Episode 175 - Thoughtpocalypse - Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

I would recommend podcasters to rob banks instead because gambling is immoral.

Welcome back to the podcast and to our very important series on games titled after women’s names that begin with the letter L. Today, we’re talking about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a puzzle game from Simogo, developer of games like Year Walk and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Taking the form of an enormous escape room, where solving number puzzles and unlocking doors is the name of the game, you progress through an ever growing list of goals to uncover the “truth” as it is quantified in the menu. The game has a few consistent motifs that pop up to anchor you into the narratives main themes and provide clues to the puzzles, and combined with a story that has real concrete answers you can figure out yourself with the information provided, it really meshes a mechanical satisfaction with a narrative one. In the same vein, the difficulty of the puzzles really lands in a spot that will likely be satisfying for most people, if a bit easy for people who are diehard fans of the genre. Mostly more simple than you would think at first glance, recognizing patterns and identifying a pool of answers to choose from will serve you better than raw enigmatology in this case. The game isn’t perfect, a bit too long, and if you’re not a fan of puzzle games generally this likely won’t change your mind, but it’s a stylish package put together by a developer that really knows how to nail a tone. We’re going to be talking about the interconnectivity of puzzles, the stylish execution of a visual style and we determine that person we often most agree with is ourselves.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Not know what this game was going into it may have not been the best idea from a scheduling perspective, and maybe had something to do with us thinking it was bit overlong, but in the end it was still a good time. Do you think our devotion to Simogo’s games is unhealthy? Do you just agree and enjoy their output? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re actually interrupting the GTAWNTBWTLL theme as we enter October and will be talking about Crow Country, so we hope you’ll stay tuned for that.