My Father Lied demo available now on Steam, honest

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Panoramic point-and-click first-person mystery inspired by Mesopotamian history and myth coming to PC late this year

The adventure game community is truly a global one, with developers located all around the world and games often set in culturally exotic places. One place that's been missing from the international map so far is Iraq, but indie developer Lunar Games is looking to change that with the upcoming first-person mystery, My Father Lied.

While story details are intentionally sparse, the game stars a young woman named Huda, whose father went missing without a trace twenty years earlier. Now, however, a new lead to this previously unresolved mystery will allow Huda to pursue an "unfathomable secret" regarding her father's disappearance. Beginning in an underground military-style bunker where something terrible occurred to the last remaining residents, Huda will begin to uncover a dark "7000-year old story inspired by history and myths from Mesopotamia" (now known as Iraq).

Described as a combination of escape rooms, Syberia and H.P. Lovecraft, My Father Lied is largely a conventional mystery but with "some cosmic wonder that relates to the unknown and truths behind myths." Movement through its world is done via first-person point-and-click, with 360-degree camera panning at each fixed location. Directional markers allow for easy navigation, while hotspots highlight any points of interest displayed in static close-up 2D images for further interaction. Collected inventory items will be automatically used in the appropriate places, but expect plenty of other puzzles along the way, challenging you to piece together disparate clues from multiple sources in order to ultimately "find out what secrets your father hid from you."

While no firm target release date has been announced, My Father Lied is poised to become the "only game developed by an Iraqi indie game developer on Steam" when it's launched sometime late this year. In the meantime, you can get a sampling of what to expect through the playable demo available now for download on Windows PC, and follow along with the game's progress through the Lunar Games website.