The central emotional tension in Telling Lies devolves from the fact that David develops separate relationships with the three women depicted in the game’s promotional art.
In this way, the player gradually builds a picture of David Smith’s undercover mission and unravelling personal life and although ‘progression’ (such as it is) through the game is not strictly linear, most players are likely to pick up the different story elements in broadly similar order. These videos can then, in turn, be indexed for new keywords, which can be used to retrieve new videos. Gameplay in Telling Lies largely consists of the player entering words or phrases in the in-game search engine, and then watching up to five short videos which contain that word or phrase. Unfortunately, there are other reasons why Telling Lies ultimately feels less satisfying than most of the Japanese visual novels, or Western television mysteries, that provide its closest comparators. Whatever the reason, Marshall-Green’s presence is a major selling point, and having such an accomplished thespian in the lead role means Telling Lies is largely insured against the central pitfall of many other ‘full motion video’ games: bad acting. Marshall-Green’s involvement may be partly attributable to the fact that Telling Lies is a spiritual successor to director Sam Barlow’s critically successful Her Story (2015). While it’s not unusual to see big-name actors lend their voices or likenesses to AAA franchises, it’s much less common to see an actor of this calibre involved in an arthouse or indie game. David is portrayed by Logan Marshall-Green, a talented actor best known for his harrowing performance in gripping indie horror The Invitation (2015).
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