Stories Untold (2017)

Turns out you don’t need a shotgun, flashlight, or haunted mansion to make a horror game work. Sometimes all it takes is an old computer and a very bad feeling.

Stories Untold is built around outdated machines, chunky interfaces, glowing screens, radio equipment, command prompts, and the kind of retro tech that looks sturdy, clunky, and one coffee spill away from disaster. In theory, that sounds painfully niche. In practice, it’s one of the more inventive horror experiences I’ve played in a while.

The game is split into four episodes, each one built around a different setup and style of interaction. The first episode, The House Abandoned, is the obvious standout. It starts as a simple text adventure and slowly becomes something much stranger, meaner, and more personal. I don’t want to spoil the trick, but it’s the kind of horror that works because your imagination is doing half the damage. The screen tells you just enough, the room around you starts feeling wrong, and suddenly typing basic commands feels like a terrible idea.

That’s where Stories Untold is at its best: turning small, limited spaces into pressure cookers. You’re not exploring foggy graveyards or sprinting away from monsters. You’re sitting in front of machines, reading instructions, flipping switches, tuning signals, and realizing that something is very much off. The atmosphere is unnervingly effective. It takes a tiny workspace and somehow makes it feel like the walls are leaning in.

The presentation is a huge reason this works. The ‘80s sci-fi horror aesthetic is cohesive without feeling like lazy nostalgia bait, and the soundtrack absolutely understands the assignment. The voice acting is also stronger than you’d expect from a short indie experiment like this. It gives the whole thing a crisp, unsettling edge, like you’re half-playing a game and half-stumbling into some cursed educational film your school definitely should not have shown you.

I also love how the four episodes eventually connect. At first, they feel separate, almost like an anthology of weird little horror scenarios. Then the game starts tightening the strings, and you realize there’s a bigger picture forming underneath all the beeps, static, and bad decisions. It’s clever, and for most of its runtime, it knows exactly how much to reveal.

Mostly.

Because here’s where the 5-star train hits a little bit of track maintenance.

Stories Untold peaks early. That first episode is so damn strong that the rest of the game has to spend the next couple hours trying to live up to it. Episode two is still very good, with enough mystery and strange machinery to keep things moving. But by the third and fourth chapters, the balance starts to shift. Instead of being scared, I found myself thinking, “Okay, which button am I supposed to press, what frequency did they mention, and why do I feel like I’ve accidentally taken a night shift at a haunted radio station?”

There’s definitely a place for that kind of technical puzzle-solving. I like when games make me pay attention. I do not like when one quick line of dialogue contains three different steps, never repeats itself, and then expects me to operate fictional equipment like I got certified during the tutorial I apparently missed.

The text-command logic can be a little fussy too. Not broken, just old-school in that charming-but-also-kind-of-annoying way. Sometimes “leave room” works. Sometimes the game wants “exit room.” Sometimes you feel less like you’re solving a mystery and more like you’re negotiating with a stubborn microwave.

And that’s the weird push-pull of Stories Untold. When it’s focused on mood, implication, and creepy little narrative reveals, it’s fantastic. When it gets too tangled in buttons, dials, codes, and procedural busywork, the horror starts leaking out of the room. The scares don’t vanish completely, but they do have to fight for space against your growing desire to just get the damn machine working.

The ending also didn’t fully blow me away. It works, and I liked how everything came together, but the final twist isn’t exactly undiscovered territory. If you’ve played enough psychological horror, you may see the shape of it before the game wants you to. That doesn’t ruin the experience, but it does keep the landing from feeling as sharp as the setup.

Still, I’m glad I played it. Very glad, actually.

Stories Untold is short, strange, creative, and memorable in a way a lot of bigger horror games aren’t. It understands that fear can come from reading the wrong sentence at the wrong time. It knows how to weaponize a blinking cursor. And even when it gets too caught up in its own machinery, there’s enough invention here to make the whole thing worth experiencing.

Not perfect. Not consistent. But absolutely worth typing “play” for.

