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2018/05

A Forest of Liars To Entice All and Spare None

angrygamer

I’ve waited for the longest time, just a little over a month actually, to bring up Forest of Liars.

Really all I could forage from its internet presence at the time was a vastly stunning array of supposed in-game vistas, something about an often-illusory gameplay narrative and more evocative art.

Magnificent, yes? Thankfully what a newly launched Kickstarter campaign has done at this point, is give the Umeshu Lovers proposition the opportunity to articulate. Predominantly of the adventure genre, Forest of Liars describes itself as many small ideas put end to end.

The choice-based framework of Reigns, the undulating tranquility of Hand of Fate, and the excessive brooding of Journey are only few of the influences that shape its psychological tactics-driven mechanics, it says.

There are numerous wayfarers to be encountered, befriended, spoken with and studied, each with a distinct set of character flaws/features that you may cunningly play with to your advantage or doom.

Since survival within a forest that entices all but spares none is the motivating theme here, the choices one resorts to governs the discoveries they’ll make, the battles they’ll fall victim to and the consequences thereof.

For instance a skilled hunter you decide to add to your pack might be, I don’t know, a closet-cannibal. Or the herbalist a compulsive pyromaniac. Also the grizzly that successfully wounds your team might invite the covet of bandits and so forth.

With 75 different character features, 15,000 combinations and 100-odd lands then, each play-through will inevitably be different. So yeah, it all sounds great in concept which begs the question – is there anything to show for?

The character exchanges previewed allude to a text-based/visual novel style delivery of all the above, and so does the lone WIP GIF of a combat sequence. Numerous humans, beasts and mythical creatures inhabit the land, we’re then told, with day-night cycles providing for the unprecedented.

Plus the game ends when the forest’s secrets are disclosed by five guardians, each of will greet the players somewhere towards the end of their journeys with a plethora of confounding riddles. The challenge lies in solving these alongside your amassed companions, who won’t be very forthcoming if you’ve been rude to them all this while now would they?

Forest of Liars hopes to conclude production for the PC/Mac by late 2019, with console releases being a backer-contingent possibility. More on Umeshu’s illustrious set of members here.

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Adventure Game Forest of Liars PC Umeshu Lovers

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