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As promised, my final Game Maker's Toolkit of 2015 dives deep into the development and design of my favourite game of the year: Sam Barlow's incredibly inventive police procedural Her Story.

The video contains spoilers for the entirety of Her Story. They start at 2:22 (and this section is clearly marked)

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Game Maker's Toolkit - How Her Story works

My favourite game of 2015 happened to be a low-fi indie game about watching VHS tapes of a woman giving evidence. Let's break down exactly how Her Story works, and look at the design and development of Sam Barlow's incredible game. This video contains spoilers for the entirety of Her Story.

Comments

TJ Michael

I really loved the idea for her story, so much so that I even pre-ordered it as soon as I heard about it. Thing is, being a designer myself: 15 minutes in, I looked up "her story" to see what happens, half an hour in, I figured out that instead of following videos down a "stream", I could get much further by aggressively testing leads from a single video until I got to a "major" revelation clip. I ended up watching a relatively small percentage of videos before figuring out most of the game's plot, after which I was left with a very large selection of relatively innocuous videos to watch. I still thought it was an amazing game. I just wish I'd figured out the best way to experience it before feeling like I accidently finished it. What I want to talk about is something else, it's what happens if you keep looking for "sex" in the game. The first 5 options are relatively mundane, but if you keep going, looking through compound phrases, and synonyms, you'll eventually stumble upon a clip where (and I can't remember if this is hannah or eve) berates the interviewer for asking her so many questions about sex and affairs. Which I thought was a great moment where the game's design really shone through for me.

Anonymous

I love how SB is the one in the chat. Kinda fourth wall breaking in a way.

Anonymous

I really like your videos and your discussion about video game design. However, I disagree with your choice in games completely. Well, but then again, imagine how mundane this world would be, if all people were alike.