For the past few weeks, Digitalchumps has been privy to a preview of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, a new game coming from Simogo, the developers behind the wonderful Sayonara Wild Hearts, and ace publisher Annapurna Interactive, who can’t seem to do anything wrong. If you recall, Sayonara Wild Hearts was a beautiful journey through heartbreak and repair, a gorgeous diamond in the video game world’s rough. It was a game that I adore and can replay repeatedly without it feeling like it has lost any value. Plus, it has a killer soundtrack that helps revive the same feelings I felt when I first played it. Anyway, I digress.
Simogo’s next game, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a heavy departure from that easy-breezy storytelling techno wonder. The game is both a creepy mystery shrouded by mysterious characters and uneasiness, while at the same time sporting some of the most brain-teasing puzzles that I have seen in my entire video game life. I mean, we’re talking about The Witness times ten in puzzle difficulty, which is more than welcome.
While I can’t talk too much about the dirty details of the game because I don’t want to spoil it too much, I’ll do my best to convey what I have witnessed so far in this preview period.
So, sit back and relax, jot some notes, and sketch some puzzles while you can, and let’s journey through a preview of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.
The mystery begins with a stroll in the woods
The game begins with the main character pulling up in their car to a wooded area. No reason is given for their arrival, which is an instant hook in the story, and you’ll want to know more immediately. From that small intro, we’re given a taste of what’s to come, as you must figure out, through bits of dialogue and obvious player direction, where you should be going. The opening scene oozes with, “This is a mystery – prepare yourself” in every single solitary scene you walk through. What that mystery might be and why you are doing what you are doing is unknown until you arrive at a creepy hotel.
As the story begins to unfold, you’re taken to a Twin Peak’s-esque building that drops small bits of familiar details in the main character’s lap. There are notes left that lead you towards a gate, which launches a memory and adds more context to why you are where ended up. That building ends up being a hotel, and that hotel has clues everywhere that launch the main character into several mysteries that lead to one main storyline, and which includes strange folks with potentially creepy intentions.
The story itself is a slow drip, as any well-developed and well-constructed multi-act narrative should be. Ask David Lynch how long you can keep a drip going before you drop the details and the big reveal. Spoiler alert, it can go a long time. And that is how Lorelei and the Laser Eyes work here, as the drip is slow, but the reward at the end, the big builds that lead up to the ultimate reveal, is worth the slow journey. It certainly soaks in the creepy ambiance that the game wants to give off.
On that note, if you think I’m tiptoeing around the gritty details of the game, then you would be on the right track. I don’t want to give anything away because the story drives most of the game. It certainly has a good chunk of puzzles to help it, but the reason you want to go through the torture of those puzzles, and there are some damn hard ones, though good ones, is because you want more details about the main character and a better payoff for your troubles.
In the short time we have had this game, I can say with pure confidence that the story is strong with this one and it will be one that I fully intend on repeating. It’s certainly more complicated than Sayonara Wild Hearts and has me hooked hard.
Puzzles
Outside of the narrative, the other huge piece that drives this game is the puzzles. The puzzles will put players to the test. I mean, really put players to the test. I can’t emphasize that enough. The player will have to figure out some puzzles that will involve reading, writing, drawing, and mathematics; sometimes combined. And there are so many different types of puzzles that you’re almost always guaranteed a different specific solution for each one. What that means is that you will always find a unique experience in figuring out a solution to progress the game, which keeps the game interesting, even when the puzzle difficulty hits its zenith. While I cannot give you specifics on solutions, I will give you an example of a puzzle that had me scratching my head.
There was a puzzle with two separate four-panel pictures on it. One panel had Roman numerals on it and was simply named a word that hinted at what I had to do. The other panel featured pictures that were jumbled, yet logically jumbled. Working with the Roman numerals, I had to figure out the jumbled puzzles. That solution equaled an odd answer, something that I could not have imagined would be a puzzle solution. That solution helped me to progress a certain portion of the game as it unlocked the next narrative piece. You will find puzzles like these everywhere and will be forced to find a solution simply by understanding what you’re staring at and how it could be potentially solved. I compared this gameplay experience earlier to The Witness because it used that same simple technique to make difficult puzzles interesting, while at the same time not giving too much away. The viewer must translate what they’re seeing without the game telling them what it is. That’s some cerebral shit right there, and a welcomed way of delivering puzzles. Putting faith in the player to understand what is being asked of them without literally asking them is amazing for both the dev and player if it works. And there are plenty of examples where the developer scatters pieces on the floor and then just points to them. I dig that type of puzzle gameplay, especially when a solution pays off. It makes me feel like I accomplished something. Every gamer wants that feeling.
Now, the game does help the player out in nearly every puzzle but only does so with one simple technique…the camera.
Resident Evil cameras return!
The first thing we noticed about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, outside of the gorgeous black and white graphics, which paint an ambiguous picture of year/place, is how the cameras in this game move… or rather don’t move. They are locked in place from scene to scene, in the same vein as early Resident Evil games, minus the crazy monsters chasing you and without the resulting panic pushing of buttons.
While it might seem like a head-scratcher about why Simogo would go this direction with this annoying camera concept that harkens back to a Resident Evil-like experience, the way the cameras work in this game seems to be intentional from beginning to end. When you mix mystery, puzzle-solving, and intrigue, what you get is the developer painting a picture of where the viewer should be looking. The only way to get the viewer to scan an entire room is to make sure the camera is locked in so that all intentional points of interest are right there in front of them. Kind of like what you would find in a George Miller film, where the shots are center-framed so that your eye doesn’t have to work overtime. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes cameras work the same way. This might be the first time I agree with a game locking its cameras, as most games simply do it for resource sakes or just to annoy the player (see Resident Evil for details).
Once you’re in a space in the game, you get a bevy of things to notice. The first is that there is a puzzle somewhere in the room. The puzzle could be a picture that is cut up into pieces, a math problem of sorts, or even something as simple as a padlock. That puzzle may or may not give you clues about what you should be doing in the game, so the next order of business is to look around the space to see the details. Those details could be paintings on a wall that say one word on them, or it could be books lying on the floor with bits of emphasized information. Whatever the case might be, the cameras keep the player where they need to visually and silently feed them the details to progress. That is how the puzzles and the cameras of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes work hand-in-hand. Again, for once the locked camera is a useful item.
This style choice is appropriate for the content. It works to further reinforce the notion that the devs have no interest in solving puzzles for you but are interested in keeping you on track. It was a brilliant choice of game design, and it works so well here.
On that note, this isn’t a review, so I won’t tell you anymore. Story, puzzles, and cameras are the crux of what you should expect. Everything that unfolds after that is up to you.
Conclusion…so far
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a departure from Simogo’s last title, and a welcomed one. They have put together an intelligent and intriguing game that will push players, while also rewarding them with a fascinating and fantastic story. This game is going to last a whole lot longer than an hour and a half.
We’ll be back later next month with a review, but until then, keep an eye on this one.
