisle, is a free text adventure where you only get one action. If that is the gnocchi game strangely that fits too, even though that's in some ways a lot harder to plumb the depths of (outside code-diving to figure out all the different possible actions). Alternately fun, heartfelt, and appropriately creepy for the more malicious actions you can input.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:21
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Okay looking at Sam Barlow's work it looks like there's another game he did called Telling Lies (or, uh, stylized as "Telling L!es").
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Nov 3, 2022 02:50
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bewilderment posted:By comparison, Barlow's latest game Immortality is... pretty much impossible to do properly in screenshot form I want to say Challenge Accepted, but let's see how this one goes first . There's another one in-between, Telling Lies, which as I understand it has you unravel conversations between four people (again seeing only one side) to see who is lying and about what. I don't know any more about it beyond that. Sam Barlow did indeed write Aisle, and that is the 'gnocchi' game.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:50
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Czar Chasm posted:Never played, but just thinking out loud, if you get far down the path, and run out of search terms, I'd throw out "Did it" or "Do it". You always get interesting reactions out of people when you accuse them of something, and hearing her say either "I didn't do it!" or "You think I did it?" might lead to other results or paths. I have a stupid amount of possible searches to do at this point, but I'll keep this mind for when I start running low. I do expect that to happen eventually.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:52
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Telling Lies is the one I haven't played, because it's issue is that rather than short clips, like Her Story, or mid-length movie shots like Immortality, you're instead watching looooong clips of one-sided conversations than you can search through, or scrub back to the beginning of. It means you have the choice of either playing the game like it wants you to (quickly jumping between conversations trying to find threads) or playing the game in a way that would actually make sense as an investigator (just watching each side of the conversation all the way through) and creates an uncomfortable tension so that doing it either way feels like you're not doing it right. Immortality's midlength clips means its much more reasonable to jump into a clip, hit the 'jump to start' button, let it play out, and then go searching back through it.
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Nov 3, 2022 12:15
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Put me down as another person who was curious about this but not enough to pick it up. Looking forward to seeing how it plays out!
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Nov 3, 2022 18:52
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Session 4 So this is Hannah the ... musician?     So ... she's been serenading the detectives and they asked her for an encore? Is that what we have going on here?? Why did she bring the guitar? This is the 5th out of 6 interviews we've seen, if I have them straight. If this is some sort of psychological ploy to keep her relaxed, at ease, make her trust the police or whatever, it feels late for that. Maybe I just don't know how these things are done, but it just seems out of place to me. This clip runs nearly two minutes, and while it'll probably show up in the screenshots the overall impression is that Hannah really enjoyed herself here. Quite a few smiles.  This isn't the body you're looking for. Move along, move along.     The audience is eating this up, apparently.   I'm detecting a faint 'wind and rain' fetish here ...   The song becomes slower and a little more 'dramatic' here.   And the song ends. Let me see if I got this straight; she just sang the end of a cutesy, folksy song about a fiddler making musical instruments out of a dead woman's body, but the 'dreadful' part to focus on was how the wind and rain made the task more difficult. Do I have that right? And sang it with glee I might add. What the french toast.  Applause is heard here, probably from one person. She smiles and laughs. Why can I hear the applause but never the questions they are asking her, I wonder?  Another laugh after she delivers this final line, which made me chuckle in spite of myself.  Back to July 3rd, the last interview.   Emphasis on tried in both of these last two.  Emphasis on 'boys' here, along with mild disgust. I get the impression that what she means here is 'boys', but realizes that 'men' sounds better.  Ummm .... what??  I'm getting the impression it's more 'am' than 'was' ill. Hannah is disturbingly composed here, looks natural and at ease, back and forth with eye contact to both of the interviewers. Like she's talking about what kind of sandwich she had for lunch.  hers ... we ... who is she talking about?  Continues looking off to the side as she said this. 