Неожиданно круто. Выдержана атмосфера такого рассказа классической научной фантастики и детектива, азимовщина одним словом. При этом игра также серьезно детективна по геймплею(что не так часто нынче происходит). Точно буду играть следующую игру этих разрабов - Between Horizons.
Well-written cyberpunk noir. Good atmosphere. Gameplay is basic but fun enough.
Just wish there were manual saves for easier access to other endings because I rarely start over just to get other endings.
Just wish there were manual saves for easier access to other endings because I rarely start over just to get other endings.
I can save you the time of reading this review by saying one thing: there is only one thing truly "wrong" with Lacuna -- it's only a few hours long. While I love the #shortgame culture, this game made me want to spend hundreds of hours in it's realized world.
Now the real review:
Lacuna is a pixel noir detective game that was made by a humble team of developers that have created something that rivals most of the AAA titles in the genre.
The pixel art is absolutely stunning. I found myself marveling at the attention to detail. I wanted more areas to explore, more backgrounds to interact with, more chairs to just sit in and witness the world the team created.
The story is exactly what a noir game deserves - just enough intrigue and twists to keep you hooked while the character drama gives the world substance and detail. The world-building that this title does in a few short hours should make any writer blush. Each character feels multi-faceted and full of secrets of a life we will never get to see. There's also plenty of world-building hidden into the UI, with news articles and emails that are totally optional.
Speaking of the UI, it's equally exceptional and pleasing to work with. Everything about this experience is polished and comfortable.
If you enjoy the detective genre, then this is one for you. If you appreciate indie titles, then this is one you shouldn't sleep on. If you enjoy pixel art, then you could just look at this one and savor the artwork.
Oh wait - I thought of another thing that's wrong with Lacuna... nowhere near enough people have played it. Do yourself the favor and enjoy this pulp noir gem.
Now the real review:
Lacuna is a pixel noir detective game that was made by a humble team of developers that have created something that rivals most of the AAA titles in the genre.
The pixel art is absolutely stunning. I found myself marveling at the attention to detail. I wanted more areas to explore, more backgrounds to interact with, more chairs to just sit in and witness the world the team created.
The story is exactly what a noir game deserves - just enough intrigue and twists to keep you hooked while the character drama gives the world substance and detail. The world-building that this title does in a few short hours should make any writer blush. Each character feels multi-faceted and full of secrets of a life we will never get to see. There's also plenty of world-building hidden into the UI, with news articles and emails that are totally optional.
Speaking of the UI, it's equally exceptional and pleasing to work with. Everything about this experience is polished and comfortable.
If you enjoy the detective genre, then this is one for you. If you appreciate indie titles, then this is one you shouldn't sleep on. If you enjoy pixel art, then you could just look at this one and savor the artwork.
Oh wait - I thought of another thing that's wrong with Lacuna... nowhere near enough people have played it. Do yourself the favor and enjoy this pulp noir gem.
Sights & Sounds
- Lovingly crafted pixel art all around. The characters lack a bit of detail, but the backgrounds look pretty great
- The music is quite good in that laid back somewhat lo-fi way. Lots of muted synth with pronounced piano and percussion
- The only real knock on the music is the final song, a vocal track. The vocals are meh and the lyrics are pretty terrible
- There isn't much voice acting, but the little bit that exists is fairly well-performed
Story & Vibes
- At this point, the cyberpunk noir mystery adventure game market is pretty saturated (weird to say for such a specific niche), so a game in that category needs a good hook to stand out. Lacuna does this by giving player decisions more story and gameplay impact
- It's hard to offer a plot synopsis without spoiling the mystery. Briefly, you're a special agent with hangups about your ex who is charged with protecting a political dissident leader who is visiting your planet. Things predictably turn south, and it's up to you to solve the mystery and try to ease the tensions that could boil over into interplanetary war
- As you might expect, there's multiple possible endings. Your adeptness as mystery solving and dialogue choices can be very important in determining which one you get
- Overall, it's a pretty good mystery. Lots of intrigue and twists to the narrative to keep you guessing. The romantic/family subplot (should you choose to pursue it) feels a little throwaway, though
Playability & Replayability
- If you've played any investigation and narrative focused adventure game in the past decade, this will feel immediately familiar to you. If you haven't, you walk around, talk to people, and look at things to gather info to help you further the game's central mystery and solve puzzles
- Narrative and gameplay are closely intertwined in a game like Lacuna. It's pretty cool how your choices and mistakes affect things like puzzle solutions. The game will actually punish you for making the wrong choices by making future puzzles more difficult or removing some of your options
