The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Good-looking, intriguing, but also frustrating and disappointing.

Let's start with what it is: A series of "levels" with some difficult puzzles along a journey of psychoanalytic horror.

The production really is quite gorgeous. And it's also quite bare. The textures and lighting are excellent, but there's just very little detail in the areas themselves. It's impressively ambitious while also highlighting the limits of what is possible for a solo developer to achieve.

The story, too, feels bare. There are some nice things being done with environmental storytelling and voiceovers, but there's just very little meat on these bones.

I would have still recommended it despite these weaknesses, but alas the gameplay is what makes this title unpleasant. I enjoy challenging puzzles, and there are some good ones here, but too many of them require you to be very specific about the solution and there's quite a lot of "pixel hunting" you need to do to just find the points of interaction. I was spending less time thinking about solutions and more time fiddling with the game's quirky expectations.

There's also some technical awkwardness. Though the game supports controllers, you have to choose between controller and keyboard, and the menus seem quite broken with the former. It took quite a bit of fiddling just to modify the in-game settings. Also, there are too few save points and no clear indication that you've reached them. I once quit the game only to come back later and find myself thrown way back, having to repeat a set of tedious puzzles. I was not enthused.

In conclusion, there's a lot of potential here but I doubt most people would find The Lies We Tell Ourselves to be a good experience.