'really hosed things up' strikes me as being delivered in a pretty cold, calculating manner. The nickel drops. This is not Hannah?!? This is one heck of a 'twist', and now we have a whole new layer to unravel. Are we talking about something like identical twins here, or is this going for split-personality disorder or some other similar particularly dramatic mental condition a la Primal Fear? I also say that we'll see where this goes, but - while I'm somewhat ambivalent about it - it feels cheap. Maybe that's because I was invested in trying to track the chain of events, figure out Hannah and Simon's relationship as best as I could, and it's like the carpet is pulled out from under that effort now. Hannah identified herself on the first interview, but depending on what exactly is supposed to be going on here, do we just need to examine every.single.interview to see which of them are Hannah and which are ... whoever this is? Or if it's different names for different personalities, does it even switch within the same interview?? After thinking about it a bit, that actually did happen already. The lie detector test bit we already saw was from the same day at 11:27:01. She said her name was Hannah Smith. This is 20-21 minutes later. It seems that perhaps the lie detector test didn't take very long, which is weird, and probably also didn't go that well for her. There's also the part with the bruise on one side of her face and then she feels the other side of her face a few days later, so one of those is probably Hannah and the other is Not-Hannah. My brain is going to hurt before this is over, isn't it ...  Speaking softly and shaking her head.  Spreads her hands out on the table before saying this. I realize that I've actually skipped over what she said at the beginning of this scene: 'Can you imagine' and 'I tried'. I sort of ... forgot about all that given the rest of what she was talking about with trying to get pregnant and finding out she's not actually Hannah. But also, imagine what? What question was she answering there? This is a big topic to try to straighten out. I'm going to call these two people, assuming they are different people for now, Hannah and Not-Hannah. I don't mind saying that I'm not a member of the Not-Hannah Fan Club right now. I don't like her very much. There's possibly more to find out about Simon though. You know, the victim in all this?  This is a little difficult to explain. A few seconds after that video ends, this flickers into view, then flickers out over the course of a few more seconds. It's almost like a Star Wars-esque hologram effect. It's sort of creepy. A few specifics at this point to note: - This is why the Anti-Glare Filter being off is recommended (I'm assuming here that you still get this even if the Filter is off but that having everything sharp doesn't allow for the same effect). - It's tied to the specific video clip we just watched. Because of how ... strange ... this feature is, I'll spoil the fact that this isn't the only one. - If you play the same clip over again, you don't get the image a second time. You either notice it the first time or sorry about your luck. Some players initially conclude they are hallucinations and wonder if their virtual persona is going off the deep end. It's long enough so you're sure you saw something, not long enough for you to be sure of what it really was unless you're paying close attention. We're stacking 'what is going on here?!?' moments and I have an increased sense of 'what's real and what isn't?'. Which is probably part of the point. The rules of the game so far have been search the keyword, watch the clip, get the info/take notes, lather.rinse.repeat. Now I'm less sure what the rules are. Is anything else unexpected going to happen in terms of just the mechanics themselves? Then you start to wonder if you've already missed anything, esp. if you're just playing in a more casual manner. If you have a murder, you need a murder weapon. I think it's been implied that it might have been part of the mirror they talked about before and showed in the evidence bag, I'm wondering if there's more along those lines.  Just the one we've already seen where she says they have no murder weapon.  A couple more here that we haven't seen, and they're short ones. Another keyword where we need to add more to it or find another way into the six entries we can't get to.  Back to the third interview on June 27th, when the pace started to pick up. I think this is the same one where she describes finding the body. Judging by the pitcher, she's thirsty today.  Why do I not believe you?   Says this like she just made a realization. I watch these now wondering if we're talking to Hannah and Not-Hannah. It's screwing with my mind.   The last one under 'mirror', we're back forward a few days, we saw part of this discussion about whatever is in that bag (broken piece of mirror I presume) before.   Yeah ok, it is part of the mirror. Sense of pride as she looks at it and emphasizes 'supposed to look'.    That's a heavy statement - is she talking about herself here, or ... ? I'm starting to feel like I just got a massive side-quest reap in a RPG. There's so many directions to go in, and I'm getting overwhelmed by them. New Clips - 4 Completion - 21/271, 7.7%
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Nov 4, 2022 05:40
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Is there any clue that shows if you’re talking to H or not-H? Verbal tic, choice of clothes, etc? I don’t really see anything in the clips we’ve seen so far.
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Nov 6, 2022 05:38
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