Very puzzly puzzle game with a lot of pattern recognition, code breaking, and lateral thinking. And lots and lots of scratch paper.
Puzzle boxes interest me, and this game fits that niche quite well. It’s a little bit hidden object-y, and some of the puzzles take a little observation and thinking, but it’s otherwise a very good game.
You’re dropped into a forest near your car, with next to no idea what you’re doing or why you’re here, and an ominous hotel in the distance. You look inside and find a letter and an instruction manual (make sure to take the instruction manual!) and there is a map of the forest nearby, but you can’t turn back now, you’re almost at the hotel, so it’s time to walk through the woods and find your way into the mansion.
And thats where you’ll want to hop off if you’re a fan of puzzle exploration games. The less you know about it, the better. If you need hints, there is a hint guide in the Steam guides, but do be aware that almost every puzzle in the game is randomized every time you start a save file.
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And onto the full review. Minor spoilers from here on out.
This is one of those really cereberal games where you’ve gotta pay attention to the stories and documents that are given to you in order to figure out the story. It’s not quite as overt as some “what’s going on here” games, but the later into the story you get, you do start to find answers, though you’ve got to piece them together yourself from books, bibliographies, scripts, and investigation documents.
Ultimately, you’re trying to figure out who is The Woman, who is The Man, what happened here between them, and when the fuck is this.
Because “Kris, When the fuck are we?” is a question that genuinely needs asking. And you might have a good guess based on some recurring numbers, but I’ll leave that to be figured out.
This game looks and sounds fantastic, it’s made pretty much using only two tones of colour. Grey and the occasional red highlight, which grants it a super unique moody atmosphere, whilst also communicating that this game and this world might be more than it seems. And because of the muted palette, it means that certain areas, events, and things really stand out. Those Laser Eyes ain’t just for show, and the visual noise bleeds into the menu too. Something fuckin weird is going on here, and you’re just gonna have to try and find it.
While the game does have a number of required puzzling paths you have to complete to reach the ending, there is nothing confining you to one specific path, so you can bounce between puzzles as much as you want. Take a break when you’re stuck in one place to figure out something elsewhere, until at the end when it all comes together. There are also some side puzzles that you’re gonna be working through the whole game, such as how to unlock the shortcuts. Some puzzles have very similar aesthetics, but most puzzles are able to be solved based on the puzzle scene itself, nearby scenery and documents, or information from books that are stored in your photographic memory menu, meaning you shouldn’t need to treat information from one of these aesthetically similar puzzles as relevant to another (looking at you, tetris blocks). Any time you see a file, document, important screen on a computer, or anything else of the like, it’s saved to your photographic memory. This does not diminish the need for a lot of scratch paper though.
My main gripe with the game is with it’s controls. The game has one interact button, and is bound to every button on the controller that isnt move or pause. There is no back button, so to close a menu you have to navigate to the menu close button and press interact on that, or navigate to the shackle of a padlock and interact with that to confirm that 0000 is in fact not the correct code. It takes time to get used to and slows down menuing, but it’s not the end of the world. The camera is also a little wanky, but it’s no worse than the fixed camera perspectives of early ResE games.
Oh and if you’re like me and averse to horror elements, you might be considering sitting out this one, especially after a certain puzzle adds hostiles to the hotel (you’ll be told explicitly when this happens,) but just make sure to save often after that point so as to not lose progress to them. These hostiles will telegraph when they are around rather explicitly, and while it may be spooky on your first or second encounter, you’re not the one being hunted here, they are, as you need to catch and defeat each of them as part of a required puzzle. Once you’ve got the hang of them, they stop being scary (though they are still a threat, as if you fail their minigame, they send you back to save point, just remember to save often.)
Something something Two Nickels.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2008920 £19.99
Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Lorelei-and-the-Laser-Eyes-2233013.html £19.99
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