This review contains spoilers
Another banger covemount-like. At the time of writing there's 17 more of these waiting for us to play. Watching my best friend playthrough this series continues to be an absolute treat
First this game makes you appreciate the unique properties and geometry of these sprawling multiblocks. I would sum up many levels in this game with the phrase "You must assemble the contraption." (where the contraption is a multi-structure that allows you to accomplish specific pushing goals.) There's one level that makes you disassemble the contraption instead, and it feels a lot like unpicking a lock.
So that's all well & good... I was not ready for the twist {even though that's like the entire modus operandi of the series}. It turns out this game takes contraption assembly a step further, and tells you to design your own parts.
In the three previous games, the big twist felt like an elegant reveal that the game was building up too. Here it has a bit of a different texture, it's less elegant- more jarring and out-of-left-field. Yet that doesn't stop it from being a fascinating central gimmick quickly explored over the next ~hour.
Drawing pieces invites the player to fall into a prototype-iterate cycle, a core loop that's normally reserved for a vastly different style of puzzle (engineering) games. Lorgeban never lets you forget that there will be sokoban involved- the constraints of not being able to draw over existing elements and accounting for covemonty's position on the screen consistently keep the game rooted in the type of puzzle it starts out as. {the possibility space has been cracked open with a sledgehammer though...there's something terrifying about getting to the first level that allows 2 draws}
There's a few lategame levels that focus on drawing a valid path that creates enough objects. I personally think these are the weakest portion of the game, although I still think they justify their inclusion as puzzles.
The final level is trivially solvable, i suppose the point is to teach you that you could draw the whole time- even on levels before the cursor counter is introduced. That's a reasonable and amusing note to end on- although we actually didn't realize this fact until we looked at the itch io comments and connected some dots.
First this game makes you appreciate the unique properties and geometry of these sprawling multiblocks. I would sum up many levels in this game with the phrase "You must assemble the contraption." (where the contraption is a multi-structure that allows you to accomplish specific pushing goals.) There's one level that makes you disassemble the contraption instead, and it feels a lot like unpicking a lock.
So that's all well & good... I was not ready for the twist {even though that's like the entire modus operandi of the series}. It turns out this game takes contraption assembly a step further, and tells you to design your own parts.
In the three previous games, the big twist felt like an elegant reveal that the game was building up too. Here it has a bit of a different texture, it's less elegant- more jarring and out-of-left-field. Yet that doesn't stop it from being a fascinating central gimmick quickly explored over the next ~hour.
Drawing pieces invites the player to fall into a prototype-iterate cycle, a core loop that's normally reserved for a vastly different style of puzzle (engineering) games. Lorgeban never lets you forget that there will be sokoban involved- the constraints of not being able to draw over existing elements and accounting for covemonty's position on the screen consistently keep the game rooted in the type of puzzle it starts out as. {the possibility space has been cracked open with a sledgehammer though...there's something terrifying about getting to the first level that allows 2 draws}
There's a few lategame levels that focus on drawing a valid path that creates enough objects. I personally think these are the weakest portion of the game, although I still think they justify their inclusion as puzzles.
The final level is trivially solvable, i suppose the point is to teach you that you could draw the whole time- even on levels before the cursor counter is introduced. That's a reasonable and amusing note to end on- although we actually didn't realize this fact until we looked at the itch io comments and connected some dots.