👍 POSITIVES

• Brilliant use of retro text-adventure mechanics
• First episode is genuinely excellent
• Strong atmosphere built from small spaces and old tech
• Great soundtrack and voice acting
• Four episodes connect in a clever, satisfying way

🤏 MIXED

• Later episodes are still interesting, but don’t hit as hard as the first
• Old-school command inputs are charming until they start being picky
• Ending works, though it’s not especially surprising

👎 NEGATIVES

• Some puzzle instructions are too easy to miss
• Third and fourth episodes get overly technical
• Horror loses impact when the game turns into equipment troubleshooting

Having had this game in my backlog for a long while, I didn't really know what to expect. I ended up getting an "artsy", clunky sort of combination of puzzle game and psychological horror. I like how the game builds from each of the first episodes to the fourth one, and some of the interactions of playing around with old computer equipment. It is rather clunky, though, and the foibles of old text adventure parsers are still pretty much presnt and annoying.

All in all, I'm glad I played this on-rails experience.

Great game. No Code is one of the most interesting developers around, really stoked for their Silent Hill game. Came late to the Stories Untold party and really enjoyed it. Clever mechanics, simple yet interesting puzzles and a good story (not the most original, true) with great voice performances.

Negative - the flashing lights on Episode 2 and parts of the ending are really disturbing and potentially dangerous for some. I understand their connection to the story but there must've been another way (think of the Braindance from Cyberpunk, only worse and you are actually forced to look at it to solve puzzles)

Based on the brief synopsis I had read, the couple of pictures I had seen and the fact that it was made by the same devs that made my beloved Observation, I had been somewhat obsessed with the promise of this game. And after giving it a shot, I have to say Stories Untold speaks to my retro gaming and horror sensibilities in I way I hadn’t anticipated. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but the game easily surpassed the quality bar I thought it was going to clear.

Stories Untold is a retro-insipired, text-based, point & click, episodic horror adventure where you explore stories via different types of interface - computers, cameras, medical equipment, etc. And most of the horror atmosphere comes from the creepy aesthetic and sound design. No Code did a brilliant job in this regard, and especially episode 1 showcases this awesomely dark, eerie retro ambience that sucks you in almost immediately (plus the ZX Spectrum aficionados out there will love this particular episode). Everything screams 80s chills in this game, and it screams it with style.

There’s also an excellent narrative interconnection that is weaved into the episodes in a almost masterfully moody way. Some of it is obvious, some of it is probably subtle enough that you’ll only pick it up if you’re paying enough attention. The story / substories are great, at times presenting a narrative twist that feels fresh yet unforced. And the payoff is pretty good, provided you let yourself get immersed in the narrative being laid out in front of you. Some of the ‘puzzles’ are quite interesting to solve, though this isn’t the case all the time and, also because of that, it’s easier to tell which episodes are your favourites. I especially liked the first two - The House Abandon and Lab Conduct -, not only because of this, but also for the atmosphere and thematic drive they highlight. Lab Conduct in particular almost feels like an earlier draft in tone of what Observation turned out to be.

There are problems with this game, as it sometimes tries to emulate retro gaming sensibilities to its own detriment. The system could sometimes be a bit more lenient and intuitive in regards to your text prompts, and the ability to bypass / speed up previously seen text is also missing. This is frustratingly obvious especially in the last episode. Similar to other No Code games, there’s also a bit of glitchy stuff and jank at play. And the last episode, to me, was the least interesting one, since the reveals are put forth very early on contributing to a drawn out feel that didn’t need to be there. But despite all this, this game is still a great retro horror experience that at times felt custom made for people like me. It’s hard to recommend it outright because your enjoyment will depend on your gaming and/or genre background and preference. But if you fit this particular bill, Stories Untold will likely be an experience that resonates with you on a higher level. 8/10

I'm gonna preface this review by saying that I am absolutely not a horror fan. Most of the time, I can't stand the genre. I'm just not a fan of it. That said, I absolutely loved Stories Untold.

