“What we propose is not to control content, but tocreate context.” To borrow one of the many infamous lines of dialogue from that most-infamous of codec conversations towards the end ofMetal Gear Solid 2,Lorelei and the Laser Eyes– from Swedish developer Simogo – is a game primarily revolving around the application and indeed manipulation of context. So much of its identity centers on this notion of focusing not on the subject at hand – a poster, a locked door, a riddle – but instead on everything pertaining to it. The way a poster is orientated, the symbols associated with a locked door, how a riddle is worded. Less to do with what’s being told upfront, but what’s already, subtly, been suggested without you ever knowing immediately that’s the case.
And yet the game is also a paradox: simple yet complex at the same time. A game whose intentions from the very start are to get players accustomed to the concept of pattern recognition. But whose very patterns are so cleverly intertwined and revealed, in the moment it’s hard to believe that so many puzzles and so many solutions are all wound around the same handful of answers. As noted in one’searly impressions, on paper this sounds like an easy and dangerous endeavor from the developer’s standpoint: a puzzle game whose answers are all, if not the same, then relatively repeated many a time. Where’s the challenge, what’s even the point to see this through?
But if the [roughly] twenty-or-so A6-sized pages of notes one has jotted down during the time spent in this game are any indication,Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, among its very many successes, manages to circumvent those fears of an all-too-simple trek. Because what Simogo concocts and delivers to the player is anything but simple. Exemplified no less by a world, a presentation and a narrative (even then, “narrative” doesn’t befit what the game is going for here) whose exposition, lore dumps and moments of implied revelation still wind up with a climax bound to leave players stipulating its real meaning. Fitting then that what bests illustrates just how wild and engaging this puzzling allure is is the below excerpt of one’s notes:
x + y = z - 6 / SENE(W)SSN / Dec 13th, 1846 / 12 sections, chair on left, 4 footprints / M = Turtle / 12N3 = HTNE? / MDCCCVII - Capricorn? / 3 fingers / Diamond = 5 / 1st and 5th, 2nd and 6th, 3rd and 4th / Forest Bug: Delta / IIIX˥WƆW / =9? / Gar Sch Mul / Passage-Door-Door-Passage / 1 is 3, 2 is 4 / 008911 / King & Pawn light scale / Man: SRLLS / Octagon-Right Angle-Cross-Rhombus / 5th from left
Make no mistake: note-taking is not just preferable, but just about mandatory to get one’s head around the many tricks, turns, twists and tiny little detailsLorelei and the Laser Eyesemploys. Employs in a way that looks absurd, random and frankly impossible to decipher. But whose visual language and offering room for players to use their own intuition strikes a perfect balance when it comes to how puzzles are universally designed here. Even if you’re someone confident in their own memory and skills with recollection,Lorelei and the Laser Eyesis a game where cross-referencing, referring back to prior discoveries and connecting the dots, pop up again and again. Better still, to refer back to that MGS2 reference: how much of what you see is the truth in of itself and how much is not? Is what the game presents a reality, a facet or something else entirely?
You Can’t Handle The Truth!
It’s the “why” behind all this and the “why” that unravels over the course of the run-time that cementsLorelei’s status as not just one fittingly constructed, but for Simogo themselves, further proof of the Swedish outfit’s knack for pushing boundaries and leaving one enthralled by its undefinable placement. Influences ranging from silent films, noir aesthetics, visual collage and even the originalResident Evilwhile you’re at it.Lorelei and the Laser Eyesis in constant flux with tone – a game whose far-reaching inspirations and aspirations to borrow from anywhere and everywhere should, in theory, lead to an off-putting mess. Instead, the result is brilliantly engrossing, weirdly effective and for a game whom even in its very end sequence only upped the personally-fumbling “what is this game?!” mind-set, feels like one of the most well-executed game directions in some time. Having beaten the game twice now – once on PC, another on the Switch – and with a combined thirty-ish hours invested, five years on from the equally-excellentSayonra Wild Hearts, Simogo have raised the bar once again.
So what exactly are you doing inLorelei and the Laser Eyes? On a basic level: players are put in the shoes of a female artist whom, after being invited by a famous auteur to partake in a grand artistic endeavor, finds themselves at a seemingly abandoned hotel somewhere in Europe. It doesn’t take long for the strange, vaguely-defined nature of the setting to take center stage. References to time periods years, decades, even hundreds of years prior pop up at frequent intervals. An aspect that is also illustrated by contraptions and devices frequently found throughout the hotel complex. Old-fashioned bulky computers, espresso machines, wooden puzzle boxes and record players are just some of the more interactive materials you’ll find along the way.
Tumbling Down The Rabbit-Hole
But as far as world-building goes,Loreleigoes further in this regard. Diary excerpts, interview snippets, found footage and the like, cover a broad period of time. Suggesting thatLoreleiis far from transfixed on a given time. And as it inevitably turns out: far from transfixed on a given state of being on top. Such is the immaterial nature of how the game presents itself, even something as exploring the primary hotel complex that is at the heart of the setting conjures conspiratorial vibes.
For one, the way the setting is illustrated and represented through a given artistic style. ThatLorelei and the Laser Eyeshas this stitched-together appearance to its particularly collage-like aesthetic. And further to that, stitching together entirely contrasting styles – a room visualized as a combination of low-poly models, overlapping textiles and even some wireframe-like outlining of objects, like some early render in a simulation. And in the midst of all this, beneath the layers, what appears to be an entirely stand-alone visualization of something else.
