When playing Barlow’s Her Story, I felt that I was in interacting driectly with Hannah to come to a conclusion as to whether or not she was the murderer. What separated my experience with this game versus others that I played throughout the quarter was that most, if not all, of the gameplay occurs in the mind of the player, rather than on the computer. While the evidence and various recordings are on the computer, the gamer has to be the one searching for clues, keywords, connecting the evidence together, and ultimately solving the murder. This starkly contrasts may other detective games, where you are given a set of binary options, which will eventually lead you to the final outcome, regardless of whether you are right or wrong.
This inclusion of a mental component into the framework of the game was quite refreshing for me, as the gamer had to perform his/her own analysis of Hannah’s interviews. When playing the game from start to end, I came up with two different conclusions as to what happened, with no indication of whether they were right or not, which adds to the immersive and ambiguous nature of the game. I hypothesized that either Hannah is suffering from a multiple personality disorder or that Eve and Hannah are identical twins. By allowing for each gamer to come up with their own respective conclusions without the game agreeing or disagreeing with him/her, Barlow has created a gaming environment where gamers are not directed towards a certain end outcome, but are forced to think for themselves and form their own opinions based on Hannah’s recordings. By the end of the game, you are still left thinking about whether or not your conclusion is correct, as Barlow does not give you the “correct answer”. Thus, this ambiguity, which is in large part driven by no indication of whether a gamers’ theory is correct or not, creates an immersive experience, where gamers are forced to analyze situations and rationalize their conclusions.