Going into Lorn’s Lure, I knew only two facets of the game, I knew that it was a game primarily about climbing, and I knew the setting of the game was set in a jaw dropping megastructure inspired by the manga series: Blame!. On these accounts, Lorn’s Lure made by solo developer Rubeki, more than delivered, it excelled. Lorn’s Lure achieves everything it sets out to do, as well as telling a compelling story and delivering a soft spoken, somber soundtrack that occasionally accompanies you on your journey. 

Scaling Deeper

Climbing games have been becoming their own genre of late, with entries such as Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (and the subgenre it spawned), Jusant, and Cairn While Lorn’s Lure would also fit into this category, it plays more like a parkour game. This was an intentional decision by Rubeki, who practices parkour in real life and wanted to get the feeling of parkour across into Lorn’s Lure. You manage your stamina and resources to gauge whether or not a jump is possible, you try and measure whether or not a certain fall will kill you, and most importantly, you try again when you fail.

The checkpoints are usually very generous, only setting you back a few seconds or a minute at the most. This was done to mirror the feeling of practicing a parkour trick over and over until it is eventually completed. This feels abundantly clear throughout your entire experience playing Lorn’s Lure.

Forbidden Fruit

When you first start a new game, you are greeted with a cutscene which sets the premise of Lorn’s Lure. The unnamed player character lives in a beautiful garden atop a massive structure. Through an internal monologue, the player character describes their desire to leave the garden in the search of deeper understanding. One day a door opens, revealing a disarranged and techno distorted owl beckoning the player character to follow. The character does so, leaving behind everything they know in the pursuit of something more. A quick timeskip shows the player character changed, their hair has gone white and their body turned mechanical. They have been lost for generations after losing the owl, until the owl returns to them. Upon this the game switches from cutscene to gameplay.

Larger Than Life

The first thing you’ll notice when starting a new game is the incredible environment Lorn’s Lure presents as its setting. The game polygonal PS1 inspired graphics to increase the readability of the environment. The entirety of Lorn’s Lure takes place in a single massive structure, referred to as a “Megastructure”. The true scale of which is a constant presence throughout the entire game, making you feel very, very small. It gives every moment traversing, climbing, planning your routes, a deep meaning that is profoundly captivating. The atmosphere isn’t only carried by its scenery however. There is often an unrelenting, natural force to accompany it. Winds howl and push you around. Waters rage and drown you in their current. And an incredible silence broken only by your presence. Soft music plays in certain areas of the game, but Lorn’s Lure is not afraid to let you stir in its atmosphere.

Simulation Failed

The gameplay is initially simple, your only actions being move, jump, and crouch. You jump from ledge to ledge, and use crouch to get under low obstacles. Much of the gameplay is also spent standing still, planning your next route. This is a core part of the game, and though you can press the “H” key to have a waypoint point you in the right direction or follow the owl, you still need to spend much time planning how to get from point A to point B. The route you take may stress what you think possible of your character. It often feels like exploring an out of bounds area in a video game, where you keep testing how far you can go before the game breaks.

This was an intended design of the game by Rubeki of course, who always enjoyed exploring out of bounds in other games and wanted that to be a core feeling in Lorn’s Lure. After a few minutes of navigating and learning how to “surf” on sloped ledges, allowing you to maintain momentum and travel farther distances by moving into the slope and jumping, you find a new movement tool, climbing picks. These allow you to scale certain sheer surfaces indicated by your hud as far as your stamina allows. The game carries on like this, testing your climbing skills with punishing difficulty before finding a new movement tool such as wall jumps and mid air boosts that forces you to adopt a new perspective of what you are capable of. 

The Search for a Better Tomorrow

All of these aspects combine to make a fantastically enjoyable and often introspective experience that I greatly enjoyed. I do not expect everybody to enjoy the game as I did however. I expect because of what the game is that there would be many who find the game boring or daunting. The game was sometimes frustrating as I would struggle to progress as the checkpoint system would put me in off places, though this happened only a couple times. The difficulty alone might turn some away. (I died nearly 500 times throughout my playthrough). There is no combat and despite a couple chase sequences, little force compelling you to keep going except the promise of clarity the player character seeks. If the world does not capture you then this will likely not be a game you enjoy. But if it does, then Lorn’s Lure is a must play.

10/10

Check out Lorn’s Lure on available platforms!

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