MEET THE DEVELOPER
Sam Barlow Is Telling Lies
Telling Lies
4 private lives. 1 big lie.
Sam Barlow never planned to become a game developer—and he definitely never planned to be a director. But today, as the creator of the award-winning game Her Story and its ambitious new follow-up, Telling Lies, he’s officially both.
Maybe it was meant to be: The UK-based Barlow, 41, has been provoking people with interactive videogames since he was a teenager. “I did a series of text adventures about one of my friends and his misfortunes in dating,” says Barlow with a chuckle.
Now his adventures are a little bigger. The interactive mystery Telling Lies, like 2015’s Her Story, deftly weaves live action into its videogame world.
“There’s something inherently personal about a game story,” says Barlow, “whether it’s me passing a floppy disk with a game custom-made for a friend in high school or someone playing Telling Lies on their phone, curled up on their sofa.”
Set over a period of two years, Telling Lies is about a federal agent who infiltrates a group of eco-activists and becomes tangled in a web of intrigue and deception. As in Her Story, players scour video archives to piece together the dark puzzle.
Barlow says that after the success of Her Story, it would have been easy (and lucrative) to make a sequel. Instead, he decided to expand on what players loved about the first game.
Telling Lies is certainly bigger. The game features 30 speaking parts, multiple locations, and numerous interwoven plot threads. Its script clocks in at 250 pages. And to film the live-action scenes, a crew of 40 set up shop in Los Angeles for more than two months.
What’s more, those speaking parts have gone to some familiar names, including Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus), Alexandra Shipp (X-Men: Apocalypse), Kerry Bishé (Halt and Catch Fire), and Angela Sarafyan (Westworld).
“All four main characters essentially have a feature film’s worth of content to themselves,” Barlow says. “I think it was Kerry who said she’d once shot a movie that was so heavily storyboarded that acting in it felt like she was in a videogame.”
Indeed, for the character of Emma, Barlow was looking for someone like Bishé—literally. “I think what I said was ‘I’d love a Kerry Bishé–type of person to do this,’” says Barlow. “Everything she did in Halt and Catch Fire elevated the show.” Bishé, he says, probably was the least familiar with videogames. “But once she saw the scripts and I explained the weird process we’d use to shoot, she was immediately interested.” For her role as the webcam model Max, Angela Sarafyan—best known as Westworld’s Clementine—arrived with some tasty ideas. “She showed up on set for her first shooting day with a bag of props, including some chocolate to eat on camera,” says Barlow. “She’d noted that these performers often have snacks on hand when they’re working long hours.”
But Barlow’s biggest compliments go to 7-year-old Vivien Lyra Blair, best known for her performance in Bird Box. “An absolute star,” says Barlow. He’d pushed for a young actor for her character, but you really don’t know how someone so young is going to handle working on a set as challenging as this,” he says.
Turns out he didn’t need to worry. “She walked in on day one wearing her sunglasses,” he says with a laugh. “She had notes for me on the script and knew more about what was happening than I did.”
The actors shot many of the game’s video segments themselves, holding customized GoPro rigs designed to mimic smartphone cameras. Most scenes were done as a single extended shot—some as long as 15 minutes—which meant that the cast had to be especially careful not to flub lines. “Everyone brought their A game,” Barlow says.
And when you play the game, you’ll see he’s not lying.