UPDATE: The publisher, Wales Interactive, and PlayStation have since taken down the trailer from YouTube. This came after outrage on social media about profiting from real life horror stories of predators on Twitch. The UK publisher released a statement and has said, “Online abuse is real and is still happening every day — Gamer Girl seeks to raise awareness of this issue.”
Prepare to experience the horror of an anonymous predator in chat, as FMV/simulator hybrid Gamer Girl releases in September for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
The game has you play the role of a moderator for a Twitch channel, and your choices determine the outcome of the story. The main protagonist is Abicake99, and she is grappling with the disappearance of her friend Becky. No one knows what happened to her, but Abi decides to return to streaming after a hiatus. However, in the chat, there is a sinister predator hiding under an anonymous identity. In the trailer, you can see this creep attack her. Will you be able to save Abi with your decisions?
Like a moderator on Twitch, you ban users and manage the chat by warning or rewarding comments on screen. You also make decisions on what Abi will stream, like working out, cosplay, gaming, IRL trips, board games, and drawing. All of these factor into the mood that Abi is in.
According to the developer FMV Future, you can also decide to help stir drama to increase the viewership or keep it safe, which will cause the opposite effect. If you completely fail as a mod, you will be booted off the stream, and it will be game over.
Gamer Girl does a few new innovative things for the growing modern FMV genre. First, it is completely improvised. The actors reacted to pre-scripted text without prior notice, and the live chat was written during takes by the scriptwriter. The developer says it was inspired by films like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, while making the game.
Like other FMV titles, such as Dark Nights with Poe & Munro, and Telling Lies, there are multiple endings in Gamer Girl from its branching paths. FMV Future claims that there are “hundreds of choices and permutations.”
This project is being written and directed by Allan Plenderleith, who also worked on 2016’s The Bunker. That game has received a Mostly Positive score on Steam, but it received a 57 on Metacritic. Hopefully, Gamer Girl fares better. Fans of Twitch, however, might be happy as FMV Future says that there will be cameos from real life streamers. The only confirmed streamer we know about is CyborgAngel, who has over 60,000 followers.
Source: Wales Interactive
