The Zootopia Russian Roulette game is a bit tedious to play, but fun to watch

Liar’s Bar is a social deception game aimed at Twitch streamers or friend groups who like party games that end with a table full of dead Zootopia rejects. Basically, it’s Dogs Playing Poker as a video game and not much else. The biggest appeal seems to be watching other people play it rather than playing it yourself, and even then I think it’s a bit to Early access should be more than a novelty at this point.

The game was released earlier this month and was a hit with a ton of YouTubers and streamers, apparently setting it up to reach over 100,000 concurrent Steam players when the latest update was released this week. The number has now dropped back down to around 15,000, but if you do a quick search on YouTube you’ll find pages of people playing it. After watching it for myself, I can understand why it fell off so quickly.

You’ve played half of “Liar’s Bar” as soon as you load it up and see a top view of a poker table sitting in the middle of a bar with dice spilling out of a cup, a loose deck of playing cards and a revolver lying in a pool of blood dripping the wooden floor. The game’s actual controls don’t reveal much more than the atmosphere of the menu screen. It’s a souped-up tabletop simulator for people who think Russian Roulette is like this: so crazyMan.

Even the characters largely fit the stereotypes you’d expect from something like this. There’s a Doberman wearing a black tank top and a gold chain, a big rhino man in a Hawaiian shirt and Jessica Rabbit as a real rabbit. They all resemble backstories told through a few comic panels on a menu, but at the table they talk like animatronics. Liar’s Bar uses AI-generated voices that sound either literally robotic or devoid of personality. And even though they use AI, they don’t have much say. After you’ve heard Cupcake the bunny girl say, “Honey, I’ve got tricks, and more than just up my sleeve,” for the 20th time, you’ll wish there were real voice actors to give these animals a little personality.

However, none of this seems to be the point. Liar’s Bar is actually just a stage to play two bluffing games – Liar’s Dice and Liar’s Deck – with three other people in voice chat. You can jump straight into an open lobby or find one in a list, but due to the game’s simplicity, it’s better to play with people you know. The problem is that Liar’s Bar doesn’t offer many ways to “read” other players. All you need is a head that you can nod up and down from a first person perspective. It’s not like Among Us, where just completing your tasks and moving your character can reveal your intentions. The rules of the game have to tell you things you can accuse each other of, and Liar’s Bar isn’t there yet.

(Image credit: curve animation)

Liar’s Bar isn’t silly enough or chaotic enough to keep you going back.

Both games that you can play are pretty easy to understand. “Liar’s Dice,” based on the real game, gives everyone a set of dice to use to explain how many of each are in the game. The bet is increased each round as each player must announce either a higher number of dice (e.g. three threes) or a higher dice side (three fours). If someone is called a liar, the dice are revealed and if they fail, the bluffing player must drink poison.

The Liar’s Deck is similar: players take turns announcing the cards they will play (e.g. two kings), and if they are caught lying, they must pick up their weapon and pray that the chamber is empty is.

For a game designed to be played with friends, it’s all pretty macabre, especially when someone dies and you have to stare into their lifeless eyes for the rest of the game. If the audio wasn’t so crappy, I might have liked the recently added devil card, which forces everyone else to pull the trigger when someone calls a bluff. But Liar’s Bar isn’t silly enough or chaotic enough to keep coming back to; It depends on your friend group or your willingness to play with strangers.

【LIAR’S BAR】jk we swapped games LMAO【Dokibird】 – YouTube
【LIAR'S BAR】jk we swapped games LMAO【Dokibird】 - YouTube

Keep looking

Developer Curve Animation says it is working on new characters, modes and rules for the games that could keep the game interesting for more than a few hours. Right now, it’s entertaining fodder for your favorite YouTubers and streamers to harass each other. For me, this is the ideal way to experience this game. You kind of need a group of people willing to highlight the absurdity to lighten the mood. Otherwise, it feels like it will take the six months it’s supposedly in Early Access to become something worth playing yourself.

Liar’s Bar is available now on Steam for $6.99.

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