Lorn’s Lure: what if you made a thoroughgoing attempt to design a high skill ceiling game entirely around GoldSrc platforming? To some that would sound like hell, but to me - heaven.
Each of the 8 chapters introduces a new mechanic, which is more variation than I had anticipated, including one that takes away a core mechanic, teaching you how to work around its lack with the other ones, training you more fully in their use. The final chapter is a duology, the first half giving you not only a new mechanic, but the most nuanced and versatile one yet, in a serene and peaceful world, letting you play around with it; the back half slams you into a brutal timed obstacle course, of which there had only been one so far in the game (and much milder), in a red screaming hellscape with pounding repetitive glitched out techno. You gotta learn on the job.
If you know anything about this game you know about its Blame!-inspired megastructure levels. You look down or up or across at a huge vista and in any other game it’d just be scenery - but in this game, you’re gonna get over there, inch by inch and yard by yard. Or well, maybe. Figuring out which vista you really have to traverse and which is just kind of scenery is itself part of the fun. There’s an optional waypoint system, but not only do you not have to use it, there are rewards to exploring away from the intended path (sometimes), and even with the waypoints it usually isn’t obvious what you have to do to get there, thankfully. I personally found the level design highly conversant - I could usually tell not only where it wanted me to go, but also where it was optionally enticing me to go, and also where it was just laying out additional “useless” geometry for exploration or atmosphere’s sake - and also where it was being deliberately ambiguous about which one it was. Maybe I’m just highly attuned to 3d platformer language.
That isn’t to say I never got lost or stuck, of course, but I would say that about 75% of the time I was stuck it wasn’t because I misapprehended the level design, but rather because I hadn’t yet learned to fully exploit my moveset. I think I checked youtube for help on a specific jump like 3 times, and each time I was like OH SHIT, I didn’t realize I could do that. --But of course I could. It was my fault for missing it.
The lo-res look is obviously a deliberate choice but it’s kind of diabolical in a game where you spend 60% of the time with your nose pressed up against a polygon. I don’t think an HD look would kill the vibe at all, but I suspect it was at least as much a production necessity as an artistic vision, so whatever.
I was also pleasantly surprised that there was a bit more talking and character in the game than I expected - I’d assumed a totally mute, lonely experience, and while it was still largely that of course, the flashes of “humanity” (it is very ambiguous what if anything is “human” in the world of the game) were welcome. That said, the ending was extremely lame, a perfect example of why not to solve your own mystery. I guess it could be a double-fake to set up a sequel or DLC or whatever, but that’s just ennervating for a different reason.
If you think cs surf maps need narrative context, play this.
