Immortality developer Sam Barlow has spoken about being contacted by electric car manufacturer Tesla for the opportunity to put interactive movie Her Story into their vehicles for no compensation other than “exposure”. Barlow’s comments emerged on Twitter in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform, specifically, the suggestion that Twitter users may soon have to pay for blue tick verified status.
]]>The developer of swell narrative games Her Story and Telling Lies teased his next project last summer with a rather redacted store page. Half Mermaid and Sam Barlow's next game, Immortality, has now been slightly more revealed to be a story about the disappearance of movie star Marissa Marcel. We don't know much more than that, but it sure does sound like another twisty mystery is in store.
]]>I have spent the winter holidays making a list, checking it twice, trying to find who is naughty on ice. But unlike the popular red-clad demon of the north, my list is reserved for terrors, demons and critters larger than 4 feet tall. I’m talking about cold monsters. They’re very chic this week. You see, while Nic has been battering majestic species of endangered giganto-moose in our Monster Hunter World: Iceborne review, I have been working hard to catalogue the frostiest freaks this side of video gaming. Here you go, the 8 coldest monsters in PC games.
]]>If you’ve choosed-and-adventured through Bandersnatch, the recent Black Mirror thing on Netflix, and aren’t already a fan of experimental interactive fiction: I envy you. It means you’re able to play actually good examples of interactive fiction for the first time.
Sure, Bandersnatch has funny lines, surprises and scene stealing performances from Will Poulter doing a “pretty much exactly how I, the writer, talk in real life” voice. But as a whole, video games have been iterating deeper on the main themes of control, authenticity, forced choice, meta-recursion and non-linearity for years, without also including an unhelpful portrayal of paranoid schizophrenia. When you love enough people who hear voices and suffer from castigatory delusions, maybe you become less enthused about media which depicts sufferers committing murders or throwing themselves off buildings. Fix it, Brooker. The same plotpoint was in White Christmas and it was shit back then.
]]>Esteemed friends. I have gathered you here today to speak about a most terrible crime, perpetrated in this very room. Late last night, the RPS podcast, affectionately known to some of you as the Electronic Wireless Show, was found dead beside the divan. No, do not get up Mrs Leathershaw. The cushions have been washed, I assure you. But less clean than those soft pillows is the conscience of one person in this room. That's right, listeners. The killer is among you. We have but one clue. The last recorded message of the Electronic Wireless Show, simply labelled: "Episode 62 - Of murders and mysteries."
]]>I’ve been playing the endless Assassin's Creed Origins, a game so gargantuan that the time on my save file lasts longer than Ancient Egyptian civilization did. This is a revenge mission stripped of all urgency by the simple fact of being five million hours long. Whatever big bad awaits at the end can rest easy knowing there are 800 fortresses to clear out before I reach him. Fearing a loss of sanity, I needed to remind myself of what progress actually felt like, so here are ten games you can see from start to finish in a more reasonable three hours.
]]>I make references to old movies, because I am an old man who only thinks about the past. In this case, the reference is to 80s 'teen hacker almost accidentally nukes the world' thriller Wargames. Y'know, the one that no-one remembers anything about other than "shall we play a game?" But don't we all feel like best friends when we quote it together?
We already knew that Sam Barlow, the fella behind FMV detective game Her Story, was working on an interactivery movie sorta thing using the license, but now we get the teaser trailer, and a sense of how cold war nuclear terror has been updated for a new age of electronic disquiet. The fact that this is called #Wargames, rather than simply Wargames, probably provides some clues to this.
]]>It seems IGN's recent purchase of Humble Bundle hasn't compromised their ability to put together a pack of awesome games. For the next 5 days, The Humble Care Package Bundle offers 27 games--including Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, and Pony Island--for $30 and all of the money is going to emergency relief charities, which makes this one well worth checking out.
]]>Oh no, is that headline libellous? Let me check my big copy of McNae’s. Actually, no, let’s live dangerously. Sam Barlow, the creator of crime thriller Her Story is caught up in Telling Lies! By that I mean he is making a new interactive video story called Telling Lies, and teaming up with a big ol’ film production company to do so. We don’t know exactly what it’s about yet but Barlow did tell Variety that it was something of a “political thriller with 3-4 key characters” and a “spiritual follow-up” to Her Story rather than a straight-up sequel.
