Welp. I'm a few hours fresh off the final two chapters and...I have some thoughts.

To start: I first encountered this game by browsing Twitter, and seeing the gameplay and the visual style immediately caught my attention. When Lorn's Lure finally released, I jumped in a few days later to explore whatever there was to find here.
As of today, I have beaten the individual chapters with...a laughable number of retries (or 'failed simulations', as the game refers to them) owing to me being kinda rubbish with platformers. Bear this in mind for later parts of the review, but for now, a quick explainer.

You play as an android who finds himself chasing what appears to be an owl formed out of chaotic glitching effects. It usually serves as our guide for where we should go, and we chase it for most of the eight levels we play in this game.
Your journey as the android will take you through numerous different regions in the Megastructure; residential colonies, sewage systems, and other seemingly distraught environments await you as you climb your way up and down, chasing this elusive owl.

These environments are, by and large, my favourite thing in the game. They are extraordinarily massive in scale, but they don't feel so big that they're utterly overwhelming to travel through.
It's a bit like Xenoblade Chronicles , where the world is massive, but your movement speed allows you to move through these places quicker, and after a certain point, these vast landscapes are such that you barely pay it any mind by the time you approach the end of the game, and when you can see the sheer scale of it all in good lighting, it's quite magnificent.

The gameplay is quite easy to explain. Each chapter introduces you to a unique mechanic that opens up your options for traversal. The main thing you'll have with you is your hooks, with which you'll scale vertical rocky walls, but there are other mechanics.
Things like the 'Tic-Tac', jump dashing, grappling hook and so on also feature, giving you stuff to work with whilst you figure out where you're meant to go. There are other things to keep in mind here, but for the most part, these are the mechanics that you use and are introduced to throughout the duration of the game.

As for navigating, this is where things can get weird. The game teaches you right from the off that you're going to fail a bunch trying to make your way through these environments.
There is no obvious way up or down, usually; you have to intuit your way along, and this can sometimes lead to situations where you go a given direction almost by guesswork rather than having something like a ledge you can see.
There are times where I find myself wondering if some things that I'm doing were actually done as the developer intended. Sometimes when I'm going certain places, it feels like I'm playing the game wrong, even if it works out in the end. It's hard to tell.

That said, once you get into a flow state with the mechanics, the navigation and all of that, it's a properly fun experience, and the occasional fall doesn't bother you much at all; not only are the checkpoints usually very forgiving, often putting you back onto the ledge you fell from in the first place, you'll see it as an opportunity to re-assess and try again.
Other times, however, you'll feel at a complete loss on where to go. I can spend minutes at a time looking at where I'm supposed to go. If you're in that flow state, these situations can kill any momentum you had and be really off-putting, which is such a shame to me.

Perhaps the thing I dislike the most about Lorn's Lure , however, are, err...actually, let's throw up some spoiler tags real quick...

OK, so, the third chapter brings you to a sewage system that is exceptionally dark and hard to see. You'll make use of a device that enables you to make flares from the radioactive atmosphere, and these are...not especially effective, as they don't light a lot up, but they'll do in a pinch.
The problem comes towards the end of the chapter, though. You're taught here that you cannot make contact with liquid (you're an android, so I guess you short circuit), but this level tends to have a lot of it around you at any one time.
The killer for me is the very end of the chapter, where you are given a timed challenge to get out of a part of the sewer before you get washed away. It may only be a relatively short section of the level, but it is just...so annoying.

Worse: this timed mechanic returns in the final chapter of the game, making up the lion's share of the level, and you have to play through it with the most obnoxious techno music.
The level design in this chapter is the most 'video-game final level' level design imaginable; it just feels like an obstacle course rather than something that meshes with any other part of the game, and it is also alarmingly disorienting, which I cannot abide by for a platformer.
Whilst there are checkpoints to make it so that you don't feel completely screwed, it is easily the worst part of the game for me. My vision turned green because of it and I felt overloaded by it all, and when the credits rolled, I wasn't glad, just exhausted and tired.

I do hope that my grievances with the game don't put too many people off, because at the end of the day, this was the work of a solo developer and a lot of work has gone into it, and some of my issues could just well be due to my not being particularly good at platformers.
They are, however, serious enough that I was genuinely pondering whether I should press the thumbs down button to say I don't recommend this game. I don't think that would be fair, because it's not like this is a bad game, and if I think back on it, I find a lot of stuff I really like about it.
Maybe if there was a middling option, it would better tell my story. On the whole, though, I am closer to liking this game than disliking, but I wish I liked it more than I did. I would also hope that in spite of my criticisms, you folks give the demo a shot at least to see if it might be the sort of game you're interested in.

But yeah...less of that final level, please. That was just...awful.