- Given the multiple endings, there's probably some replay value in here for completionists. My only gripe is that there's an achievement for seeing them all, which is a tough sell in a mystery game where you already know what's going to happen
Overall Impressions & Performance
- Lacuna does a lot of things well. The story is a pretty motivating mystery that kept me interested and invested. The fact that there were actual consequences (positive or negative) to your choices and actions was also great
- It also does some things pretty poorly. The great mystery (even if you get what is presumably the good ending) ends in a somewhat unsatisfying manner. All the loose ends are tied up, but not in any interesting way. Even the good ending for the subplot involving your ex-wife and kid is kinda understated in such a way that it doesn't emotionally register at all. After you get let down by the game's mediocre conclusion, you're then serenaded by the worst ending credits song I've heard in a long time
- It ran well on Steam Deck, at least
Final Verdict
- 7/10. Playing this game is like eating a delicious, satisfying meal, putting the last bite in your mouth, and finding a bug in it. It was a wonderful experience that unfortunately doesn't stick the landing
- Lovingly crafted pixel art all around. The characters lack a bit of detail, but the backgrounds look pretty great
- The music is quite good in that laid back somewhat lo-fi way. Lots of muted synth with pronounced piano and percussion
- The only real knock on the music is the final song, a vocal track. The vocals are meh and the lyrics are pretty terrible
- There isn't much voice acting, but the little bit that exists is fairly well-performed
Story & Vibes
- At this point, the cyberpunk noir mystery adventure game market is pretty saturated (weird to say for such a specific niche), so a game in that category needs a good hook to stand out. Lacuna does this by giving player decisions more story and gameplay impact
- It's hard to offer a plot synopsis without spoiling the mystery. Briefly, you're a special agent with hangups about your ex who is charged with protecting a political dissident leader who is visiting your planet. Things predictably turn south, and it's up to you to solve the mystery and try to ease the tensions that could boil over into interplanetary war
- As you might expect, there's multiple possible endings. Your adeptness as mystery solving and dialogue choices can be very important in determining which one you get
- Overall, it's a pretty good mystery. Lots of intrigue and twists to the narrative to keep you guessing. The romantic/family subplot (should you choose to pursue it) feels a little throwaway, though
Playability & Replayability
- If you've played any investigation and narrative focused adventure game in the past decade, this will feel immediately familiar to you. If you haven't, you walk around, talk to people, and look at things to gather info to help you further the game's central mystery and solve puzzles
- Narrative and gameplay are closely intertwined in a game like Lacuna. It's pretty cool how your choices and mistakes affect things like puzzle solutions. The game will actually punish you for making the wrong choices by making future puzzles more difficult or removing some of your options
- Given the multiple endings, there's probably some replay value in here for completionists. My only gripe is that there's an achievement for seeing them all, which is a tough sell in a mystery game where you already know what's going to happen
Overall Impressions & Performance
- Lacuna does a lot of things well. The story is a pretty motivating mystery that kept me interested and invested. The fact that there were actual consequences (positive or negative) to your choices and actions was also great
- It also does some things pretty poorly. The great mystery (even if you get what is presumably the good ending) ends in a somewhat unsatisfying manner. All the loose ends are tied up, but not in any interesting way. Even the good ending for the subplot involving your ex-wife and kid is kinda understated in such a way that it doesn't emotionally register at all. After you get let down by the game's mediocre conclusion, you're then serenaded by the worst ending credits song I've heard in a long time
- It ran well on Steam Deck, at least
Final Verdict
- 7/10. Playing this game is like eating a delicious, satisfying meal, putting the last bite in your mouth, and finding a bug in it. It was a wonderful experience that unfortunately doesn't stick the landing
Aventura narrativa lineal con toma de decisiones y distintos desenlaces. Lacuna nos cuenta -a través de su ambientación sci-fi noir- una historia inmersiva (y corta) sobre un asesinato y los intereses ocultos tras este. Me ha gustado mucho 👍🏻
The game really shines in its presentation. The pixel art is beautiful but the star is the attention to detail, the post processing, the music and sound effects… Besides that, it’s just okay. The story was a bit dull and predictable, and none of the characters particularly grabbed me. Still, it’s a decent mood piece with a lot of cool details poured into it. (I found the controls weird, requiring keyboard for movement and interaction — I understand what they were going for but I would’ve preferred to play it mouse only)
This game oozes atmosphere and that is the biggest selling point here. The pixel art, the lighting, the music, the noir vibes, it really soaks you in if you're into that kind of theme. The game is a short, narrative-driven game where you play as the detective and have to solve a big case. You can make decisions that change the ending. The story is nothing mindblowing but it is pretty good.
