The first episode, “The House Abandon”, has you playing a game in which you’re playing a game, and a text-based adventure game at that, yet quickly you realise that things aren’t what they seem. Luckily for us, the game released on PC in 2017 and Switch earlier this year, so all of the episodes are included in the PS4 version. Told as a series of episodic tales, Stories Untold plays out over four episodes. Horror games may be my Kryptonite, but I’m a sucker for a decent puzzle game and I need to face my fears sometimes, right? Having watched the trailer I thought hey, this could be fun.

Genre-hopping: from psychological horror, to tense mystery and terrifying sci-fi Stories Untold is truly “4 stories, 1 nightmare”.So when the chance came up to review Stories Untold, a horror adventure puzzle game, I was as surprised as anyone when I decided to give it a go. Sublime synth-wave horror soundtrack, inspired by 80s horror soundtracks. Gorgeous retro-aesthetic brings back vivid memories, or a glimpse into what was. Play mind-bending text adventures, process radio transmissions and conduct experiments on bizarre artifacts. Four unique stories, with their own settings, gameplay and mechanics.

“Stories Untold” was developed by No Code, a Glasgow based ex-AAA development team headed up by Jon McKellan (Alien: Isolation) and Omar Khan. The game pulls together 80s retro nostalgia, innovative and experimental genre-defying gameplay, and tense, phycological horror to create “one of the most fascinating and unique tales you can play this year” (GameSpew 9/10). Combining a mix of classic text-adventure, point-and-click and more, 4 short stories are packaged together into a single mysterious anthology that has been described as “a fantastic, fascinating example of interactive visual storytelling” (Telegraph 5/5) and earning widespread critical acclaim since release. “Stories Untold” is a narrative-driven experimental adventure game, that bends the genre into something completely unique.

Stories untold episode 3