Ok, review time. Why bother making a topic for this? A puzzle game masquerading as a fixed-camera Silent Hill / Alone in the Dark walkathon. What makes Lorelei and the Laser Eyes so good?
First of all, the pacing and the dramatic arc of the game are great. I got the game finished up in around 20 hours with 10 pages of notes scrawled up by the end, but despite the longish play time, I felt like I was making constant progress because there were usually multiple threads to work with at the same time, and things kept falling into place very organically. The beginning of the game is about leisurely getting familiar with the hotel, the slightly ominous setting, and discovering all the locked pathways you don't have the solutions for yet. Then you start getting into the right mindset to make progress and as you settle into the groove, the game throws a few well-timed curveballs to break the rhythm a bit. It doesn't turn into Starcraft or anything, but you get a number of interesting 90's gaming homages, and some intensive set pieces that bring a fitting change of pace from from what's come before. The instructions booklet you get at the beginning tells you that when you're facing the barrel of a gun, the game might be over if you answer incorrectly. Well, now's that time. Hope you paid attention.
The back half of the game keeps the tension high, ups the surrealist elements a bit, and resolves everything together in a satisfying manner. The story concludes nicely despite its recursive nature. Thinking backwards, many little incongruencies encountered over the course of the game turn out to be clues pointing to the underlying truth. This must have gone through a thousand iterations to get right.
Second, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is
stylish. The palette is monochromatic stark black and white, with the occasional striking red highlight. Everything looks crisp and believable at first sight, but the textures are a bit off, mosaic tiles bleed into one another, and some props are oddly fuzzy, creating a dreamlike ambience. The two main characters are right out of a French New Wave movie. Your chic main character is obviously more of a blank canvas but The Man is a wonderful combination of affability and charisma with a sinister undercurrent. He gets all the good lines and has a few genuinely insightful things to say about art and creativity. I've never been one of those for whom the Muses speak directly to, but I know people who walk that line of inspiration, madness and trickery, and this game nails that character type depiction. The artfag in me also enjoys the cheeky Cinema Sostenuto manifests and pompous film scripts that form the thematical backdrop of the setting.
Third, the puzzles are good. There are loads of puzzles to solve overall, but they have great variety, their scope is sensible, and clues are generally in reasonable proximity to their respective locks. There's a few larger-scale brainteasers where you have to get into the proper schizoposting mindset to combine multiple inferences from initially unrelated sources, but they too are fairly designed and the required connections aren't too obtuse. There are several essential aids so that you don't have to keep everything written up personally: a Photographic Memory that stores images of all murals, screens and books you've seen, and an updating task list that keeps track of things yet to be solved.
The game never intentionally misleads you - if you get the "Key to Room 35", it will open the door to Room 35 and nothing more. The game only assumes the ability to read English and perform basic arithmetic. The rest of the clues are self-contained in the game - you don't need any external knowledge to decipher anything. For example, you'll need the zodiac signs at one point, so you can find a reference page in the game instead of having to independently know if March 10th is Pisces or not.
Fourth, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is overall well crafted, polished, and has these little touches of flair that start making a difference once we've established a certain level of overall quality. The example I like to use is the fret slide audio sample used in Psychonauts 1 Velvetopia world when sliding downwards in the bass strings that function as ladders in that world. There are only a handful of those ladders overall, and the player isn't guaranteed to even slide downwards on them during a playthrough since there is no falling damage. Despite all that, the devs deemed it relevant to create a specific high-quality audio effect for that particular, very marginal, scenario. Well, Lorelei has that too. I won't mention more specifics in order not to reveal too much about the game, but when there is an enigmatic bossa nova dance scene, lots of care seems to be put into making it seem like the pair are
actually dancing to the music even if it is just a one-off one minute long story progression set piece.
It's not a perfect game of course. Generally, many items required for progression are something you just happen to get as you go around the hotel solving unsolved puzzles (or just reading plot-specific posters). If you're missing a red rose, there's no way to deduce where that might be found. There are a few minor dips in puzzle quality such as one particular case which had so fiddly controls that I entered the right code at least 10 times before unlocking it. I'll just say that once you've got a solid lead for the library journal puzzle, your first intuition is exactly correct, there are no hidden catches, and you just have to let the front cover wheel settle in the right positions before clicking. I also don't think a vocal pop ending credits song has ever worked in vidya gayme, and frustratingly this one is no exception, especially since they had used the PERFECT ENDING SONG already earlier.
Still, an obvious
game
Sitting here poolside sippin' my Itsetyöllistetty Raimo after typing all that
