While I can not say this is the deepest dive into my backlog I have ever seen happen, here we do have a game that's been hanging out there a few years. In this case, it was an already cheap game that intrigued the hell out of me, and was made even cheaper as part of a Halloween sale on steam. Turns out, I found an oddball that wasn't afraid to get dark, but still had real heart and soul behind it. But enough of the puns, come on in.
Story: John was an old man when he finally passed on, and his life was... let's just say far from perfect. But he was a good man who lived a wholesome life when all was said and done, so when his time came, an angel came before him, giving him the good news he was going to heaven. Still he wasn't quite ready to leave this mortal coil yet... and that turned out to be his undoing, for the little lady wasn't the only visitor he would have before his afterlife could begin. Another more sinister presence also made himself known with an offer John couldn't refuse: To redo his life, but with a little infernal backup so he would make all the right choices for his life to be filled with happiness. ...And so the deal was made, and John woke up in his 20s, in collage, and ready to try again.
But as with any deal with dark forces, the devil is in the details... and you can bet this demon has his own ulterior motives... can John get everything he wants and pay the piper when it's time? Or will he find another way for his deal with the devil to turn out? In this game, you will find out.
This game doesn't have a lot of twists and turns so much as one massive one which, once revealed, will weave it's way through the tale, letting it build up in chunks as you see more and more of the fated days which will control John's fate, as well as the fate of several other characters he encounters... or even just the echo of his actions will touch. It's some incredibly solid writing, and you will catch all the vibes as it goes along, from dreading what you know is coming to laughing at the cuteness of the moment (even as you know it could turn horrific at any second... and might have already) to even some genuinely wholesome moments, it's all here to be had as you travel with John through his supernatural journey.
8/10
Graphics: The first thing that is going to strike you when you open up this game is the character design: the level of detail within them is very limited, like the developer took old-school 2D sprites from an 8-bit game and fleshed them out to the 3rd dimension. You see, the artist chose to do the character in voxels: literal 3D square pixels to make up the models of the game. However, they didn't use it as an engine mechanic since these models clearly bend and move with skeletal structures, letting this pixels bend and stretch just a little bit so as to give each model full fluid movement that pixels like this just would never allow. The result varies from figure to figure, however. Oddly the characters you play as seem to fair the worst, as most guys in this design boil down to a rectangle torso with a color scheme to inform you of their clothing choices and a mess of black or brown pixels to represent their hair. Women tend to be given more form, but the faces all come out about the same with single pixel eyes spaces one apart to represent the space of a nose... plus or minus a mustache and eyebrows depending on who you are looking at.
At least this is the case for the human characters anyway. Demons do seem to get a little more detail. Not there are many models for this... in fact their are only 2: Ocaso and the tiny little skull headed ones, and this seems to be where the majority of the voxel work went, giving Ocaso a much bigger eyes and some depth to his face and almost rag-like dark clothing. He actually has the look of something otherworldly and threatening. But it's his minions that will absolutely steal the show from the very first moment you see them bringing John back to life. They are supposed to look like little chibi-gremlins with skull heads, but they come as straight up adorable, right down to their coordinated dance in the resurrection ritual. Is it dark? yes, but adorable. And they keep that adorableness even as what they do reminds you how they are evil things. Seriously if this dev made plushies of the little guys I think they would have made a mint. Once they get involved, they are always a treat, even if they horrify once in a while.
Although in all cases, you do get a better look at the faces, as the developer does give drawn versions to go with their lines when they talk.... just do not expect the best artwork here. Hand drawn and charming, the quality of the faces varies from descent to rough enough to get comments from friends I played this in front of.
The world itself, however seems to break this voxel rule as often as not with highly detailed walls and floors that just contrast the characters, basically setting the stage they walk on in like you might puppets in a set. It's subtle enough you really don't see it until you look again after playing, but it lets the world have it's own moods in each location rather then just looking like someone thought "I can do Minecraft with more detail." and I have to appreciate it. And this world is actually pretty varied despite not taking place across many locations (seriously I think the entire game has maybe 5 locations all said and done).
As for how these places are decorated, well that seems be the in-between that makes this work, choosing simple geometry instead of either high detailed anything or voxel style 3d pixelation. Things like chairs, furniture, or even things on the walls fit the art style well with simplified geometry and little to know bitmapping to back it, but angular in ways the voxels just can't be.
The end result is surprisingly cohesive considering the mesh of three styles, and in fact you will only notice the differences if you really sit down and look.... it's sometimes dark, sometimes cute, but often deceptively so to show the events of the game. Enjoy this one it's a little out there, but it looks great.
