I ’m 15 hours intoLorelei and the Laser Eyes , the mysterious novel plot fromSayonara Wild Heartsdeveloper Simogo , when I ’m finally ready to undertake its ultimate mystifier . That time on my save file is deceptive ; I ’ve in all probability drop closer to 100 hours getting there if you factor in in all the sleepless nights where I lay alert trying to crack ciphers that evade me . After all that genial workplace , I have almost everything I need to finally solve the labyrinth and find the accuracy behind a misrepresented closed book hiding in its snapper . But I ’ve gain one concluding roadblock .
Five symbols . That ’s all that stands in my elbow room .
Early on during my halt at the gloomy Hotel Letztes Jahr , I get word five curious shapes hidden throughout its room . They were abstract to me at the fourth dimension , so I tucked them deep in my memory banks . Now everything reckon on them . If I could n’t deduce their significance , I would be immobilise here forever , claw at a metallic element door that hid the answers I so desperately sought . The crowded notebook I ’d been using through my playthrough to track clues begins to reach critical muckle . I ’m filling every free space with potential root .
“ Maybe they mould a word ? ” I endeavor to rearrange them to take shape one coherent shape .
“ This must be a number codification ! ” I start seeing ones and sevens that do n’t exist .
“ Symmetry ! ” I flip my full notebook upside down as I hit the brink of madness .
The more I scribble and rave , the further realism recedes into the distance . There ’s one voiceless answer , but that hardly seems to count to me anymore . I ’ve chuck out over a dozen hours of defined puzzle logic out the windowpane . The deed of personal interpretation has consumed my pursuance for the truth . I ’m no longer trying to redo a shattered mirror ; I ’m piecing together my own image in its shards .
That experience lies at the center ofLorelei and the Laser Eyes . Simogo ’s cryptic adventure does n’t just challenge actor with intricately contrive puzzles that are a oblique delight to work out . It draws a parallel of latitude between the ways we deconstruct both fiction and reality , imposing our perspective onto both to adjudicate to make sense of that which we do n’t understand . It ’s a watershed work of interactive fable that invites role player to get mislay in its internal ear .
Alone in the dark
ThoughLorelei and the Laser Eyesgrapples with complex ideas , it ’s a deceptively straightforward project deeply rooted in video recording game chronicle . The storey follows a adult female who is invited out to a hotel to work on an flakey Italian filmmaker ’s new chef-d’oeuvre . When she arrives , she ’s rope into a serial publication of compounding enigma shroud throughout the hotel . Fact and fable bleed into one another as she seeks to untangle a set of interweaving enigmas ring a mysterious artist whose body of work is displayed throughout the hotel .
The most painstakingly designed game I ’ve ever played .
All of that plays out via classic puzzle box gameplay that calls back to foundational horror greats likeResident EvilandAlone in the Dark . player are have informal in the totally open - all over hotel , tasked with solving its myriad of mystifier and determine documents that can make sense of the enigmatic story . It starts out simple enough ; other puzzles have me dial the correct act into padlocks ground on telegraphed clues or contain keys to the correct door . That ’s only the beginning of what may be the most fastidiously designed game I ’ve ever played .
What ’s so astonishing here is the intricate puzzle language Simogo has put together . problem that seem downright impossible to solve find like 2nd nature once I deliver to them later armed with more noesis about how puzzles work . resort clue like name and number facilitate players ramp up up a genial map of the maze . That opens the room access for several “ eureka ! ” moments that will have observing players feel like a mastermind once they break up a seemingly slow solution . No job is insurmountable in the Hotel Letztes Jahr , but some serious brainwork is require .
Lorelei and the Laser Eyesis less forgiving than youraverage mystifier game , even with its sleek one - button control schema . The puzzler formats are always change . There ’s no hint system . Most solution ca n’t be beastly - forced easily , lay aside for some optional shortcut riddle . Anyone that does supervise to luck themselves into the right-hand resolution by guessing will risk missing a crucial system of logic ruler that could go forth them suffer later . Not a individual word of honor is out of place ; even museum signs describing the hotel ’s various sculptures may house secret hint . By the last of my playthrough , I knew every single detail about the public and its characters because of how carefully I pored over every individual combat of text I could find .
The wages for that study is unspeakably euphoric . Midway through my playthrough , I found myself bottleneck by a single puzzle I ’d put off that I need to work out to progress . It revolve around a elbow room full of busts , each of which had a nonsensical plaque underneath it containing a string of letter and numbers . day proceed by . I simply could n’t crack their secret code , which I ’d ask to type into a nearby computer . I pondered the result every night as I fell benumbed to no avail . One morning while showering , I was all of a sudden struck with an unexpected bolt of lightning . In a matter of 20 arcsecond , I figured it all out . I was n’t even thinking about the game at that bit ; that ’s how deep it had its maulers in my subconscious mind .
In a bank bill sent to the jam , Simogo says that it does n’t expect most players to finish the entire biz . That seems to be by design . It wants to misinform player and send them down dead end . That ’s the kick of a maze , after all . The tension arises when you completely lose your sensation of blank and start fearing that you ’ll never make it out . That ’s the ill at ease feeling thatLorelei and the Laser Eyesevokes — and that make it all the more satisfying whenever you do make a correct routine .