]]>I am dad, hear me whinge. Too many games, not enough spare time, for all my non-work hours are spent kissing grazed knees, explaining why you cannot eat the food in that cupboard, constructing awful Lion King dioramas out of toilet roll tubes and being terrified that the next jump from the sofa to the armchair will go fatally wrong. I'm lucky in that my job to some extent involves playing games, so by and large if there's something I really want to check out I can find a way to, but I appreciate that there are many long-time, older or otherwise time-starved readers for whom RPS is a daily tease of wondrous things they cannot play.
Now, clearly I cannot magically truncate The Witcher 3 into three hours for you, but what I can do is suggest a few games from across the length and breadth of recent PC gaming that can either be completed within a few hours or dipped into now and again without being unduly punished because you've lost your muscle-memory.
]]>Wowee, isn't this a nice little surprise to help us shake off the Tuesday Wednesday blues? The latest Humble Bundle - Humble Narrative Bundle - has kicked off and, as always, the first tier is in familiar "pay what you want" format, with Steam keys costing a minimum of $1. Thing is, this particular collection's premier platform features one-time RPS Game of the Month and FMV Game of 2015 Her Story, cyberpunk retro point-and-clicker Read Only Memories, and Nina Freeman's lovely semi-autobiographical adventure Cibele. Based on those alone this is probably my favourite bundle yet, but there's more.
With Her Story [official site] sweeping up 3 awards at GDC, more than any other game, you may be wondering what Sam Barlow is going to do next. (You could almost say: what his story is going to be.)
He teased Her Story 2 in the past, in a wonderfully tantalizing tweet, but he has also decided to join Interlude as Executive Creative Director. If you have never heard of them, that's alright, most of us hadn't. To put it simply, Interlude make interactive videos, which at the end of the day are not that different from FMV games.
]]>The Witcher 3 took home two awards last night at the 16th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, including the coveted Game of the Year prize. Her Story, after winning big at the IGF Awards hours earlier, captured a further three trophies. Comes see the full list of winners and nominees below.
]]>The 18th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards have just wrapped up, with the 16th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards to follow shortly. I was at the ceremony, which took place in a preposterously large ballroom within the conference centre in San Francisco. You can find a full list of the winners, nominees and my thoughts on the outcome below.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
I am late to the Her Story party, because I was determined that I was going to play it with my partner. That's what I did two weekends ago, and it was as good as I'd hoped.
]]>Inspired by recent experiences with The Witness' [official site] puzzles, Robert Zak has been reminiscing about the art of note-taking while playing games. From graph paper for dungeon crawlers to suspicions and clues for Her Story [official site], many genres are represented, with only the noble pen and paper to hold them together.
]]>Most of Team RPS spent the end of June hunched over screens, looking confused and tapping away at their keyboards hoping that eventually something would make sense.
Wait for it.
And in the game.
Thank you, thank you.
FMV crime mystery Her Story [official site], which has players watching old police interview footage and trying to figure out what happened, ended up one of our favourite games of 2015. Good stuff! And good news: creator Sam Barlow has teased the follow-up he's working on.
]]>$5 for Her Story and Roundabout is a right bargain, so I'd heartily recommend the full motion video-tastic latest Humble Weekly Bundle for those alone. Her Story's a crime mystery told through recordings of interview footage (see its Advent calendar entry, Adam's Wot I Think, and our spoiler-filled discussion), while Roundabout is a delightful driving game with a constantly-revolving limousine and a charming silly story filled with FMV and stock footage (check out our Wot I Think). Good games!
On top of those two, the bundle also offers another eight FMV-laden games, including loads of futuregumshoe Tex Murphy. Not too shabby! Well, Tex himself is shabby. That trenchcoat must smell like a dead dog by now. The bundle's good, I mean.
]]>The Independent Games Festival turns up few surprises these days, and that's okay. The term 'indie games' is banned by my hypothetical RPS Style Guide as they're now so ubiquitous that they're just, well, video games [two words -hypothetical ed.], y'know? Heck, we ourselves have already implored you to play most of this year's IGF Finalists and Honorable Mentions, which were announced today. The IGF might not uncover a previously-unknown Next Big Thing, but it's a fine reminder of fine games.
]]>What is the best FMV game of 2015? The RPS Advent Calendar highlights our favourite games from throughout the year, and behind today's door is...
