Lies Under Ice
Choice of Games · 2023 · RPG, Interactive Fiction, Text-Based, Choices Matter, Action
PC
Mixed63% · 19
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About Lies Under Ice
Lead the first settlement on Jupiter's frozen moon, Europa! What alien life lurks beneath the ice? Who is sabotaging your mission? Who can you trust?
Lies Under Ice is a 200,000-word interactive science fiction novel by Joey Jones, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
The year is 2079. Your mission is to build a settlement, explore Europa's treacherous oceans, terraform the moon, and send findings back to Earth.
But political factions within your colony vie for dominance, constantly on the brink of open conflict. While they are technically collaborating on this mission, each one has their own goals for Europa. Will this colony be a site for new trade? A home for Earth's ever-growing population? A clean slate where humans can break free of older social models? How far will each side go to get what they want?
With the most advanced science at your disposal—massive terraforming systems, gene splicing, AI therapy-bots, nerve-connected bionic prosthetics, and more—you can venture from the safety of your spaceship out into the hostile frozen world. Descend beneath the ice of Europa, pilot a submarine through frigid waters that no human has ever seen, and uncover ancient secrets of an alien world.
There's definitely alien life here. But does it pose a danger to you and your fellow settlers, or is it the greatest opportunity that humanity has ever known?
Delve beneath the ice, and reach for the stars!
Lies Under Ice is a 200,000-word interactive science fiction novel by Joey Jones, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
The year is 2079. Your mission is to build a settlement, explore Europa's treacherous oceans, terraform the moon, and send findings back to Earth.
But political factions within your colony vie for dominance, constantly on the brink of open conflict. While they are technically collaborating on this mission, each one has their own goals for Europa. Will this colony be a site for new trade? A home for Earth's ever-growing population? A clean slate where humans can break free of older social models? How far will each side go to get what they want?
With the most advanced science at your disposal—massive terraforming systems, gene splicing, AI therapy-bots, nerve-connected bionic prosthetics, and more—you can venture from the safety of your spaceship out into the hostile frozen world. Descend beneath the ice of Europa, pilot a submarine through frigid waters that no human has ever seen, and uncover ancient secrets of an alien world.
There's definitely alien life here. But does it pose a danger to you and your fellow settlers, or is it the greatest opportunity that humanity has ever known?
- Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, bi, or aromantic; poly or monogamous.
- Choose among six distinct professional backgrounds: diplomat, aerospace engineer, arcologist, asteroid miner, pilot, or marine biologist.
- Manage the complex needs of an extraterrestrial base: prioritize the comfort of the workers, maximize scientific output, build luxury domes, dig mazes of ice tunnels, or engage in terraforming.
- Navigate the treacherous politics of Earth’s squabbling factions from millions of miles away!
- Interact with Europa's alien ecosystem: will you release fish as a sustainable food source, bring along cats for companionship, or rely on synthetic creatures to avoid introducing invasive species?
- Run for office in Europa's fledgling government!
Delve beneath the ice, and reach for the stars!
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
✦ AI summary
Players praise this text-based game for its emotional depth, meaningful choices, and high replayability that make them feel invested in the narrative and their decisions' consequences. However, common criticisms point to a rushed or abrupt ending, tonal inconsistencies (particularly a shift toward Hollywood-style spectacle in the final third), and occasional weak spots in story execution that don't always justify the lengthy word count for the asking price.
I’m not even done with it…. One of the best games I’ve ever played in my life. No pictures, no music. I have adhd, this should be a problem. This should be a MAJOR PROBLEM. I don’t write reviews for other games I like. This game… has made me laugh, has made me pool for outsider information who have no clue wtf I’m talking about to try to make better choices and they are of no help, has made me break down in tears on multiple occasions, has made me have to take a few minutes to walk away, has made me have to shut down my computer and come back to it after a few days to rethink my entire stance on humanity and who I am as a person and what my values entail… I have NEVER been more emotionally invested in a game in my life (I see you, ttg’s walking dead), and… let’s cut this short, I didn’t want this position, I would have gladly given it up to anyone but a capitalist, definitely the other scientist, he’s tops! We don’t need money! But only crime I’ll actually insist is a crime is how little this game costs vs its value.1 found this helpful
Simply AMAZING! Depending on if you speed run choices, 8.6 hours of fun in spite of the "200000" word count. Plenty of replayability to be found, thanks to those perennial "What-If" questions trotting in our heads. It's a mix of everything: action, management, philanthropic, philosophical strife, a bit of interpersonal interactions sprinkled in-between. Good pace. I really felt like what I undertook moved the plot forward in a grandiose and meaningful way. I must say right now, if you slip up, don't be discouraged! You just might get a chance to make up for it. Keep moving forward, and it'll fall into place... My first (and only) play through (as of now) as Captain Lev Éclat, a Libertarian arcologist went swimmingly. Now, let me tell you all about it! Firstly, you are given a lot of leeway as to how you perceive yourself and want to be perceived. For instance, the customization options (name [first and last], sex [woman, man, neither], background [three factions with two title each; six different possibilities of your position of authority], career [six different jobs], skills, hobbies, and the likes) and the building options (where I pick to land, how we build the base on Europa…1 found this helpful
The premise is cool, the execution feels half-baked. Also the end came way to abruptly unfortunately. For the price, you can get a much better text-based adventure story.
Pleasantly re-playable and thought provoking. There are some weak spots in the story and the ending seems rushed in certain scenarios, but that's not unusual for this type of game. You get an enormous amount of play out of it when it's all said and done.
[i]Lies under Ice[/i] is a interactive science fiction novel, this review is based on a single play through. The year is 2079 and you are leading the mission to establish a settlement on Europa. The setting is mostly realistic, although there looks to be some weirdness if you interact with the aliens more than I did. I enjoyed the game and thought there was a good balance of personal interactions, resource management, scientific exploration, and political intrigue. The resource management sub-game allowed you to prioritise which aspects of the based you wanted to develop. However, it was fairly light touch as the medium is not well suited to detailed resource management play. The only thing I sometimes found slightly annoying was that the options for the political choices did not always contain my preferred mix of compromises and trade-offs. However, that's an inherent limitation of the format (compared to table-top RPGs) as the number of choices has to be constrained. Overall, I recommend [i]Lies Under Ice[/i] to anyone interested in playing a semi-realistic space colonisation story-game.
The start is quite good, and gives you some hope of at least somewhat realistic First Contact story with a bit of low-scale colony management/political sim. But in the last third the story unexpectedly falls down to Holliwood-esqe thrush (ALIEN INVASION!TELEPATHY! DEADLY CULTS! MAD RAT SWARMS!) that fells more in line with late 90-s "space adventure" action films than anything like real scifi. Avoid.
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