Telling Lies

Hot take: Telling Lies is Sam Barlow’s best game. The game depicts multiple storylines through a database of webcam conversations, which you have to search through to piece together what happened to its characters. You’re not given any real context for what you’re searching for, but as you discover new threads and conversations, you start to prioritize the stories you want to know more about until you run out of time.

Some of the best moments of Telling Lies come when you finally stumble upon an answer to a question you’ve had for hours of play, such as when I found a clip that showed the ultimate fate of one of its main characters…just before I ran out of time. I would have been frustrated without that reveal, and was lucky I found it when I did. Moments like that aren’t replicable, and can make the first time you play through quite  memorable. Telling Lies rewards going back to learn more, but sometimes that initial playthrough of fumbling around in the dark can make for special moments you can’t experience again.

Rough Average Playtime: 4 hours