izigame.me

Sights & Sounds

There's no where

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes keeps a fairly even keel navigating the line between the real and surreal, meshing elements of one with the other to create a consistent and stylish atmosphere carefully crafted to buoy the pensive gameplay and enigmatic narrative
As Lorelei arrives at the stately Hotel Letztes Jahr, you'll be immediately struck by the monochrome world that ranges from light gray to pitch black, with the borderless darker portions resembling a void of negative space
The interior of the building has even more visual surprises. The impossibly shiny tiles reflect the ceiling, giving the impression of walking through two dimensions at once. Those darker shadowed portions grow outlines, rising from the interminable dark mass in the forms of baseboards, stairs, and moulding
All that magenta you see in the promotional material isn't just for show. It's the only hue you'll see in the whole game. As you might expect, it's reserved for special moments and certain important puzzles
This entire landscape is completely captured by static camera angles just like the old survival horror games of yore. I love how the deliberate framing provides that cinematic feel. It worked well back then, and it's nice to see it again
From the ominous synth-and-chorus arrangement of the opening theme to the poppy electric guitar of Call from the Past to the bluesy gospel of the title song Laser Eyes, this is, from tip to tail, one of my favorite OSTs this year
Radio Waves will also be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future
That's a lot of words written to merely say this: other puzzle games may look and sound pretty, but this one has style


Story & Vibes

There's no when

At its core, this is a mystery game, and good mysteries don't deserve to be ruined by spoilers. I'll still attempt to describe the shape of the narrative
You take the controls of Lorelei, a stern-looking but sharply-dressed fraulein who has been invited to the hotel by the mysterious filmmaker Renzo Nero to help him with his next film, a supposed magnum opus
Instead of a noisy reception, you're greeted by a suspiciously locked-up mansion uninhabited by anyone save a friendly black lab named Rudi (yes, you can and should pet him)
As you get your bearings and begin to explore, it should start to dawn on you that every door, desktop, cabinet, wall hanging, and item you see is part of a grand mystery
Solving these puzzles is tantamount to solving the mystery. You you progress, you'll find out clues regarding Lorelei's past, her connection to Nero, and the dark secret that lies at the heart of the story
I could rant and rave about how much I enjoy this sort of storytelling. As you get to work formulating a solution for one puzzle, you're given time to ponder the implications of the last plot development
Some players my find that sort of pacing to be glacial, but I think a slower pace works better when there's a mystery involved. Keeping secrets and withholding information is part of the fun of a good mystery, so giving the player time to stew and speculate feels thematically appropriate
The vibes are mysterious and just a little bit ominous, especially as you begin to tease apart the story. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I predict a lot of overlap in fans of this game and David Lynch enjoyers


Playability & Replayability

Drifting in the radio waves

If you've ever played an escape room style puzzle game on Newgrounds or even something more modern like a Rusty Lake title, you'll be familiar with the puzzle design
But instead of being a point-and-click framework from a first-person perspective, it's an adventure game that sees you navigating Lorelei through the Hotel Letztes Jahr to unlock all of its mysteries. And doors. There are a lot of doors
To unlock them, you'll need to be observant. The game (which provides you with a user manual in a great 4th wall breaking moment) encourages you to take notes and make sketches. It really does help to keep some scratch paper nearby
The satisfied feeling of getting unstuck after each eureka moment is almost always kept in check by the realization that the challenge just got harder
Take, for example, the early game puzzle involving a set of doors with distorted movie posters next to them. After stumbling upon the information you need, apply the logic to the posters to get the codes, and unlock all those doors you are greeted by rooms filled with even more clues and puzzles
In that way, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle hydra. You solve one puzzle only to get two more
But this wouldn't be as good as it is if it were a mere door unlocking simulator. Some of the mysteries you stumble upon will transport you to new dimensions to tax your observational skills, deduction abilities, and memory in new and creative ways
For me, the most memorable of these were the gigantic puzzle involving the Quiz Club and the software debugging puzzle. Both required me to heavily lean on my notes and memory. It's always fun when a challenge is difficult, but fair
As a whole, the manner in which puzzles are interwoven and connected is what turns this into such a memorable experience. Some may find it frustrating to spend hours solving a puzzle chain only to find another clue that doesn't initially seem to fit the larger problem you're working on, but it highlights the scope of some of the mysteries you'll be trying to solve
At the same time, you will occasionally be rewarded with lore and narrative hints. I enjoyed how solving the puzzles is essentially the same practice as piecing together the story. And be sure you do, in fact, keep tabs on the story. You'll have to prove you understood it at the end
Despite the speedrun achievements, I don't think I'll be trying to hurry my way through a replay. I'd like to forget some of the solutions and reexperience it down the road, but without the "again, but faster" objective hanging over my head


Overall Impressions & Performance

We'll meet again

Thanks to the ubiquity of sites like Newgrounds, a lot of people were exposed to room escape puzzle games inspired by browser classics like Mystery of Time and Space and Crimson Room
Stuff like the Rusty Lake series took that concept and elevated it a bit, layering some mysterious lore between games and ramping up the puzzles by interweaving elements to make larger, even more complex challenges
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes expands on the concept masterfully while also adding a degree of polish that this type of game has never seen before
If I had any complaint whatsoever, it would be about the omnipresence of locking content behind doors. I understand why that's used, but at some point unlocking a door to reveal three more locked doors does provoke a little swearing
I started off on the Steam Deck, but switched to my laptop not long afterwards. Having a larger screen made it easier to see some details. The mid-00s-like visuals didn't tax either system much


Final Verdict

- 9.5/10. It's impressive to see how Simogo hopped into a niche subgenre and created what might be the best realization of it. For room escape fans, this is the peak of the mountain. For others, it's still an incredible puzzle game