When Sam Barlow tracked how folks played his 2015 game Her Story, a narrative-driven mystery that centers around fictional police interview footage, he was surprised to find just how many people devoured it. There are 271 video clips that make up the narrative of Her Story, but the game’s intentionally cumbersome search engine only lets players view five at a time. Watching every single clip to solve the game’s murder mystery isn’t necessary, and there’s even a stopping point communicated to the player when they’ve seen enough to work out the central puzzle. But Barlow, who spoke to Polygon last week during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, found that far more players than he’d expected had watched every single clip, mainlining every bit of story they could from the game. “Obviously it’s a video game,” Barlow said. “I also made the mistake of having the grid that showed you all the clips you hadn’t seen. But a ridiculous percentage of people 100-percented Her Story versus all of the anecdotes and stats I know from making proper video games.” While Her Story is narrative-focused and takes about two and a half hours to complete, Barlow says he is trying to prevent those who play his next game, Telling Lies, from tackling it in the same manner, as he thinks it’s an easy way to make the experience less enjoyable. “I struggled personally with that thing of more open games, because of how I play Zelda games,” he said. “It’s… [Read full story]