Lake Ridden Reviews

I love puzzle adventure games à la Myst and from the trailer this game seemed like the perfect fit for me, but I sadly can't recommend it, for multiple reasons: - Story: I didn't find the story particularly interesting, but I guess that's a matter of opinion. What is more problematic is the way it's written. It doesn't feel like it's been written by a professional writer, which doesn't make us feel engaged in the story and makes the characters difficult to believe, with sentences like: "Today it was the first clear sky for the first time in several months". The story is mostly told through letters that seems to have been ripped from people's diaries and, for some reason, scattered everywhere. A lot of walking simulators do this, but in this case it makes it all feel really fake since you'll often find pages saying something like "I hope this person doesn't know that I hid this object in that box", and the page is placed on the floor, right in front of said box. It feels like the people living in this world are really bad at hiding secrets, but mostly it feels like the people who made the game didn't know how to guide the player around their world in a more subtle way. Another problem is that the game is filled with paper everywhere: on the floors, on desks, in drawers. The letters that you can read are a little different from decorative letters, but not a whole lot, so the game quickly becomes a pixel hunting game in 3d, where you need to look in every drawer (and there are a lot of drawers!) and move your mouse over every piece of paper in case one of them is important. It's even more problematic since some objects are buggy. For example, if you open the top drawer of a cabinet, as you mouse over the content of the drawer your cursor will change, telling you that there is something to click. You'll think it's a letter, only to find that it's actually the hitbox to open the drawer under it... For the dialogues, there is a voice actress, but the problem is that the same person does all the voices. It can sometimes be confusing to know who is talking. To help with that they added subtitles that change color depending on who is talking, which is good, except for the parts where they mix up the colors, although I've only noticed this once. It's also sometimes not clear if the main character is talking to you or if it’s a non-character narrator. Last thing with the story is that it's really bad at making you feel engaged. You start the game looking for your sister, you see her at the other side of a broken bridge, you find a way to get there and she's gone. The rest of the game you are progressing through the world to find her. The problem is that, to try to find your sister, you solve a bunch of puzzles to open doors that you know your sister can't have gone through, since the puzzles weren't solved when you got there. So for the first 5 minutes you feel like you're looking for your sister, but for the rest of the game you feel like you're wasting valuable time on side quests, helping other characters and searching rooms full of drawers to open. - Puzzles: The puzzles are the second most important part of this game, but they're just as bad as the story. The game contains a lot of the puzzles we normally find in students' projets, like the puzzles where a machine plays a pattern and you need to repeat it, or puzzles where you press a button that switches the lights on the buttons around it and you need to find out how to light the whole board. There is even a gear puzzle and a pipe puzzle. Some of those basic puzzles are even there multiple times, like the lightswitch puzzle that is there 9 times, and the repeating pattern puzzle that is there more than 3 times. The other puzzles are a little better, but a big problem with them is that, just like the letters about hidden secrets that are placed right next to the hidden secret, puzzles often have their solution written right next to them. There is no need to search for clues or anything, it's all right there. For example, you have an inventory system, but the game could probably do without it since most of the time you'll add items to your inventory, only to place it straight away on a machine that's right next to where the items were. Speaking of items, there is a lot of trash in this world that you can interact with, and I mean literal trash, like empty cans that you can pick up and examine for some reason. Because of that, it's often difficult to know when there are important items to find between all the trash. Some of the puzzles and charades can also sometimes be interpreted in multiple ways, which is annoying, and some of the solutions don't make much sense. Puzzle games are my favorite type of games and I've played a ton of them, but the puzzles in this one just weren't interesting to me. - Saving system: The game has an autosave feature and no manual save. Normally that's not a problem because most puzzle adventure games save as soon as you change something on a puzzle, or at least as soon as you solve a puzzle or an important part of a puzzle. Lake Ridden saves... when it wants to. Sometimes it doesn't even autosave after solving a big puzzle, like one of the big puzzles that unlock a new section. You'll solve the puzzle, but before it saves you'll need to walk 20 meters towards the next section to reach a point that triggers a save. Another problem is that the loading icon (when it loads a new section) is placed in the same corner as the saving icon. If you look at it directly, you can tell the difference between the two, but if you're looking at the center of the screen and just see something in the corner of the screen you'll have no idea if the game was saved, or if the game is just loading the next room. It becomes a big problem when, after solving a big puzzle, the trigger to load the next section comes before the one to save. One time I spent 15 minutes on a puzzle, started walking towards the next section, saw an icon in the corner, thought the game was saved and closed it. When I loaded back the game I saw that it hadn't saved my progress and that I needed to waste another 15 minutes to solve the puzzle once more, because the icon I saw was actually the loading icon. The trigger to save was another 10 meters after the trigger to load the next section. This is very annoying. I can't count how many times I wanted to exit the game but kept on playing simply because I wasn't sure how far back the game had last autosaved. - Level design: In multiple sections, especially in the first sections of the game, the level design feels like you're walking through a maze. They added a bunch of lights that you can light along your way to help you remember the places you've already visited, which helps, but a game shouldn't require you to light up hundreds of lights just so you can understand where you are going. There are also funny directions given to you by characters, like one time when I'm coming out of a house, in the middle of a forest. It's raining and there is a lot of fog, making it hard to see, and a character tells me "the path is over there, next to the trees". I'm in a forest, of course it's next to the trees! But what trees? From the missions list, it said that I had to get to the lake, so I took the path I knew was going to the lake, but no, that wasn't the right part of the lake. It turns out there was another more hidden path leading to another side of the lake... - Graphics: The game doesn't look like the images on the store page. I’m not sure if they changed something to the style after the game came out or if those images are art renderings of the game, but the real game is very different. The graphics in the game are a lot less contrasted and saturated and there is more fog. It makes it look a little more realistic than in those high contrast images, but it also makes it a lot harder to see what's around you, making it even more difficult to navigate the levels.

