Her Story developer talks about his next game: Telling Lies
Her Story is getting a follow-up game. I’ve got one thing to say about that: YES.
Sam Barlow’s 2015 revolutionary cinematic experience Her Story is getting a follow-up game. I’ve got one thing to say about that: YES.
If you haven’t played Her Story, then you should. This narrative-driven, film-like mystery tale puts us in the role of a detective trying to reveal what happened to a man called Simon, who’d gone missing and was later found dead. Our job is to sift through video archives in which Simon’s wife, Hannah Smith and her twin sister Eve are interviewed by the police authorities.
Deciphering who’s who, reading through Hannah’s and Eve’s truths and lies and going back over the recordings time and time again is a remarkably original and innovative experience in the gaming industry, But I’m no genius, as Her Story won so many prizes that if I had to write them all down I’d have to bore you to death. Let’s just say that it won Polygon’s Game of the Year, Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Game of the Month and the Debut Game and Game Innovation awards from the 12th British Academy Game Awards, to name a few.
Sam Barlow has revealed through an interview with Eurogamer that he’s already working on a kind of follow-up called Telling Lies. This could have been the title of Her Story, but I digress. “Her Story had this interestingly gothic back story – Telling Lies continues to push further away from the kinds of stories we’d normally deal with. My shitty high concept is that it’s like Sex, Lies and Videotape meets The Conversation – it’s a story of four people, their relationships and how they messily intertwine in the context of larger political questions”, explained Barlow to Eurogamer.
Telling Lies will see us going through NSA surveillance recordings on four different people, but one of the first things we’ll have to understand is why these conversations are important and why did the NSA decided to monitor these individuals in the first place. Telling Lies promises to be a game with deeply political roots and tones in a day and age where personal information is a worldwide currency and privacy seems to be getting further and further away from our reach.
Barlow also confessed that parts of these high level concepts for Telling Lies came up while developing Her Story, as he used to be in touch with his family through video calls and social media. “Knowing that these are things that are important to me, knowing that they’re important in the world – I hope I’m usefully contributing to this discussion, and also speaking from a position of knowledge. [Telling Lies] is very much about the intersection of private lives, intimacy and government, and the intrusion on all of the concepts we hold dear about our right to a private life, and the extent to which in a digital age those rights are increasingly encroached upon. Every night, I go to bed and take this device with a mic and camera in it and put it by my bed, and I don’t think twice about that”, he added.
If you’re like me and absolutely crave for interactive stories and narrative-driven, dark stories, then you’ll be probably as excited as me for the released later this year of Telling Lies. If I had to guide my opinion for what the teaser trailer shows, then I’m sure it’s going to be creepy and will chilly at the same time. What’s not to love about that?