What does all this mean? What exactly are you indirectly looking at and observing? Is it anything meaningful or is it all just for show? There’s this ongoing observant distrust as to the wayLorelei and the Laser Eyespresents itself. Not in a malicious or otherwise faltering manner, but more so in an unreliable narrator-esque fashion. Can I trust anything the game is showing me? Is any of this real or is the big twist that this is all in someone’s (or something’s) head? How much is literal, metaphoric or allegoric?
Many a game prior has played with this concept of course, but Simogo seem to take things to their maximum and thus logical conclusion. Shifting both tone and delivery in a way that doesn’t exert assurance, but at the same time never wavers from attracting absolute focus and curiosity. Because it’s where the game goes later on – what changes it employs, as much what it asks of the player to partake in – that only makes the quest for answers (or as the game’s completion status denotes: the “truth”) not just desirable, but a necessity to ground all this in something one can grasp.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is Simogo At Their Cryptic, Creative, Downright Audacious Best
A radical departure from the design of previous, Simogo look to have crafted something defying easy explanation and is all the better because of it.
Yet without going too much into spoiler territory,Lorelei and the Laser Eyesrelishes toying with its players. Or at the very least, throwing up a change in pace or gameplay without warning. Shifting from one supposed premise to another – neither confirming nor denying that what’s shown has some deeper ramification or hidden purpose. Better still, even when the pretense of “merely solving puzzles” is dropped to keep surprising again and again in having one’s self repeatedly express in so startling a fashion: “OH, we’re doing this now?!”
Indeed, the final sequence pushes this to eleven; even after the knack for left-field pivots has become common practice. Simogo, even by this point, still find ways to shock and surprise. Flashes of (and thus comparisons towards) something like the interior of the mountain inThe Witnesssoon emerge – just as you suspect a game of wild variety can’t possibly keep going with such antics,Lorelei and the Laser Eyesfinds a will and a way to prove such doubts wrong all over again.
The Penny Drops
All of which is broken up by the puzzles themselves. An assortment of finding the correct sequence, numbers, letters, symbols etc. that as noted finds the perfect balance between being seemingly indecipherable and subtly suggestive to point players in the right direction as to discovering its solutions. Even at its most seemingly obtuse – when it seems like a puzzle is missing some other key detail – as with one of the game’s keypad puzzles, for those having paid close attention to the memories collected and the material discovered pertaining to the narrative backdrop, the solution is never too far away. In fact, the best examples and personal favorites to find inLorelei and the Laser Eyesaren’t so much the more complex puzzles, but those that require players to think beyond simply outside the box, but rather like (for lack of a better idiom) like there’s no box at all.
One highlight, involving the image of a bell, epitomizing the limitless pool of “penny drop” elations on having some figurative third eye open. Another which I’ll keep vague in description, doing that marvelous thing of leading players to presume some form of manipulation can be done on an object without ever demonstrating it first-hand. The added benefit to all this is that most ofLorelei and the Laser Eyes' progression isn’t linear. The moment you step into the hotel complex, it’s left to one’s own choice which order puzzles can be solved in. Granted, some puzzles can only be solved by way of context or via the acquisition of an item rewarded through some other puzzle. And while all puzzles in the game eventually lead back into the final sequence,Lorelei and the Laser Eyesis a game with an abundance of freedom and respect for a player’s time, but at the same time one that asks its players to prove their mental worth.
The Journey, Not The Destination
Very few, if any, of the puzzles can be solved via brute force and for those that can, so much more is hidden behind additional layers of context, that the only way to reach end credits is to see all that which Simogo have crafted. But it’s a journey worth poking around in. Even the short-cut doors – serving as a means to better move around the environment – optional as they may be, are worthy investments. Such isLorelei’s execution, even the optional mini-games you can invest time in – purchased by way of uncovering enough dollar notes hidden throughout the game – are shockingly replayable. Even for something as feeble as trying to beat one’s high score.
If there are any criticisms or even just nitpicks concerning certain design choices, perhaps the most notable is the decision to employ a manual save format, as opposed to one that automatically does so at certain intervals. Saving at any one of the game’s computer monitors, the only way one can do so. On its own this isn’t so much a problem, but when you factor in puzzles that, when answered incorrectly, result in a game over – sending you back to the last recorded save –Lorelei and the Laser Eyes' sense of risk can feel like it’s overstepping the mark.
Even if the game does offer some fail-safe from time to time in some cases – the option to retreat from a series of trivia quiz questions, for example – not to mention a blatant warning early on in the game prior, it can still lead to an annoyingly over-protective style of play that has you saving literally every time a computer is spotted. A mentality that only grows in likelihood during certain sequences that upon a certain action being triggered, locks you out of saving until said puzzle (with its game over prospect) passes.
Closing Comments:
It would be an immense understatement to say Simogo have made the five-year wait for their follow-up release worth it.Lorelei and the Laser Eyesdefies not just genre conventions, but that of tone, aesthetic and even presentation to craft a game of wild imagination and even wilder a delivery. Yet for all its leisurely skirting the boundaries between one perceived tone or form of presentation to the next, none of what is experienced amid the Hotel Letztes Jahr feels distracting or otherwise ill-fitting. Be it at its most satirical, surreal, strange, and on some occasions, psychologically unsettling. A masterfully-orchestrated series of puzzles that are both stand-alone and interconnected alike, a brilliant use of a more-restricted color palette emboldening its art-style and aesthetic. And best of all: one of the most curious, perplexing but ultimately satisfying mysteries to see fully unraveled and revealed in its truest form. Combined,Lorelei and the Laser Eyesstands as Simogo’s best work to date. Even with a portfolio as creative as theirs, a release deserving of that most lofty of titles:magnum opus.