Es muy novela típica de detectives con sus monólogos internos, "prostitutas", tabaco, asuntos internos, gabardinas y toda la vaina. A una estética e historia bastante normalita incluye una forma de investigar que quizás no sea para todos. Tienes que completar informes con palabras clave, pero no siempre te lo ponen fácil ni dan segundas oportunidades. Mas te vale buscar en lo que te han dicho los personajes, los periódicos, las pistas que hayas encontrado... y crear tu mismo una posible lógica tras que puede haber pasado en este caso.
Si esa mecánica de investigación no te entra y estas harto del Detective tipiquísimo, quizás no sea para ti. Si no, puede ser interesante.
Si esa mecánica de investigación no te entra y estas harto del Detective tipiquísimo, quizás no sea para ti. Si no, puede ser interesante.
A surprisingly strong cyberpunk noir mystery that is well-told and compelling even while being somewhat obvious and traditional. Lacuna sits firmly within its genre and tries little to rock the boat, instead focusing on fleshing out the political situation in its world, providing genuinely tough choices, and making each character act according to believable motives and values as well as just being endearing in different ways. I truly cared about these people.
I also love art that hates the police but is told from their perspective. It's such an interesting challenge getting across your intended message while also having your protagonist have a realistic amount of resistance to questioning what they're doing. You're able to be a "good cop" if you can do things right, but only to a point. Ultimately as I was able to do here, the only good cop is one who actively sabotages the organization they work for.
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Played on Linux through Proton. Please add a Proton/WINE option to Windows games on Backloggd.
I also love art that hates the police but is told from their perspective. It's such an interesting challenge getting across your intended message while also having your protagonist have a realistic amount of resistance to questioning what they're doing. You're able to be a "good cop" if you can do things right, but only to a point. Ultimately as I was able to do here, the only good cop is one who actively sabotages the organization they work for.
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Played on Linux through Proton. Please add a Proton/WINE option to Windows games on Backloggd.
Ben scritto, ma rudimentale e poco interessante sotto ogni altro aspetto: le azioni eseguibili per indagare ciò che si trova nelle proprie immediate vicinanze sono pochissime tanto quanto le interazioni possibili; la possibilità di accedere a mail, log di dialogo, codex e altre informazioni attraverso il cellulare è un'ottima idea che purtroppo è sfruttata al minimo in quanto il gioco stesso ti permette di ottenere pochissime informazioni su ciò che contiene; la pixel art è dai colori troppo smorti per i miei gusti e il character design è praticamente inesistente visto che si è scelto di rendere tutti i personaggi difficilmente distinguibili gli uni dagli altri; molto buona la resa dei singoli personaggi e il loro doppiaggio, ma a conti fatti le frasi doppiate sono molto poche; buon uso delle luci e delle animazioni, ma non riescono a salvare gli ambienti dall'apparire vuoti e statici. Carine, piuttosto, alcuni dei momenti di maggiore tensione, rafforzati dall'uso della colonna sonora e da inquadrature ben ragionate in termini di animazione minimale e illuminazione.
Juegazo.
Ambiente y arte precioso y cautivador, acompañados de buena música y doblaje.
La narrativa está escrita con mucho cariño, tanto en la trama principal, que siempre mantiene la intriga, como en todas las pequeñas sub-tramas, donde se tratan cuestiones muy humanas. Buenos personajes, muy bien desarrollados individualmente y que logran ser rememorados por el buen guión.
El gameplay es muy básico y no se necesita más para el tipo de juego, queda en un plano secundario, sin ser esto algo negativo.
Un juego corto, fluido y conciso. Un estudio muy pequeño y un gran juego.
Ambiente y arte precioso y cautivador, acompañados de buena música y doblaje.
La narrativa está escrita con mucho cariño, tanto en la trama principal, que siempre mantiene la intriga, como en todas las pequeñas sub-tramas, donde se tratan cuestiones muy humanas. Buenos personajes, muy bien desarrollados individualmente y que logran ser rememorados por el buen guión.
El gameplay es muy básico y no se necesita más para el tipo de juego, queda en un plano secundario, sin ser esto algo negativo.
Un juego corto, fluido y conciso. Un estudio muy pequeño y un gran juego.
Nice small detective game, three interwoven cases. Not too hard, but I did miss some clues so also not impossible to make mistakes. Immediately made me interested in what else this developer will release.
A noir/sci-fi/point-and-click game hits so many of my favorite genres. Good story, good puzzles, satisfying ending.
This was pretty good. Despite its short length, Lacuna created an intriguing world with a surprising amount of depth and crafted a good detective noir story that allowed you to make decisions that altered the outcome of it. The art and music are also pretty good and help the setting feel much more authentic. I'd say it's worth checking out if you can catch it on a sale.
