TELLING LIES
I’ve been teaching my tertiary students remotely for many months now. Am I sick of faces, talking at me, from a screen? I guess not. In Telling Lies, it helps that the characters are not asking me difficult questions. There are long silences, but they’re contextual, not awkward. You’re a ponytailed woman, her face gently reflected back as she works. Her eyes focus, then unfocus. You’re viewing videos from an external hard drive that comprise one half of recorded conversations. You search these exchanges for words first guessed, then learned.
Yes, it’s very similar to Her Story, also designed by Sam Barlow, but there are more characters and a plethora of secrets to uncover, rather than just a few. The first word, entered for you, is “love”. You meet the central character discussing his one experience of love. You’re taught to scrub backwards when his wife says, “Love you,” and you realise it’s the end of the clip. Almost immediately, I found myself searching for the other half of conversations. If your dad says, “Night night,” what do you say in return? Then I found a cute, little girl.
Love is, indeed, a central theme in this game, sometimes heartwarming, frequently messy. What even is love? A long term commitment to someone? Those exciting first weeks together? Is it physical proximity? Security, authenticity, truthfulness? Control? Commitment to a cause? So many questions are raised. Although thirty-four conversations include the word, “love”, you can only access the first five. Far more intriguing are the keywords that reveal six, meaning you need greater specificity to access that elusive sixth video.
I watched a man lie quietly on a bed for seven minutes and forty-seven seconds, wondering why he wasn’t crying. I’d previously viewed the other half of this conversation. I couldn’t understand his composure. I searched the brand name of a woman’s sex toy, not entirely sure whether I wanted to find more. There’s a video where everyone has to sit through the daughter’s lengthy piano recital. She’s about four (and by no means a prodigy). Adjacent moments are mundane, shocking, silly, regretful, or any other emotional tone you can imagine.
This experience’s production values are intense. Although most conversations are intimate, some scenes include tens of actors, vehicles, complex sets, and so on. The acting is incredible, especially that of a cam girl who changes her persona to keep clients interested. Despite my playing “the sexy bits” when my kids were out of the room, one of them asked, “Mum, is that a student?” No, she is not. My students wear clothes. Honestly, though, the little girl was my favourite character, despite her piano playing. Bedtime stories were my favourite videos.
I was expecting to finish Telling Lies when I felt like I’d experienced enough of the story, but the game does end decisively (although it is possible to continue viewing videos). I had more than fifty carefully recorded keywords that I still wanted to search. If I have one criticism, it’s that you have to scrub from the keyword and can’t simply view videos from their beginning. But this is not a game for the impatient. If you’re genuinely interested in finding all thirty-four times these people used the word, “love”, pull a blanket over your head and settle in for a tale.
Although thirty-four conversations include the word, “love”, you can only access the first five.