Telling Lies

é um daqueles jogos que ficam numa região estranha entre videogame, filme interativo e investigação particular. Em vez de andar por cenários, conversar com personagens ou resolver quebra-cabeças tradicionais, passamos praticamente toda a experiência diante de um computador, pesquisando palavras em um banco de vídeos roubados. Cada pesquisa apresenta trechos de conversas envolvendo quatro pessoas cujas vidas estão ligadas por mentiras, relacionamentos complicados e uma investigação policial. O jogo não entrega os acontecimentos em ordem. Cabe ao jogador observar nomes, lugares e frases importantes para encontrar novos vídeos e montar mentalmente o que realmente aconteceu. No começo, essa proposta funciona muito bem. Existe uma sensação genuína de estar mexendo em arquivos que não deveriam ser vistos. Quando um personagem menciona uma palavra suspeita e a pesquisa leva a uma gravação reveladora, é difícil não abrir imediatamente outro vídeo. A curiosidade vira o principal combustível da experiência. As atuações também ajudam bastante. Os personagens parecem naturais, desconfortáveis e contraditórios, como pessoas reais tentando esconder partes da própria vida. Como vemos apenas um lado de muitas chamadas, precisamos interpretar silêncios, expressões e mudanças de comportamento para imaginar o que está sendo dito do outro lado. Essa escolha, entretanto, também causa o maior problema do jogo. Existem vídeos nos quais passamos bastante tempo vendo alguém apenas ouvir a outra pessoa. Isso pode criar intimidade e tensão, mas também deixa a experiência cansativa. Rebobinar gravações, procurar a outra metade das conversas e assistir a longos períodos de silêncio começa a quebrar o ritmo. Outro ponto que pode incomodar é a falta de uma direção clara. O jogador pode descobrir momentos importantes muito cedo, perder vídeos relevantes ou chegar ao encerramento ainda sem compreender completamente algumas relações. Isso faz parte da narrativa não linear, mas também pode transmitir a sensação de que a investigação terminou antes de realmente chegarmos a uma conclusão. consegue algo interessante: faz o jogador participar da construção da história. Não estamos apenas assistindo aos acontecimentos, mas escolhendo quais palavras pesquisar, quais pessoas acompanhar e quais versões dos fatos merecem confiança. Cada jogador pode montar o quebra-cabeça de uma maneira diferente. Não é um título indicado para quem procura ação ou mecânicas variadas. Quase tudo se resume a digitar palavras, assistir às gravações e anotar pistas. Para quem gosta de investigação, cinema interativo e histórias contadas aos poucos, porém, existe uma experiência bastante envolvente. tem uma ideia excelente, boas atuações e uma atmosfera voyeurística que combina perfeitamente com sua história. O sistema de pesquisa transforma palavras aparentemente comuns em pistas importantes e proporciona ótimos momentos de descoberta. Ao mesmo tempo, a lentidão dos vídeos, os longos silêncios e a navegação pouco prática tornam a experiência mais cansativa do que deveria. É um jogo interessante e ousado, mas que exige paciência e disposição para montar uma narrativa fragmentada e se manter afim de jogar até obter todos finais. Nota: 7,5/10**

The story and acting are pretty good. That is the only good thing I have to say about this "game". Playing this thing is very annoying. I'd suggest just using a guide and looking up the keywords and bookmarking videos. Then just watch them in order. The reason for this is because each video has to be manually rewinded like a vhs tape and some of them start in the middle. This is tedious for no reason. Also stupid that you can't have both sides of conversations play at the same time. Watch 1 side of an 8 minute conversation and then watch the same thing as the other side. You can only hear one side each time. It is really dumb and doesn't add anything to the story. Just make a movie. As a "game" this sucks and anyone who could possibly be interested in something like this will find it too annoying.

A poor follow-up to Her Story, which even with some flaws, is a great game. A bigger budget, more complex story, and higher profile actors don't have the game from having an overall weak story. Most importantly - gameplay loop goes from super quick and engaging in Her Story to super awkward with looooong moments of silence and dumb facial expressions as your watching basically half of a conversation. Only buy it if it's on deep discount

Sooooo boring and tedious, skip this one and play Her Story and Immortality instead </3

Well, this game is exceptionally well-designed in terms of the acting, realism, and the very precise writing that's necessary to ensure the player uncovers the story gradually but reliably, but it's quite poorly designed in regard to the actual user experience. The worst part is that each clip is only one side of a conversation, so you have long stretches of time where the character is just staring silently at the camera. Some of the clips are pretty meaningless, as well. You can fast-forward through the videos, but if you try to grab your note app to write down a keyword, you lose your spot in the video, which is really annoying. Also, a keyword will take you to the precise part of the clip where that word is used, which necessitates rewinding through sometimes several minutes of footage to see the entire thing. So, I think LESS realism would have actually been optimal here. But, well, it's an interesting experience, and the story is interesting.

Hard to recommend. I really liked Her Story. If you liked that, you will probably like this as well. I think the overall story was more immersive, more engrossing. There is something really interesting about learning to know characters through their most mundane activities. It makes the twists hit harder, hurt more. I really enjoyed the way I got to experience the story, and I think the overall story was just generally more interesting, at all points of progress. There most boring part was perhaps the first half hour but after that I found some interesting videos and then it had me. It was also quickly very clear that a lot of work went into this to make the world make sense, and I feel like it did. It's all coherent and VERY consistent. It felt like watching a 2000s movie with an ok plot. The acting is ok, slightly cringe at worst, and really good at best. But because of the the way you experience, this interactive medium, the way you get to know these characters through and through, I enjoyed the whole thing soo much. The people in the story start to feel like real people, and you feel like you really understand them. The result is greather than the sum of its parts. However, I just can't understand their decision making regarding the video playback. Contrary to Her Story, if you find a keyword in a video, the video starts at the first time the word is mentioned. If you for example search 'love', you might get a video that start at the end because someone send "I love you" at the end. You then have to spend the next few minutes rewinding the whole which might be 2 minutes, or even 8 minutes. If this game had normal, proper video playback features (rewinding faster, or stopping a video to play it from the actual start, or timeline scrubbing) it would have been an EASY recommend. RIght now, I don't know if I want to put people through the same stuff as me. The story just might not get people, and the idea of playing search engine simulator might not be enough for some. So this really put it on the edge. Personally, I enjoyed it. So it think it's worth considering, but it's really hard to confidently recommend this game. Either you will really like this, or the game loses you in the first ten mintutes. So in the end, it's probably safer to tell you to find something else that more confidently deserves your attention. Otherwise, give this game a go if you really loved Her Story and want more regardless.

i would recommend it but the ending was so unsatisfying and now im pissed

Just... amazing game. I loved Her Story and I definitely loved this one.