I recently complained to a friend about investigative games. Open-world private investigative work from the safety of my couch sounds wonderful, but game designers couldn't possibly implement that. The structural limitations of a constrained action set undermine any real sense of freedom. Instead of being the PI, I'm just watching one.

Creator Sam Barlow has figured out if he not only limits the action set, but cripples it -- reduces it to a bare minimum -- somehow, ironically, the freedom is resurrected. That entire action set:
(1)Search a video database using keywords.
(2)Watch video.

That's it.

Like a proof of concept, I'd already enjoyed the smaller-scoped Her Story before I started this. Nonetheless the first hour was excruciating. Boring (albeit beautiful) people talking about boring things. With no "start at beginning of clip" function when searches dumped me into the middle of clips, forcing minutes wasted holding rewind buttons. And no way to combine the two videos containing opposite sides of a conversation, so I had to sit through each conversation twice.

Then *poof* it's three hours later, and I'm a full-fledged PI. Or a despicable voyeur. Take your pick. I've mastered predicting the unheard party's responses to unlock both sides of every story. I've carefully curated a list of keywords for tactical digging. I'm hooked.

None of this would work without great acting and writing. Both are top-notch. No big stars, but you might recognize the leads from underrated works like Halt and Catch Fire, Westworld, or tick, tick...Boom!. Aside from a mid-credits epilogue, the writing never strays into theatricality. The characters' reactions feel as candid (or appropriately coy) as you'd expect from found self-recorded video.

It's the closest I've ever come to the thrill of investigation. Well, outside of creepy and regrettable social media stalking, but that's a story for another day.

Her story was better but i enjoyed playing this too. Achievements are bugged though.