Seven months after its original release on Steam, Lacuna has made its way to consoles. The sci-fi noir adventure puts players in the shoes of detective Neil Conrad as he tries to solve a high profile murder while also juggling major issues in his personal life. The Unity-powered retro-looking point-and-click-like adventure features a “no takeback” decision making system that forces players to consider their responses to situations as their decisions guide them towards one of multiple endings. Let’s have a closer look.
I’m a big fan of point-and-click adventure games and have been for decades. No other gaming genre, in my experience, has the ability to get me invested into the story and characters as much as a good adventure. In terms of setting, that cyberpunk/Blade Runner atmosphere is ripe for intrigue, and that’s about the angle that DigiTales Interactive took with Lacuna. DigiTales created their own little planet solar system for Lacuna and much of the story is about the relations between the different factions that rule those planets. There’s a thick political/social layer to the story, with shadow resistance groups and corporate power players involved.
Your adventure in Lacuna begins with the CDI, the detective agency, working a security detail for an off-world diplomat that has come to visit for negotiations. Unfortunately, this important diplomat gets murdered, and Neil is one of the agents tasked with trying to solve this crime. While the suspects remain at large, there is an elevated chance for more violence that would only further work against the agreements the planets are trying to achieve. And if that weren’t enough, Neil’s ex-wife is in the picture, providing an additional story arc for players to decide if they want to explore possible reconciliation for the former couple. Either way, Neil’s daughter plays a major role in the story as well, and players have the option to develop or ignore that relationship some, too.
One of Lacuna’s distinguishing characteristics is that players have choice in conversations with NPCs and also in how they choose to move the story forward. The game is clear at the outset that your choices in these areas stick. Choices, most often in dialog, have a meter that runs down, giving you only so much time to make your selection. The amount of time you have can be changed or disabled in the options, but I had never played a point-and-click type of adventure game that had this specific kind of gravity to it. Additionally, dialog options are not repeated with characters, which is also different than any adventure game that I played before. Third, Neil has to submit Sheets at several points during the course of the game. These Sheets are comprised of a few multiple choice questions related to elements of the story — news articles, conversations, extrapolations — you know, detective stuff — and once you submit your Sheet via your in-game phone then the game advances based upon the decisions you made. Typically, this manifests as a follow-up conversation with another CDI agent or other NPC, and you’ll know very quickly if your choices were wise as far as being factual (or not) and if they help (or don’t) prevent further disasters.
At first, I was interested in Neil’s story, the murder you’re trying to solve, and the shadowy group behind it. I didn’t care for the side story with his ex-wife, but appreciate that something like that was included to give the story and character(s) more texture. As the game — which is split into three acts and totals around five hours — progressed, though, my interest faded. I realized I was growing indifferent to the characters and the outcome. I’m not sure what to pin my waning interest on; part of it was the language. Most of the game is read-only dialog, but there are at least a half dozen mini-cutscenes with voice overs and the foul language Neil and other characters use works against the maturity level I thought the game was striving for in many other respects. I’ll even say that the pixel art graphics detracted from my interest some, too — the literal faceless characters were at times a bit hard to distinguish (Gary vs Saito vs the Chief for example), and, it made them a lot less interesting and personable. I felt the same way about The Darkside Detective games. Having to back track to the train for transit to the next area at least a dozen times became monotonous as well. And, getting some of the Sheets wrong when I thought I had it right was also a frustration — the inability to go back or make a savegame was missed. Instead, for the last Sheet or maybe two, I turned them in with little effort in worrying about if they were “right,” but at that point I no longer cared much.
On the flipside, I liked the setting of Lacuna as I alluded to earlier. The music, too, is great — it’s an instrumental, piano-jazz soundtrack that is perfect for the grim, noir, detective atmosphere that DigiTales was going for, and it gave the game a strong boost. Dialog is well-written, other than the foul language, and the voice-acting was also good. I appreciate some of the “rogue-like” design elements of it, as far as not having repeated dialog and not being able to go back on your choices, but I wouldn’t have minded the ability to drop in a savegame or two from time to time so players can change their answers without having to replay the whole game (even though it is short, time is precious).
Overall, Lacuna is an interesting adaptation on the traditional point-and-click gameplay design. Though my interest in the characters and story plateaued around the halfway point of the game, they are both pretty well thought out and your mileage/interest in them may fair better than mine. At $20, it’s worth a look for fans of sci-fi noir adventure games.
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