Lacuna is unexpected…deceptive even. It looks like a simple, side-scrolling, sci-fi, crime-noir adventure game using retro-styled art. In a lot of ways, that is exactly what it is. But, there is more that lurks beneath that surface. Subtle things that are not readily apparent.
I was initially a bit put-off by the side-scrolling, 2D interface to the game and thought that it would make a mystery game a bit too easy, or maybe just flat. But, even though the game is presented in a two-dimensional way, it is far from flat.
First off, there is a very rich and detailed lore that goes into the worlds of Lacuna. There is a history that weaves a tale of political intrigue and strife. These things are important to the story you find yourself involved with solving. They aren’t just background fluff, there to make you read a bunch of extra stuff to shove the setting down your throat. It is all relevant to your game in some way or other.
In Lacuna, you play as Neil Conrad, a detective for the CDI. You will start the game by investigating the high-profile assassination of a political representative of one of the major factions in the solar system. The death sparks long-standing political arguments, each side claiming that the other could benefit from his death.
One interesting thing about the way that Lacuna works is that there is no save-scumming. In other words, the game saves your progress automatically as you go, and there is no way of manually saving or reloading from a checkpoint. Once you make a decision, you’re stuck with it. And there are a lot of them.
All along the way, you will be forced to make decisions about how to handle certain parts of the investigation, and many of the choices have no obvious “right” answer. Depending on which path you follow, you may uncover new leads, or find yourself having to make some leaps in judgment when moving forward.
The game has another interesting mechanic built in to solving the different parts of the investigation. You will be given a “sheet” on a specific element of the investigation and it will read like a multiple-choice quiz. You will have to fill in the blanks with the correct answers in each of the parts. Sometimes there is only one, but sometimes there are multiple aspects of a sheet and you have to try and get them all correct, otherwise you’ll end up sending the investigation in the wrong direction.
Again, there is no way to try out a certain answer and then go back and try it again. Once you complete a sheet, that’s it, you’re stuck with your answers, right or wrong. I really love this aspect of the game. So many similar games allow you to backtrack and play it “right”, which kind of takes away from the immersion. In this game, you know that each decision has weight. Another thing that is cool is that being “wrong” doesn’t necessarily mean “game over”. I can imagine that this also lends itself to people playing through the game multiple times just to see how it might have played out differently if they’d made different choices.
Another aspect of the game that I appreciated was the atmosphere. While it is a 2D side-scroller, they still managed to make it feel three-dimensional with highly detailed backgrounds and even things passing in the foreground in front of your character, as well, making the world feel vibrant, full, and alive. Also, while the graphics are retro-styled, there is a very detailed lighting system, where as you pass through various areas, your character will be illuminated in different ways, and from different angles by streetlights, neon, the glow of a cigarette burning, etc. I thought this was such a nice touch and something that really made the game feel more rich and alive. As well, the sounds were very immersive, with the music and background sounds changing dynamically to fit the environment. There is also some voice-over narration for the protagonist, which is done in a very noir-esque tone and fits the game’s feel very well.
One of the things that I always hated about the old-school point-and-click adventure games was having to go around and pixel-hunt your way to solving the mysteries, just randomly clicking on everything you could find in hopes of finding the right clue. Well, in Lacuna, you don’t have to worry about that. Instead, you have a kind of 2D version of Witcher-senses. On the Switch, you press the Y button and a bubble will appear around your character, which represents you investigating the area. If there is anything like a clue nearby, it will be highlighted with a kind of reticle that you can then select and investigate the clue in detail.
Ultimately, I thought Lacuna was a really well-done game. While the story is reported to take the average player somewhere between five to seven hours to complete, it does, as mentioned before, lend itself to be played multiple times in order to discover all of the eight possible endings depending on the choices that you make along the way.
Lacuna is for anyone who digs a good story, some sci-fi noir aesthetics, a good mystery, and a game that encourages you to have to make some tough calls, ethically, morally, and professionally.
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