12 Phenomenal Indie Games That Deserve Your Attention In 2015

10. Her Story

A challenger to the "Is it really a game?" crown, Her Story (written by Silent Hill: Shattered Dimensions' plot-whizz Sam Barlow) plonks you down in front of a computer with the barest of text alluding to a mysterious disappearance that needs to be solved, before letting you figure everything else on your own. Gameplay is derived from thumbing through a series of live-action interview clips, all of which have been taken from string of interviews with one British woman, played by the mysterious Viva Seifert. Everything's transcribed into the police database in front of you, so if you happen upon her mentioning the word "knife", doing a new search will then give you every clip that word's mentioned in, and so on. Described by Barlow as "If you can Google, you can play Her Story", it's a supremely unique gem that frames narrative and story revelation as a key part of gameplay - something even the finest detective thrillers (like L.A. Noire) can fall down on. You'll soon find yourself turning into every cigar-chomping detective you've seen on the big or small screen, ardently trying to predict what sentences or terms would give you the most information, and although you can make notes in the game, it's through compiling your own theories on what's happened that then make for the greatest discussions online.