[h1] Obtuse and frustrating at times, but impressively engaging all the same [/h1] Welp. I'm a few hours fresh off the final two chapters and...I have some thoughts. To start: I first encountered this game by browsing Twitter, and seeing the gameplay and the visual style immediately caught my attention. When [b]Lorn's Lure[/b] finally released, I jumped in a few days later to explore whatever there was to find here. As of today, I have beaten the individual chapters with...a laughable number of retries (or 'failed simulations', as the game refers to them) owing to me being kinda rubbish with platformers. Bear this in mind for later parts of the review, but for now, a quick explainer. You play as an android who finds himself chasing what appears to be an owl formed out of chaotic glitching effects. It usually serves as our guide for where we should go, and we chase it for most of the eight levels we play in this game. Your journey as the android will take you through numerous different regions in the Megastructure; residential colonies, sewage systems, and other seemingly distraught environments await you as you climb your way up and down, chasing this elusive owl. These environments are, by and large, my favourite thing in the game. They are extraordinarily massive in scale, but they don't feel so big that they're utterly overwhelming to travel through. It's a bit like [b] Xenoblade Chronicles [/b], where the world is massive, but your movement speed allows you to move through these places quicker, and after a certain point, these vast landscapes are such that you barely pay it any mind by the time you approach the end of the game, and when you can see the sheer scale of it all in good lighting, it's quite magnificent. The gameplay is quite easy to explain. Each chapter introduces you to a unique mechanic that opens up your options for traversal. The main thing you'll have with you is your hooks, with which you'll scale vertical rocky walls, but there are other mechanics. Things like the 'Tic-Tac', jump dashing, grappling hook and so on also feature, giving you stuff to work with whilst you figure out where you're meant to go. There are other things to keep in mind here, but for the most part, these are the mechanics that you use and are introduced to throughout the duration of the game. As for navigating, this is where things can get weird. The game teaches you right from the off that you're going to fail a bunch trying to make your way through these environments. There is no obvious way up or down, usually; you have to intuit your way along, and this can sometimes lead to situations where you go a given direction almost by guesswork rather than having something like a ledge you can see. There are times where I find myself wondering if some things that I'm doing were actually done as the developer intended. Sometimes when I'm going certain places, it feels like I'm playing the game wrong, even if it works out in the end. It's hard to tell. That said, once you get into a flow state with the mechanics, the navigation and all of that, it's a properly fun experience, and the occasional fall doesn't bother you much at all; not only are the checkpoints usually very forgiving, often putting you back onto the ledge you fell from in the first place, you'll see it as an opportunity to re-assess and try again. Other times, however, you'll feel at a complete loss on where to go. I can spend minutes at a time looking at where I'm supposed to go. If you're in that flow state, these situations can kill any momentum you had and be really off-putting, which is such a shame to me. Perhaps the thing I dislike the most about [b] Lorn's Lure [/b], however, are, err...actually, let's throw up some spoiler tags real quick... [spoiler] OK, so, the third chapter brings you to a sewage system that is exceptionally dark and hard to see. You'll make use of a device that enables you to make flares from the radioactive atmosphere, and these are...not especially effective, as they don't light a lot up, but they'll do in a pinch. The problem comes towards the end of the chapter, though. You're taught here that you cannot make contact with liquid (you're an android, so I guess you short circuit), but this level tends to have a lot of it around you at any one time. The killer for me is the very end of the chapter, where you are given a timed challenge to get out of a part of the sewer before you get washed away. It may only be a relatively short section of the level, but it is just...so annoying. Worse: this timed mechanic returns in the final chapter of the game, making up the lion's share of the level, and you have to play through it with the most obnoxious techno music. The level design in this chapter is the most 'video-game final level' level design imaginable; it just feels like an obstacle course rather than something that meshes with any other part of the game, and it is also alarmingly disorienting, which I cannot abide by for a platformer. Whilst there are checkpoints to make it so that you don't feel completely screwed, it is easily the worst part of the game for me. My vision turned green because of it and I felt overloaded by it all, and when the credits rolled, I wasn't glad, just exhausted and tired. [/spoiler] I do hope that my grievances with the game don't put too many people off, because at the end of the day, this was the work of a solo developer and a lot of work has gone into it, and some of my issues could just well be due to my not being particularly good at platformers. They are, however, serious enough that I was genuinely pondering whether I should press the thumbs down button to say I don't recommend this game. I don't think that would be fair, because it's not like this is a bad game, and if I think back on it, I find a lot of stuff I really like about it. Maybe if there was a middling option, it would better tell my story. On the whole, though, I am closer to liking this game than disliking, but I wish I liked it more than I did. I would also hope that in spite of my criticisms, you folks give the demo a shot at least to see if it might be the sort of game you're interested in. [spoiler] But yeah...less of that final level, please. That was just...awful. [/spoiler]