]]>Who must die? You decide! Playing a doctor surveying patients through a bank of CCTV monitors (showing real FMV!), in Who Must Die [official site] you'll need to figure out which is "contaminated" and must... well, you know. You have the power to tinker with their environments, running tests, then once you think you've sussed who the infected individual is, you can choose to kill them. If that doesn't sit well with you, you can turn a gun on yourself. These are your options in what is ultimately a brutal mix of Cluedo and Guess Who that will test your moral fiber.
]]>The IGF isn't the only game in town when it comes to awards for the best independent games. IndieCade, which self-describes as 'the Sundance of videogames industry', has now wrapped up its 2015 festival and recently announced its own picks o'the year. Sam Barlow's ingenious FMV detective tale Her Story [official site] scooped the Grand Jury prize, while a diverse selection of fascinating games - comprising both the digital and the physical - picked up gongs in the other categories. These are some of the PC games you're going to want to keep an eye on over the next few months.
]]>If you played Ryse: Son of Rome you may remember it for the serviceably clangy combat. My friend “Jack”, a police officer from northern England of several years standing, recalls the game for other reasons. “There are those bits where you join a shield wall - you're in a tortoise formation. There are public order situations that are like that. Most officers in Yorkshire get riot training, because of the riots in Bradford. And that sense in Ryse of having all your colleagues alongside, you're all behind your shields, getting pelted with stuff, there are flames going off everywhere and you've got your enemies in front of you... That's real! That happens.”
City riots are, he adds, scenarios that could be “great” in a third-person action game - our wide-ranging conversation is rife with jarring transitions of this sort, where talk of broken bones and drug dealing flips over abruptly into talk of reward mechanics and hardware specs. “Certainly with the advances in technology, the latest consoles and PCs could cope very easily with the amount of animation required, the particle stuff like smoke, all the crap that comes up off the floor, people getting hurt all around you. It's like that and it's scary.”
]]>Videogames spilling out of closets. Videogames stuffed under your bed. Videogames in your hair, and in your eyes, nose and mouth. Shrunken videogames clogging your pores, marching through your arteries. Videogames like rocks in your stomach.
Oh, hello. Are you suffering from too many videogames? That's why doctors* created Game of the Month. Take just one videogame monthly and you can fight the ill effects of having too much to play, not having enough time to play, or not knowing what to play. Game of the Month for July? It's Her Story [official site].
]]>Now that Her Story [official site] is available, Adam, John and Pip have gathered to discuss the structure and plot of the extraordinary FMV crime game. There are spoilers throughout and as much of the game revolves around the secrets and lies surrounding a criminal case, please don't read on if you haven't already played. Our spoiler-free review and interview should help you to decide if you do want to play.
]]>A camera records the statements that a woman makes to the police in relation to her missing husband. Years later, you sit at a computer and search through a video database by typing in keywords. The computer searches for the keywords in transcripts of the statements and returns up to five results. To dig deeper, you'll have to make connections, combine words, play detective.
Her Story [official site] is a game about crime and investigation from Aisle and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories designer Sam Barlow, and it's one of the best in its field.
]]>Sam Barlow continues to stake his claim on the coveted title Basically Gaming's Soderbergh as he meanders between mainstream and indie culture. He's gone from writing a XYZZY Award winning interactive fiction game called Aisle in the late '90s to Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, AKA that Wii game wot was quite good, and is now a few weeks away from releasing one of the most interesting looking narrative experiments I've seen in some time: Her Story [official site].
]]>Sam Barlow has one of the most impressive CVs in gaming. By my reckoning, he only has six releases to his name but two of those games are comfortably inside my list of all-time favourites - the experimental interactive fiction of Aisle and the masterful Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The latter might never come to PC but hopefully it'll arrive in digital download form on the Wii U's eShop sooner rather than later.
Barlow's next game, Her Story, has elements of true crime, police procedural and confessional monologue. During a sprawling conversation last week, we discussed how it continues to play with interactive storytelling techniques, and how it has as much in common with Alan Bennett as True Detective.
]]>Games are far weirder and varied than most people realise, which is why we must do our utmost to constantly remind ourselves and look further than that which is advertised to us. We must even seek out those little dream games when they're incomplete, because that's the only way dreams will ever become reality.
That's also why the header image on this post includes a menu, a quote from a JG Ballard, some procedural spaceships and an ancient biology drawing. Videogaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaames.
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