8/10
Sound: Sadly this is not a game that will offer any voices when you play. Rather it's old school in that when someone talks, you will only see the words play across the screen as a set of beeps represent the voice sound to go with it, much like old RPGs might do in the 8 and 16 bit eras of gaming. And unfortunately these beeps are most of the sounds you will hear as you play... but not all. Along side them you will hear things like car motors, dogs barking... and the demonic giggles of those little guys I mentioned in the graphical sections, which only endears them more to be honest. Still this leaves a lot of time where all you will hear is the music behind the events.
And this music is generally not bad, if kinda generic. But then again that fits the tone when nothing special is going on and you have to explore and find your next step, letting it fit in the background and prevent dead air from being heard while you figure it all out... cause when you hear that, you know you are either up to something big or worse is going on. Not that the music isn't varied... everything from mellow beats to creepy tones as shit hits the fan in the more general sense, to even high energy as you get ready to cause mischief. You will have plenty of variety here, just not a lot you will remember.
There is one song you will remember, however... during the 2nd act, you will spend time at a club while the single voiced song in the entire game is sung by a young lady on the stage... and she's actually pretty good (if not my normal type of music). You might just want to hang around a moment to hear the whole track.
7/10
Gameplay: Demons Never Lie is a point and click game, wearing this play on it's sleeve. You will control John with very simple mouse based controls. You click somewhere on the screen and something will happen. Most of the time the response will be to have John walk where you chose to go, but sometimes you will go over a location and the icon for your mouse will change to either a magnifying glass or a puzzle piece. Clicking when its a magnifying glass will have John look over and comment on what you found, but if he thinks it's something he might need, he will add it to his inventory. Puzzles will have a similar effect, only now it will open either open your inventory so you can either try an object to proceed or open up a puzzle where you are expected to enter a code you found in or put together from clues found within the game, making for a very simple and easy interface to play with. There is literally no one who can't play this game.
But don't let that fool you into thinking this game is a pushover. No, the puzzles in it will not really offer a lot of a challenge to figure out. In fact any object based puzzle will be obvious the moment you have the object in question, but that's the trick. These objects can be hidden in plain sight very easily so a good eye and attention to detail is absolutely essential for completing the game. This goes double for non-object based puzzles where things like clues to what a code is are in the environment itself, so keep an open eye and good luck.
Also this simple control does show the weaknesses in the game, of which there are thankfully few. Unfortunately these issues are also pretty prevalent in what the game doesn't let you do. First of these is your inventory: you can not access it unless you are either putting something in attempting to solve an object puzzle. I could not find a way to open the inventory and just see what I might have to make sure my idea I might want to try was valid. Thankfully the inventory is easy to navigate and you will always see everything at a glance when you DO open it so this is more of a nuisance then any serious issue.
The other issue is a lot less of about gameplay and can be a LOT more inconvenient: once again, while looking around at the most obvious buttons, I could not find a "quit" button. Rather the only way I could find to quit the current game session is to reach a save station (noted by 3.5 inch disks in various locations with blue fire coming off them). Clicking these will ask you if you want to save and once you decide this, ask you if wish to continue playing. This is the only time in the entire game I could find to quit back to the main menu so you can leave the game for the night. They are thankfully common, but there will be times short of forcing windows to shut down the game, you just have to keep going till you are allowed to stop.
But overall the game is is a very solid point and click that is very easy and streamlined to control. Well done.
8/10
Bugs: I find it amazing considering this game was made by a single developer but I hit ZERO bugs while playing it... at all. This game ran perfectly.
Digital Rights Management: The only DRM connected to this game is Steam itself. However, you will need to run Steam to run this game.
Score: On it's own Demons Never Lie is a very solid point and click horror adventure which will stick with you for where it's willing to go, a very well written story, and even very streamlined and overall really good controls while you play it. It's not very long (I finished it in about 6 hours) but especially when you consider this is the work of a single developer it's exceptional for how well thought out it all is, and even more so as I am pretty sure it's their first release. I have nothing but the highest regards for Indiebug and their work here.
And for the price of about $4 (not on sale) the short length is not in the way of recommending this one. If you have any taste for the macabre and point and click adventures you absolutely should take some time with it.
8/10
System Requirements:
- 1.7 Ghz dual core processor
- 4 GB RAM
- NVidia Geforce GTX 260 or ATi Radeon4870 HD with 512 MB VRAM
- Windows 7 (64 Bit only)
- 1 GB of Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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