Lorelei And The Laser Eyes Review – Sharp Vision, Sharp Execution

Nowadays it feels like there are no unique games, just games that successfully iterate and innovate on what already exists. There’s no shame in this – many a GOTY has been built on the foundations of decades of exp🍬erimentation in an existing genre. But it’s hard to say this about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, because it’s a game that feels, both aesthetically and conceptually, so singular that it’s difficult to compare to anyt♍hing else out there.

It’s perhaps also because it’s so unique that saying anything about it at all makes me feel like I’m spoilin🌱g the experience, but at the same time, it feels impossible to spoil because it’s so abstract. I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s begin by breaking things down.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle game developed by Sayonara Wild Hearts and Year Walk developer Simogo, and published by curator of indie darlings Annapurna Interactive. You play as a woman summoned by an eccentric artist and filmmaker to take part in his project in an old, empty hotel. The game opens with you near the entrance of the establishment as you stand by your car. Wandering a little leads you to the gate. The firs💟t puzzle, de💖livered through the bars of the gate by a sweet-looking dog, has you referring to letters to figure out the code to let yourself in.

Yes, you can pet the dog.

This opening conundrum neatly sets up the general thrust of the game: you explore the hotel and the areas surrounding it, collect documents, figure out the codes to unlock doors, and solve a variety of puzzles. Every puzzle leads to another. I played Lorelei and the Laser Eyes on the Switch, and was pleased to find that I could navigate the entire game w🌃ith just one joystick and a single button. Controls are pared d💃own to the absolute basics, with all the complexity taking place in the solving of puzzles themselves.

And boy, are these puzzles incredibly well-crafted. It’s impressive just how𝔍 self-contained Laser Eyes is – there are reference materials for absolutely anything you might need to know to solve any of the games’ puzzles. All of those materials are accessible in your ‘memories’ and you can refer to them any time, and anything that isn’t tracked is usually a puzzle in itself that you have to crack. There are compelling layers to the experience that are all drenched in excellent and intelligent game design.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Outside Hotel

You should definitely play with a pen and a notebook, because it will be a crucial tool in helping you puzzle things out and put clues together without having to endlessly jump between menus. There are math questions, brain teasers like those you might find in an IQ test, symbols and runes all over the place, and even architectural plans you have to somehow parse into numbers. Some of these puzzles can be brute forced with enough patience, but the m🍌ajority cannot.

Many of them will make you wonder if you are an idiot, but when yo🌌u solve them you’ll feel like a god. They are often frustrating, even infuriating, but never unfair. When you get stuck, often it’s because you just don’t have the necessary information – but even when you do, it might take a little while for the solution to come to you. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes requires patience, with the game and with yourself. On more than one occasion, I’ve gone to bed thinking about a problem and woken up with an answer.

Things can get overwhelming. Every room y💜ou enter is likely to have at least one puzzle to solve, and it won’t always be clear to you if you already have the information you need to solve it or if you’re smashing your head against the puzzle because you’re missing something. The map itself is very big, which means you’ll be retreading your steps over and over as you try to look for documents ꦅyou may have missed or doors you can now unlock.

Even though it’s easy to get stuck, you never really feel directionless – alongside your ‘photographic memory’ storing all relevant documents, there’s also a log of everything you’ve discovered that’s yet to be unlocked. You’ll always be able to go back into your notes to see what still needs solving so you can go to that location and experiment with itemsꦡ you’ve collected to see if you can unlock something new. The puzzle-solving becomes much less opaque once you learn the language of the game and identify what exactly is linked to what.

Moment-to-moment gamepl꧑ay itself is thoughtful enough, but it’s the combination with gorgeous aesthetics and compelling storytelling that makes Lorelei a game unlike any other. While it is never outright scary, it leans heavily and extremely effectively into horror, lending the whole ordeal a definite eeriness.

Everything is presented entirely in black and white with few exceptions – the only colours you see throughout are in the red to piꦕnk spectrum, including the titular pink laser eyes and red paint that might actually be blood, it’s hard to say. Most characters have their faces covered or blurred, if their head isn’t replaced entirely by glowing symbols at least. People often appear out of nowhere. There are ghosts, and I will not say any more about that.

The character’s perspective shifts constantly too, as if you are watching her through security camera feeds and switching between cameras constantly to keep a close eye on her. It’s reminiscent of classic survival horror like Resident Evil. There’s a distinct touch of noir in how there’s no voice acting or rarely even animation in cutscenes, with every conversation you have represented through text on a black screen. You can turn on phonographs in different rooms that pipe beautiful, creepy music as you wander ꧟through this empty hotel. It borrows from retro aesthetics as much as it draws from the uncanny valley. It’s a surreal, freaky, and sumptuous visual feast.

I could talk about the storytelling, except saying anything would detract massively from the pleasure of figuring things out yourself. This is as brief as I can be without avoiding the topic completely: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes touches on themes of memory and time, exploring them through non-linear gameplay and the tracking of events in multiple d♍ecades and even centuries. This in itself is not remarkable, but the cohesion between the gameplay and the narrative definitely is. Much of the game revolves around collecting memories and using the information you c꧋ollect to get closer to collecting information about Lorelei’s life – ludonarrative dissonance who?

My only gripe is that I really wish there was a hint system, because I’ve𝓡 gotten stuck on puzzles that even the combined brain power of four of my housemates and I couldn’t muscle through. Then again, I appreciate Lorelei’s difficulty and dedication to making players figure things out on their own, not to mention how this serves to reinforce its narrative themes.

That said, you should just play Lore꧋lei and the Laser Eyes instead of reading about it. I’ve never seen a game quite like it, and I can’t imagine I’ll see anything like it again anytime soon. It ticks all the boxes for a puzzle game that is just as intelligently and thoughtfully designed as it is atmospheric and fascinating, and I can’t recommend it enough.