In terms of gameplay... well, aside from the first episode and part of the fourth, I find it kinda mediocre. The text adventure bits are easily my favorite part of the game, and also (unfortunately for me) the scariest. The rest consists of puzzle-esque sections and walking from one place to another, which I didn't find particularly engaging.

The story of the game is pretty abstract. The first three episodes have very little in common. There's no connection to them at first, but the fourth episode weaves all three together, in my opinion, incredibly well. The ending of the game is a divisive one, to say the least. I won't spoil it, but I will say that things are not at all as they may seem. The first three episodes just have hints of what the true story is. I found the fourth episode incredibly interesting for this reason. As you play through it, you start connecting the dots, noticing things throughout the episode that tie back to past ones. There was this one specific "ah-ha!" moment where suddenly I realized exactly what was going on, and let me tell you that was a great moment. I guess I'll stop now before I say too much, but I was really blown away by the storytelling in this game. It's weird, abstract, and non-sensical at first, but by the end it's immensely interesting.

So, I guess I enjoyed this game for pretty much no horror-related reasons. I will say the first episode, and parts of the fourth, did genuinely scare me. I really enjoyed the weird storytelling in this game, and it was easily my favorite part of the game. If you're interested in a short but engaging experience, definitely give this game your consideration.

This was great! Brought back memories of playing the Hugo series on my grandad's PC in the early 90s. We got them on floppy disks out the local library and then copied them. What a time to be alive.

This was genuinely great though. Creepy, engaging and some taxing puzzles. Love having to write stuff down to solve them, proper old school. Also it was made by a Glasgow based company, so - local pride!! 😁

I'm writing this review quite sometime after I completed the game, so my recall may not be 100% on certain details. That being said, my personal experience with this game was profound. I grew up playing text adventure games on my Commodore 64, Apple IIe, and other platforms so my interest was immediately peaked when I read the summary of the game. I'm going to keep my review here intentionally brief because I feel that in order to experience the game the way it was intended to be, players should enter with zero prior knowledge.

First of all, this game isn't very long and I finished it in one sitting. I played this game from beginning to end enthralled by the story and game setting. The story of the game isn't anything new, the fundamental game mechanics aren't anything new; however, it's the method in which all of the elements are assembled to tell a story that makes this game such a compelling experience for me.

For anyone who's considering the game and curious about whether or not it's a game, you would be comfortable playing, know that the game is a thriller style game that's heavily narrative-driven relying upon your engagement to move the story forward. This game may be classified in the horror genre but it's a horror game in the same sense as Resident Evil for example. If you don't enjoy games with a lot of reading, puzzle-solving, or fragmented storylines that require you to assemble them, I'd recommend you pass on this game.

One point I would like to make is that this is definitely not a Stranger Things themed game. Stranger Things absolutely nailed the feel of the '80s and that's the setting for this game as well. If Stories Untold had released before Stranger Things using the same audio and visual appeal, it would have worked just as well. Stories Untold's theme is inspired by Stranger Things but that's pretty much where it ends.

That's really all I want to say about it aside from my recommendation if you enjoy text-based adventure, adventure games, or games built on the foundation of the story and not a game with a story tacked on, at least check this one out.

I did not like the story they showed us in the 4th episode! (the spoiler part) I liked the game more when I thought it's like a Twilight Zone game.1-3 episodes

The font type was awful, really awful! I messed up multiple times because I thought it's an o then later found out it was c! Or 8 no 6 no... oh! It's a G! The font was that bad! Sorry for the bad picture I just used my tablet camera ... https://ibb.co/xj91mhy

If you want to play something different from other games then this is it.

Spoiler So they brought him back to life and out of coma just to prove he caused the accident. Let's not forget Jen should have noticed I was drunk, I couldn't even start the engine without help! XD I don't like games like this, forcing you to do stuff you wouldn't do, you don't want to do. And of course poor guy died they brought him back to life just to remind him how evil/cruel he is! Everyone seen him drunk nobody said he shouldn't drive... Especially ask him to drive! I think the fact that after the accident his parents did not want to see him is cruel.