I came across Liar’s Bar as I was searching my sister’s Steam Wishlist for possible Christmas gift ideas for her. I ended up adding it to my wish list and grabbing it on sale this past week for around $5.

Liar’s Bar is fairly simple gameplaywise, all you do is play liar’s dice. Liar’s Dice was my favorite saloon game in the first Red Dead Redemption, so I was the right demographic for this game. There’s two different versions of Liar’s Dice, a basic version and traditional version. The traditional version is more in line with what was seen in RDR. The game offers little bullet points on what makes each version different, but if you go into this game not knowing anything about Liar’s Dice, they don’t really offer any tutorial level. There may be some learning pains for those whose first experience with Liar’s Dice is this game. There’s also Liar’s Deck, which is a bit like Liar’s Dice, but using cards and you aren’t betting on how many total Kings, for example, are on the field, just how many you threw down. I wasn’t familiar with that game, so I had to go few rounds before I really figured it out. It’s fun, but I definitely prefer Dice.

Of course, understanding the rules of the game is just the first step. You also have to learn how to bluff and lie to people online. It is easier than in-person because they can’t see my terrible poker face. But taking a few extra seconds on my turn to make them think I’m contemplating or panicking, when I have the card I need has gotten people to call me a liar to their detriment. There’s also a voice chat function, I didn’t use it much, but others did, and usually the conversation, when in English, was pretty civil for an online game. Even when people do get upset and start whooping and hollering, it’s usually followed with a “That was pretty good dude.” I think it helps that there’s no investment required to play a game. No real-world money or in-game tokens you have to spend to play a game, so everything stays pretty good natured.

One of the first things that you’ll notice about this game is its presentation. While this could’ve been a simple dice game with bland, store bought, human players, but instead this game has a distinct character that I would best describe as “R-rated Zootopia”. All of the players are different anthropomorphic animals, but not kid friendly, lots of gangsters and thugs. They are all voice acted, which I didn’t expect from a budget game. It’ usually just one or two lines for when you are skeptical of someone’s bid or as they start their turn. It’s enough to add a little spice to each character. And, in a cool feature, if you do use the voice chat, your character’s mouth moves to mimic your voice. There’s no explicit story, but there’s little comic panels that give you some background on each character, which I think you can construe a story from. One way this version of Liar’s Dice differs from Red Dead’s is, instead of losing one of your dice each round, your character drinks one of two bottles of poison. It keeps the games quick and lively, because you only get two chances to get caught vs five. Poison is swapped out for a revolver in the Liar’s Deck games.

It’s an extreme way to handle losing games, but I think this is where the “story” comes in. Each comic panel alludes to characters doing unsavory acts, like the dog looking at a picture of his family, speckled with blood, or the pig taking a meat cleaver to someone off frame. These aren’t good people, and I think the setup is they’ve found themselves at the Liar’s Bar because either they’ve been blackmailed into this game of life & death, or they’ve all decided they’ve had enough and want to go out with flair. I am reaching to connect those last dots, but it explains why this game of Liar’s Dice takes itself so seriously. Admittedly, I could take or leave this “hardcore” edge. There’re other ways they could keep the games quick and snappy and still feel like an adult game without all the suicide.

All in all, this game is a good game for picking up and playing a few rounds and was a nice small game to play after the 30+ hours I put into Indiana Jones. Liar’s Bar is still relatively new so games are easy to find, and the developers are still working on the game and adding stuff, so there shouldn’t be any worry of the lobbies drying up soon. The “hardcore” Zootopia characters make this game unique among card/table game simulators. If you, like me, are a big fan of the game of Liar’s Dice, sorry, but also, I would recommend Liar’s Bar as it’s one of the few games I know dedicated to Liar’s Dice. It’s a relatively cheap game even at sticker price, so you aren’t out a whole lot if you don’t like it.