Lorn's Lure

玩了一章，感觉不错，氛围很好，手感很棒

mim pular e agarrar na parede, mim gostar

[h3]Intro[/h3] As someone who enjoys giving obscure/under the radar a chance (mainly to support indie devs), when my friend recommended me Lorn's Lure I was definitely intrigued. He sent this to me because I had previously recommended him White Knuckle, a game I got when "climber" genre was just blossoming but have not gotten around to giving a proper chance due to that game's roguelike mechanics. Seeing this game did not have these roguelike mechanics, opting instead for a more linear progression, alongside its own liminal style, I decided to give it a try. After completing the game, I can say that it is definitely a decent game and worth giving a shot if the trailer footage interests you. It has some hiccups, some minor and some major, and it's definitely not perfect, but overall it's a solid experience nonetheless, and it managed to hold my attention better than most games I play. [h3]Likes[/h3] The climbing mechanics are the main focus of Lorn's Lure, and overall they are pretty solid. The game revolves around not reaching "terminal velocity", which is an interesting way to punish the player for failure while also not just surrounding the megastructure with death triggers. I do think that some parts are somewhat jarring and unnatural, like how you just suddenly lose most of your abilities when falling at terminal velocity, but you get used to it. And additionally, the levels are designed in a way that utilizes those unnatural feeling mechanics in fun and unique ways, like the many cases in which you need to climb down a structure. [spoiler] Except for Level 8, which you will be hearing a lot about in the dislikes section. [/spoiler] The game also introduces many more mechanics, like as wall jumping, a flare gun, dashes, and I really enjoy how liberally the game allows you to use these. Like the dash mechanic, which they easily could have just made a locked horizontal dash and designed the game around that, but instead let you dash in any direction your mouse is pointing, which enables creative use of the tools such as dashing upwards to not reach terminal velocity. Traversing through a level in this game is equals parts a puzzle of figuring out where you need to go as it is executing the actions needed to progress, and both of these parts are quite enjoyable. Finding out where to go is not too much of an issue for most of the game, but its also not immediately obvious in a way that takes the fun out of finding a path forward. Some levels use this incredibly well, like the city level in which you are traversing along the ceiling. The environments are also a highlight of this game. While many of them do kind of look the same, that does not diminish how visually pleasing each of them are when playing. I am a big fan of retro graphics like this, and I think this game does an amazing job at combining that with its huge megastructures and interesting level design. I especially enjoyed the fountain level and undercity level. Finally, the story in this game starts simple, but is really effective. The motivation to find the simulation you left at the start of the game helps give the levels you complete a purpose, [spoiler]that is, until Level 8 ruins this as well[/spoiler]. [h3]Dislikes[/h3] Firstly, I think it would be disingenuous to not address the elephant in the room. (Spoiler Warning for final level's gameplay): [spoiler]Level 8 (the final level) is without a doubt the worst part about this game. It is so bad that I legitimately took an entire point off my original score for this game because of it. Remember how I mentioned how the controls felt unnatural but you got used to them, and that the levels making good use out of them helped with that? The majority of Level 8 is a chase scene, a fairly hard one at that, where you are required to go as fast as you can, in a game where the core gameplay mechanic revolves around slowing down to not reach terminal velocity. It is during this point of the game that these flawed but otherwise fine mechanics become incredibly frustrating, as you constantly need to go fast, but not [i]too[/i] fast, doing some fairly precise platforming as well. All while you are being blasted by some of the worst trap music you have ever heard in your life, and meatballs that grow at a rate that is faster than the void chasing you block your path. This is a problem because sometimes you will outrun the void but the meatballs will have grown to block your path, delaying your death for no reason. This level goes against literally everything you have been learning about the game, for no reason other than assumed shock value.[/spoiler] (Spoiler warning for story ending): [spoiler]The story also gets unnecessarily confusing at this point. It was first just a story about a robot thing trying to get back into the paradise it left, and that was decent enough motivation. But at the end it is revealed that you are being lured by a virus to the corners of your mind and the paradise was just somewhere it put you to devour you? And then you wake up in "real life", the entire game having been a dream. Except its not a dream because I discussed it with my friend and he said that only the simulation was a dream but the rest of it was real life, which just opens up even more questions? Like how was our player able to escape originally, why did they get infected again at the end, what was the egg thing that they hatched out of, why didn't any of the other NPCs tell them it was real life? It just gets unnecessarily confusing by the end, and I feel like whatever the intention with the story was, it should have been executed better, especially since the story wasn't that bad up to this point.[/spoiler] Those two points sum up my major gripes, but a minor gripe that I noticed about this game is that a lot of the levels feel quite long. This is understandable, considering the levels are purely platforming with no combat or other distractions. It is not that big of a downside, but it can be jarring playing some of the first levels, so I feel it is useful to know that before going in, as your going to need to set aside some time to complete them. I was not the biggest fan of the tight cave level either. I don't hate it, but I feel the flares were not enough to make navigating them fun, as I frequently got lost in certain areas of the cave. [h3]Feedback[/h3] Overall I think the biggest thing I would recommend is getting a tighter gameplay loop. Like I said the gameplay isn't bad, but just losing all control as soon as you reach terminal velocity feels unnatural, and while the game managed it good, the unnatural feeling gameplay still ended up biting it in the behind. A clearer story would also have been nice, but its not too broken the way it is. I think the developer behind this game definitely has potential, and while this game isn't quite a gem I could still see one coming out of them, and will be watching closely to see if that will happen. [h3]Rating[/h3] 6/10 [spoiler](it would be 7/10 without Level 8 but yeah it's just that bad).[/spoiler]