gaming

Paper notebooks help players track clues, maps and ideas in narrative videogames

A writer describes using a physical notebook while playing narrative videogames to capture tactile details and organise complex information. In Her Story, the game's tagging and clip-saving tools proved insufficient, so the player recorded keywords, victim details, locations and uninvestigated leads by hand. The notebook turned scattered notes into pages, maps and a basic solution to the mystery, showing how paper can bridge digital play and real-world thinking.

• Notebooks are used to jot keywords, phrases, treasure locations and sketches that spill out of gameplay and become maps or clustered notes.
• Her Story’s interface allows tags and a limited number of saved clips but lacks a way to track all potential search terms, so the player kept an external record of search leads and evidence.
• After a couple of hours of note-taking the player had enough written material for a basic solution to the crime and ongoing threads to investigate.
• The piece originally ran in PC Gamer #326 (UK, January 2019) and argues that physical notes bring tactile, board-game–like engagement to digital experiences.