Amazing aesthetic
Lorelei and the Laser Eyesdoesn’t explicitly advertise itself as ahorror game , but it firmly belongs in that musical style right alongside the classics it reference . It ’s a positively eerie risky venture that dips into muted psychological revulsion . Aside from one reliable jump scare ( a pulsation - raising nod to the originalResident Evil ’s skilful thrill ) , Simogo is more committed to create a tangibly uneasy ambience that ’s stuck with me long after finishing it all . That ’s immediately apparent in its magnetize disastrous - and - clean prowess style , occasionally stress with blood - red accents that stain its reality .
wind tot ordered surprises to the unpredictable dangerous undertaking .
Like its meticulously built puzzler , nothing about the aesthetical is done without intent . The stark visuals call back to the Italian arthouse cinema of the sixties , a touchpoint that ’s central to decoding its thoughts on aesthetic rendering . Its set camera angles , on the other hired man , are yet another ode to the earlyResident Evil erathat subconsciously builds its tenseness . History is n’t just do dressing here ; it ’s as key to the text as the scattered newspaper clippings and journals .
Simogo joyously explore that idea inLorelei ’s most self - reflective ocular moment . One puzzle chemical chain has me diving into playable prototypes for anoriginal PlayStation - erahorror game — everlasting with bungling cooler controls . By grab optional Johnny Cash hide around the hotel , I can buy a trio of games for a Game Boy - like gadget , one of which reimaginesLorelei and the Laser Eyesas aSuper Pac - Man - expressive style secret plan . Those twist summate consistent surprise to the unpredictable adventure , but they also seek to represent out the evolutionary chain connecting picture game history .
While the connection to ’ 90s horror games isLorelei ’s most obvious touchpoint , its recall connect the dot even further . Strip bothLoreleiandResident Evildown and you ’ll realize that both are evolution of the “ maze game ” music genre at their core . They ’re both about navigating claustrophobic outer space in hunting of an expiration . you’re able to connect them back to foundational games like3D Monster Maze , another patch of history that gets a memorable visual nod . Lorelei and the Laser Eyesdoubles as a retrospective of that artistic ancestry , drawing a inter-group communication between yesteryear and present .
A matter of perspective
If it sounds like my thoughts are wandering , you ’re right-hand . I find myself clutching at every piece of the game I can catch and connecting substance to it . Perhaps some of it sound like a stretch ; an overeager attempt to understand an impenetrable mystery . There ’s a reason I ’m doing that , though;Lorelei and the Laser Eyesis about that experience .
Art , and the way we employ with it , is a major focus of the distorted story . The Italian film producer who sets the full thing into question is an avant - garde auteur ( not too far off in design and position as8 ½ ’s Guido Anselmi ) who believes fine art should be take exception . “ Money is to art like the black plague is to babe seals , ” he tells me at one degree , ranting about how commerce is suffocating art . He want his work to antagonize viewers more than flirt with them , a philosophy that Simogo infuses into the game itself with its refusal to help player through hard puzzles . When I got stuck on the five - symbolization teaser I mentioned at the start of this review and asked the PR team representing it for a small help , Simogo sent back a wispy clue that almost felt like it was thrust out of the team .
The mystifier - box adventure is a pursuance for truth .
Lorelei and the Laser Eyesdemands interpretation from its consultation , both to hold on its mystical write up and its complicated puzzles . That ’s best exemplified in the art of its titular type , Lorelei Weiss . All that we know about Lorelei early on is that she ’s a prolific optic artist who is obsessed with perspective . The hotel is a go retrospective of her life history — just asLoreleithe biz is a retrospective of game account . Her most spectacular work is at the center of the game ’s best series of puzzle , as player need to decrypt nonentity hidden within her sculpture . Those kit and caboodle are n’t just clever puzzler solutions ; they prompt the audience that their perspective is part of the work . They ’re just physical object hoard rubble in a gloomy hotel until someone ascribes meaning to them .
“ Art is only as good as its viewer , ” a character tells me .
But this is n’t just a self - important bit of artistic production about making art . Those meditations seep into a more poignant takeaway . The narrative doubles as a biography of Lorelei , a story that ’s hard to extract from the fiction hem in it at times . With so many gaps left in her life , like pages rip from a biography , I can only make up my own rendering of who she was and what happened to her .
As I attempt to tack it together , I ’m take back to the Oscar - winningAnatomy of a Fall , a film about an author charge of bump off her husband . The flick never explain if she actually did it . or else , her life becomes a work of avant - garde art for lawyers and the general populace , both of which assay to spin their own adaptation of the truth out of their reading of heavy facts . The mode we falsify realism in an attempt to understand it is n’t so far off from how we review graphics .
Through that lense , the forcible and metaphoric labyrinth at the gist ofLorelei and the Laser Eyesbecome more poignant . The puzzle - box adventure is a quest for truth . It ’s my job to find out who Lorelei Weiss actually is . Every sentence I project my own interpretation of what I get laid onto her , it ’s like I ’m taking the faulty turn in a labyrinth . There ’s joy in getting lost and explore , but there ’s one defined path through it — just as every mystifier I lick here has a single solution , no matter how many style I essay to retrace abstract symbols .
That ’s the wages at the shopping mall of the maze : the real Lorelei Weiss . It ’s like searching for a TV biz ’s source code , the raw information that excuse how the thing works in unquestionable terms . Perhaps that ’s why Simogo seems so comfortable with the idea that most players may never collide with the final credits . To see the death is to demystify a cold , hard accuracy . There ’s nothing left to construe . Maybe it ’s more playfulness to stay missed , perpetually hold out in the mazes of fiction we build up around fact .
Lorelei and the Laser Eyeswas tested on PC and Steam Deck .
