Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure

Short but enjoyable experience. Great writing, voice over and general atmosphere! If you enjoy detective stories, this is for you.

Game's atmopshere, music, characters and plot are good, are all well-thought and well-written. Which is why I want to focus on the thing a didn't like in this game, which is a big aspect of gameplay. Gameplay is interesting because it's functionally one with the story. You walk around a scene, gather clues and then submit a Sheet - that is some sort of official questionnaire. That's the way you move a great deal of the story forward, that's the way you learn about the case. You can fail which, in theory, leads to different outcomes The gameplay is also deeply flawed - clues are very straight-forward. I am not very perceptive, but on my first playthrough I haven't failed a single investigation. I would appreciate if there were more fake leads and distractions. Sheets themselves are basicaly tests with questions like "What color are suspects' hair? A. Brown, B. Blonde, C. Red, D. He's bald" which is honestly ridiculous. An old-school system of typing in anwsers to fill the blanks would fit here infinitely better. On my second run I failed some basic investigations on purpose, and this way I missed an entire scene and it's clues, which made me respect the game. Unfortunately, even if you fail, game shoehorns you through the plot. "You failed to correctly create suspect's portrait and arrested a wrong person? Your actual target gets arrested anyway, because he "seemed suspicious" to one of your colleagues" - sort of way. Although the way you get to the ending, changes a bit, the ending still depends on your plot decisions, you get to make anyway. Only things the investigation affects are really how the middle of the game looks and how often your colleagues call you an idiot. That being said, developers currently make their second game, which will be called "Between Horizons" and in it's description, they noted that they added "a possibility to fail" which I guess fixes my biggest problem with Lacuna. I will follow their future work with great interest.

Impressive game! To make the right choices during conversations, carefully consider all clues that you've uncovered before you speak.

This is a captivating game, due to its excellent narration, its beautiful use of pixel art augmented with subtle uses of color, transparency, lightning and special effects, and its enveloping music (which really helps build the atmosphere). The controls are quite brilliant for a point-and-click game, and you will be faced with tons of choices, many of them with actual consequences, especially since you cannot reload a previous save :-) It is relatively short in time, but there are no fillers, it has high replay value due to the multiple endings, and you will love the story. Highly recommended!

For a detective game it has a good balance, it wasn't too difficult to figure out what the game wants you to figure out, but t isn't overtly complex, requiring unreasonable leaps of logic. The music is very pleasant, and the graphix , while minimalistic, have good art direction and fit the game well. When it comes to the story, it isn't anything revolutionary, it treads quite heavily on most, if not all, noir cliches. It does however execute them well, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. The charachters are decently well written, so while they fit the cliches, they are not parodies. Overall it was a very pleasant playthrough and I was engaged by the charachters and the story, if you enjoy detective type games, and don't mind simple graphics, I would recommend it.