I’ve finished Telling Lies at the perfect time, as Sam Barlow recently revealed his next game, Immortality (opens in new tab). And I never did find all the videos, despite picking through as much as I could, something that eats at me days later. I felt like a detective in an HBO series, draining a glass of wine as I flicked back and forth between pages and videos, trying to find the word I must have missed. Yet, still, there were connections I couldn’t make, videos I couldn’t find. Ultimately, it meant that when I reached a dead-end in my investigation, I had hundreds of words noted down to look up. As a journalist, I’m wired to note pretty much everything I can, which quickly became an issue as I noted down every word, date, and time I thought had relevance – the legibility of the notes becoming more questionable as evening turned into night. The non-linear narrative means that it’s up to you to make the connections. What’s most gripping about Telling Lies is the freedom it gives you. After all, what you’re doing is for the greater good, right? Freedom to snoop Telling Lies taps into that curiosity, that need to know, and encourages it. Maybe you want to know what your neighbors are arguing about, or you’ve looked up your friend’s new partner on Facebook – we're curious and we can't help that. We're all nosey, at least to some degree, even if we don’t like to admit it. It made me think about how I would feel if someone was watching back my many Google Meet and Zoom calls, they’d likely be bored but I would definitely feel invaded (and embarrassed).īut while Telling Lies is uncomfortable, it’s not real, so you can make peace with peering into these people’s lives like they’re a tiger in a zoo. It reminded me of scenes in the Snowden movie depicting the NSA’s counter-terrorism monitoring: a screen full of private moments. I don’t want to spoil any story beats for those who haven’t played Telling Lies, but as you go you’ll find that while most of the videos push the narrative forward, several don’t add anything to the plot and those are the moments that are the most uncomfortable: should I be watching a child sleep while her father tells her a story? Probably not. It’s even more uncomfortable having spent two years relying on the likes of Zoom and Skype to keep in touch with my own inner circle. Watching the videos feels intrusive, you’re a stranger invading private moments between couples, friends, and families.
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