Youtube videogame reviewer voice It actually makes you feel like a noir detective
The story got me glued on the screen. It's a investigation game, but nothing too complex or difficult. I strongly recommend this game if you like sci-fi cyberpunk noir (don't smoke)
Lacuna is a short game about being a detective.
The games environment and atmosphere is amazing, and the music is great. The gameplay is solid and so is the story. It's worth the full price.
The games environment and atmosphere is amazing, and the music is great. The gameplay is solid and so is the story. It's worth the full price.
As the only game I have played on stream, this is the best game I have played on stream.
I put this off for a while because I forgot: I love point and clicks, especially mystery cyberpunk point and clicks.
I say that, but there's always a problem with film noir sci-fi dramas. They're always so brooding and focus on these sad dad cops while rambling on about technobabble concepts. That is still very true with Lacuna, but I think it has enough of a heart that it manages to circumvent a lot of normal problems. The game doesn't care much about technobabble or big sci-fi inventions that can hack the brain. The biggest sci-fi changes that the setting seems to allow is that space travel exists and cancer is eradicated. Its real interest in its sci-fi setting in the political scheming of the future and how those decisions trickle down. And its that focus that gives the game the heart it needs to keep your focus.
As far as sad cop dad Conrad, the game gives you a lot of choices of what kind of cop to be. I specify "cop" instead of "person" because, well, those decisions are limited within the scope of being a cop. The Conrad I played seems to really think the CDI (sci fi FBI) has an "intuition" for morality and that they're all doing their best to do the right thing. Even as scandals emerge, he argues whether or not its something the organization can be blamed when it was "the CDI of the past" that did the scandals. But its especially glaring when the game sets up your partner Gary, who's pretty eager to arrest anyone even tangentially related to a crime and spouts off the occasional insult to the minority groups or poor in the setting. When circumstances offer you the opportunity to screw over Gary's chances of becoming the next Chief, I leaped for it while Conrad moaned about "this job is his life, I can't believe I'm doing this!" It tries to have Conrad argue about morality with a friendly criminal, but its reasoning tends to be kinda vague on actual meaning or substance.
Still, I think the game has the right intentions, even if its struggling to figure out what those intentions are in the wider scheme of things. It's interested in why crime happens and who funds crime and different political agendas and occasionally gets to the point of questioning the institutions Conrad belongs to. Its a solid mystery game and it really gripped its teeth in me for a bunch of hours.
I say that, but there's always a problem with film noir sci-fi dramas. They're always so brooding and focus on these sad dad cops while rambling on about technobabble concepts. That is still very true with Lacuna, but I think it has enough of a heart that it manages to circumvent a lot of normal problems. The game doesn't care much about technobabble or big sci-fi inventions that can hack the brain. The biggest sci-fi changes that the setting seems to allow is that space travel exists and cancer is eradicated. Its real interest in its sci-fi setting in the political scheming of the future and how those decisions trickle down. And its that focus that gives the game the heart it needs to keep your focus.
As far as sad cop dad Conrad, the game gives you a lot of choices of what kind of cop to be. I specify "cop" instead of "person" because, well, those decisions are limited within the scope of being a cop. The Conrad I played seems to really think the CDI (sci fi FBI) has an "intuition" for morality and that they're all doing their best to do the right thing. Even as scandals emerge, he argues whether or not its something the organization can be blamed when it was "the CDI of the past" that did the scandals. But its especially glaring when the game sets up your partner Gary, who's pretty eager to arrest anyone even tangentially related to a crime and spouts off the occasional insult to the minority groups or poor in the setting. When circumstances offer you the opportunity to screw over Gary's chances of becoming the next Chief, I leaped for it while Conrad moaned about "this job is his life, I can't believe I'm doing this!" It tries to have Conrad argue about morality with a friendly criminal, but its reasoning tends to be kinda vague on actual meaning or substance.
Still, I think the game has the right intentions, even if its struggling to figure out what those intentions are in the wider scheme of things. It's interested in why crime happens and who funds crime and different political agendas and occasionally gets to the point of questioning the institutions Conrad belongs to. Its a solid mystery game and it really gripped its teeth in me for a bunch of hours.
I love detective games, and I love a sci-fi, so a sci-fi detective game should've been right up my alley... and it was!
This is an excellent adventure game that skips the usual point 'n click puzzles in favour of the player needing to investigate and interpret clues. There are also several branching decisions that actually present some difficult moral choices. However, the game is short, leaving it feeling too limited in scope to give proper impact to the story it's trying to tell. Still, it's solid stuff.
This is an excellent adventure game that skips the usual point 'n click puzzles in favour of the player needing to investigate and interpret clues. There are also several branching decisions that actually present some difficult moral choices. However, the game is short, leaving it feeling too limited in scope to give proper impact to the story it's trying to tell. Still, it's solid stuff.