
Welcome to the Liar's Bar, where lying and deceiving is the name of the game. Everyone who comes in has a mysterious past. Will you survive the night or will it be your last?
Liar's Bar is a video game created by Curve Animation, entering Early Access on Steam on October 2, 2024. Players can choose one of several characters, each holding a dark side to them, to play any game of their choosing:
- Liar's Deck: Each player is dealt five cards, and has to call out a number between 1-3 of a deck full of six Aces, Queens, and Kings each, alongside the two wildcard Jokers. The opposing players must call out the player who called the number to see if they're lying or not.
- Devil: A devil card replaces one of the declared cards each round until there are two players left, where it must be played by itself and not with other cards, but if someone calls a liar on a devil card, everyone except the one that plays it faces the punishment.
- Chaos: Three cards are dealt instead, only one card can be played per turn, Aces are removed, and instead of Jokers, a Master card and Chaos card are added. However, the punishment is a bit different, where players use their own revolver on another player if either anyone successfully calls a liar on another player or be called a liar on a Master card you played, and if anyone calls a liar on a Chaos card, everyone uses their revolver on another player.
- Liar's Deck 2: Each player is dealt seven cards instead with a deck full of eight Aces, Queens, and Kings each alongside four wildcard Jokers, and there are Joker rounds as well, but all players only get a new hand if there is at most one player left with cards in hand. Players can also call Devil's Deal, where if the last four cards players played beforehand match the round, then all other the players faces the punishment.
- Liar's Dice: Each player calls out a sided number on the die, and has to guess how many sides of said die are at least face up. The players can either call the exact number of another side, higher on any side or challenge the other player on their bluff.
- Traditional: The 1 side is now wild, and if someone calls "SPOT ON!" and the exact amount of the dice is on the table, all except the one who calls the spot on faces punishment, but if there is no exact amount, the one who called spot on is punished instead.
- Liar's Poker: Texas Hold 'em rules where each player is dealt two cards before five are dealt on the table face down, which each player placing one bullet down, and can choose to either fold or call and place one more bullet down for each round of cards revealed on the table, ending with either all but one folding or when the showdown happens, where the loser(s) load their revolver with the bullets they bet with, spin the barrel and pull the trigger on themselves once and unload all the bullets if it didn't fire before the next round. There is also a way for players to swap out one of their cards with one of three other ones once per pre-showdown, but must choose one of them to swap with if done so, a Coward's Fold, where once per game the player can fold on the first round and pull the trigger with just one bullet, and go All In during one of the reveal rounds and place all eight bullets on the table, with other players either matching up or folding and pull the trigger with their current bullets they bet with and the showdown happens if at least another player also goes all in, ending with the ones who lost loading all eight bullets and firing.
The major twist of these games is that the loser must play a penalty game, with their life on the line. Who can lie the best and be the last one to survive?
Liar's Bar contains examples of:
- Beast Man: All the playable characters are anthropomorphic animals instead of humans.
- Boom, Headshot!: Comes with the Russian Roulette gimmick of Liar's Deck and Liar's Poker if the player is unlucky enough to fall on their bullet.
- Camera Abuse: Losing the Russian Roulette in Liar's Deck and Liar's Poker has the visual effect shatter the lens of the camera and splatters blood on it.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: In a game of Liar's Dice with the Traditional ruleset, players have the option to "Call SPOT ON!"; unlike where you call someone's lie and there are as many dice with the specified number on the table or more will result in you downing a bottle of poison, this option has you guessing that there is exactly that many dice with the specified number on the table. If your guess is correct, then everybody else takes a swig of poison, whereas failing the guess will have you drinking poison instead. It's a risky play, made even moreso in that ones are also added to the tally, but it also increases your chances of winning significantly.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the characters have one. Cupcake lost everything from a messy divorce, Bristle might have killed his wife in a vengeful rage, and Scubby lost his brother in an unknown accident.
- Death Seeker: Subtly implied. Why else would the characters play games with deadly risks, be it downing a bottle of poison or taking a chance at Russian Roulette?
- Drinking the Kool-Aid: The penalty in Liar's Dice. If you incorrectly call someone's bluff or fail a guess as to how many dice of a specific number are on the table, you drink a bottle of poison. Drink two bottles, and you die.
- Exact Words:
- Ties with Refuge in Audacity. A player can tell the others they don't have the required cards of the called suite in Liar's Deck. Cue players cursing when they call the player's bluff, realizing they weren't lying about not having any cards from the required suite...but they had a Joker card to replace it.
- In the Chaos ruleset, anyone that can point a gun to another player and pull the trigger. Note that this includes already dead players, so anyone pointing their gun at a dead person is wasting their shot chance.
- Facial Horror: Having a single bottle of arsenic in Liar's Dice will result in the character's face showing damage, mostly from their eyes going red and bleeding.
