Lucid Blocks is one of the most interesting games I have played. It's absolutely brimming with style, with heavy religious and spiritual imagery that keeps your brain trying to decipher what exactly is going on. That being said, I think this game is best experienced with as little info as possible, at least at first, so I'm going to keep this fairly vague.
The whole "liminal" horror style has been incredibly popular for the past few years now, but I think this game does it incredibly well. It actually feels original, unlike the 5,000 backrooms clones that have cropped up over the years. The game feels vast and empty, with often nonsensical procedural generation that would have players confused and possibly angry if it weren't for the fact that the game's theme heavily leans into it. Most of this game consists of exploring said surrealist world, finding a seemingly infinite variety of bizarre blocks, items, and environments. I mean it when I say that I have never played a game that feels quite like this one.
That being said, is this game actually fun? Honestly, not particularly. At least not in my opinion. If you're looking for a game with intricate combat systems, deep progression, expressive movement, or addicting power scaling, this game has none of those. This game is far more an interactive art piece than a game. Most of the joy comes from admiring the abstract story, bizarre environments, and unsettling atmosphere than anything else.
To be honest, the core progression loop is fairly repetitive and is a bit tiring by the end, which is saying something because the game isn't even that long. I was able to 100% it in almost 8 hours flat, given that I used a guide to help with the last 2 or 3 achievements since the game is incredibly unintuitive at times.
The game's confusing and unintuitive nature is absolutely another part of the theme, however. The whole game is intended to be a dream, and the very nature of said dream is that it's hard to pin down any rigid logic to it. To be clear, there is still logic to it, it's still a game after all, but it is very hard to wrap your head around without any sort of guidance. But at the same time it doesn't feel like the game really requires you to fully internalize and understand the less intuitive mechanics to get to the end.
I definitely do recommend this game. It isn't the most addicting or even fun game I've ever played, but I also don't think it's trying to be. This game isn't trying to be the next big game that leaves you needing another fix. The sandbox elements are expansive enough that you can certainly spend more time in this game if you want, but it also respects the time of the player and doesn't overstay its welcome if you simply want to appreciate the art and atmosphere, complete the game, and move on. There is truly no other game that feels quite like this, and it makes for an incredibly interesting experience on a rainy weekend that will leave you thinking well after the credits roll.
