Stories Untold: the interface is part of the haunting

Stories Untold is an appealing choice if the most unsettling part of a machine is the moment you stop asking why it wants you to do something. The 2017 game packages four experimental adventures, including The House Abandon, and mixes text-adventure and point-and-click forms. Its design interest lies in the relationship between instruction and participation.

This is editorial criticism of the documented format and design premise, not a report of a completed personal playthrough. The official listing credits the original development to No Code; the current store developer label is Screen Burn. The distinction matters when looking up older coverage.

Reading becomes an action

A text adventure asks the player to translate an intention into a command. That is a different relationship to a frightening place than freely moving a camera around it. You must decide what to ask for, and the system gets to decide how to answer. Language becomes the narrow opening through which the world is available.

The useful horror possibility is not simply that a computer can display a sinister sentence. It is that the ordinary exchange of request and response establishes trust. Once a reader has accepted a system as a source of orientation, even a small uncertainty in that exchange has consequences. A frightening description can be ignored; a description needed to decide the next action is harder to set aside.

Nostalgia is a starting point

The official presentation leans into an eighties aesthetic. That is an invitation, but it is not an argument for quality on its own. Old equipment can be comforting, irritating, or unfamiliar depending on who is playing. The more interesting question is whether the form creates a specific dependence, rather than merely displaying objects associated with a decade.

For an artist making a fictional screen or prop, this is a useful standard. Give the object a function the audience can understand before asking its appearance to carry dread. A label, input field, or indicator should help establish what a person expects from it. Otherwise, a wall of technical decoration remains decoration, however attractively it flickers.

Four pieces change the rhythm

An anthology can reset the way a player pays attention. Stories Untold’s mixture of forms offers that possibility without requiring a vast world. Variety can also create friction: enjoying one mode of interaction does not guarantee enjoying the next. Anyone who finds command-based interaction or close procedural attention tedious should inspect ordinary gameplay before choosing it.

The recommendation is therefore specific. Look at Stories Untold if you enjoy horror that makes the act of interacting feel significant. Do not choose it solely because the presentation resembles familiar retro media. The promising idea is that a small, apparently manageable task can make you participate in something you do not yet understand. A good interface ordinarily removes doubt. Horror has other plans for that convenience.

Questions from the crypt

Sources & further reading

• Stories Untold: official store description and original developer credit

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