- Flipping the Bird: The March 2025 update added the ability to make certain hand gestures in a game. One such gesture involves giving fellow players the middle finger.
- Foxy Vixen: Foxy, natch. She's even described as a "mysterious and alluring gothic vixen".
- Literal Wild Card:
- Amidst the Kings, Queens, and Aces of a single deck in Liar's Deck, Joker cards can act as substitutes, leading to moments where a player may technically not have the required suite card to potentially bait others into calling them a liar. However, there are Joker rounds in Liar's Deck 2, so the Jokers are the only viable play if players certainly don't want to face the barrel.
- The Devil ruleset of Liar's Deck gives a chance for a random card to become a Devil card, which, if played and revealed upon a bluff being called, will force all other players to face the roulette.
- The Chaos ruleset of Liar's Deck has the Chaos card and the Master card. Should someone call you a liar with the Chaos Card being the last card played, all four players grab their revolvers and point it at whoever they want. The Master card allows the player who is called out on it to point his gun at whoever he wants.
- The Traditional ruleset of Liar's Dice has the 1 side of the dice count as any number of a side called, including 1s, potentially increasing the margin of the number called, but also makes it harder to call "SPOT ON!" on a bluff to punish the other players.
- Loophole Abuse:
- In Liar's Deck, players are given six/eight cards of each suite plus two/four jokers. Aside from the Devil card which will force everyone but the card holder to stare down the barrel if someone calls their bluff, the Jokers can act as substitutes in the called suite. This makes it very easy to trip up people if they're confident all cards of the required suite have been played.
- In Liar's Dice, if you guess a certain amount of dice with a specific number and are caught lying, you'll be forced to drink a bottle of poison. Guessing correctly has the person who called the bluff drinking poison instead. This also counts if there are more dice with the specific number than what you assumed.
- Mexican Standoff: Someone calling a Chaos card in the Chaos ruleset of Liar's Deck has everyone point their gun at each other, with the twist that it's a Russian Roulette in that you hope that your current shot is loaded while the ones pointing their gun at you aren't so lucky, and it is possible that a Mutual Kill can happen.
- Mutual Kill: The Chaos ruleset has it where having the Chaos card called has everyone point their guns at another player and pulls the trigger at the same time, and if everyone is at the end of a revolver and all the shots are loaded, this happens and the match ends in a Draw.
- Random Number God:
- In a game of Liar's Deck, players have a 1-in-6 chance of dying as the penalty of losing a round is to put a revolver loaded with a single bullet to your head. You can have up to five blanks on a good game, with your sixth loss being your final. On a bad game? You die in the first round.
- In a game of Liar's Poker, players have an 8-shot revolver with one bullet already on the table, increasing the odds with every bullet they Call up to the showdown. Even with an All In with 8 bullets, there's a 5% chance the revolver will not fire.
- Refuge in Audacity: The core game mechanic, as players need to bluff their way to victory. A common tactic in Liar's Deck is to throw down three cards outside the stated suite as early as the first round, though this can easily backfire if someone calls your bluff.
- Reliably Unreliable Guns: The 8-shot revolver in Liar's Poker is certainly this if it's fully loaded yet has a 5% chance to fail to fire.
- Russian Roulette: The penalty in Liar's Deck and Liar's Poker. If you're caught lying or incorrectly call someone's bluff in Liar's Deck, or fold or lose the showdown in Liar's Poker, you take a gun to your head and pray to god the chamber is empty, or in Liar's Poker, pray that the gun malfunctions 5% of the time with a fully loaded one.
- The Chaos ruleset has it where players use their own revolver if either anyone successfully calls a liar on another player or be called a liar on a Master card you played, and if anyone calls a liar on a Chaos card, everyone uses their revolver on another player. If someone successful shoots another player with their revolver, they load a new bullet and spin the chamber, getting a new 1-in-6 chance with their revolver.
- Smoking Is Cool: Scubby always has a cigar lit in his mouth. Somehow, it stays in his mouth even if he dies, be it shooting himself in the head or drinking two bottles of poison.
- Synthetic Voice Actor: As the AI Generated Content Disclosure on the game's Steam page points out, the voice lines for each of the game's characters were generated by AI.
- Tempting Fate: In Liar's Deck and Liar's Poker, sometimes a character will make a bold claim as they hold a loaded gun to their head, confident they won't get shot.Scubby: Let's see if luck's still on my side. (bang!)
- There's No Kill like Overkill: Getting a Chaos card called in the Chaos ruleset has everyone shoot their gun at another player of their own choice, so if everyone gangs up on one player this can certainly happen if all three others have the chamber loaded.
- Two Girls to a Team: There are two female characters: Foxy and Cupcake.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Foxy and Cupcake are the two female characters, and both wear makeup. In a game of Liar's Dice, drinking poison will cause them to tear up and ruin their makeup.