This is where I wish a mixed button existed. The game wasn't bad, in fact it was really good. The narrative story telling was really interesting and relaxing to listen to. The visuals are wonderful and the soundtrack is really setting the mood. The only reason this game is getting a not recommended is because of one reason. The amount of back and forth walking between places are super annoying and time consuming. It's like they did it to make the game last for longer. It really wanted to made me quit, but I was so interested in the story I forced myself to continue. If you don't mind walking back and forth alot over long distances more than once, sure you could probably enjoy the game. For me, it was a game killer, since it just felt like filler. If you do decide to get the game, I would say you should try to get it during a sale.

So...okay. The game wasn't bad per say, but can't say it was good either. It was, okay. It started out promising, but it just never really escalated. The puzzles in the beginning were manageable, challenging without ripping your hair out, but the more the game progressed the harder and more confusing the puzzles got. The plot never made sense. At the end of the game I still had no idea what was going on or why the things that happened, happened. I never really felt excited while playing it, I guess I just kept waiting for things to make sense and it never did. Also the controls were super janky. I could only make the mouse go super fast or super slow. At the end I just cheated on the last couple puzzles just to finish it.

Imagine sitting down and someone shows you a abstract picture, they ask you what you see. You say you see a sharp tooth. They then say you were wrong that It's actually an eye. That is this whole game. It can be enjoyable when you see what the devs intended it to be, but really frustrating when it fails to give you that point of view. I will go against recommending it for the full price.

★ — 8/10 Decent puzzle exploration game with a nice narrative and good visual. Nice little story-driven, first-person puzzle exploration game with hidden secrets to uncover. Didn't really know what I was getting myself into but despite the at times somewhat clunky feeling controls, I've quite enjoyed my time with this game. The narrative is nice, the visuals are great except maybe the heavy fog at time, wasn't really a big fan of that, but otherwise, I had fun playing. The puzzles are pretty easy to solve, I just wish there would've been different variations of puzzles for the various music and puzzle boxes. As for the achievements, they're fairly easy to obtain, just keep your eyes open for the puzzle boxes. I've managed to 100% them in one playthrough. [code][h1]Panda Reviews[/h1] Was this review helpful? Feel free to follow [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31777711/]my curator page[/url] for more reviews.[/code]

The game starts slow, picks up a little, does some seemingly grand things, but putters out way too early. I am a big fan of walking sims and puzzle games, especially first-person ones. But this one just didn't do it for me. I got around to near the end but just couldn't go on. I don't even know what exactly is wrong. I think there's not enough stuff to find even though you can explore every nook and cranny. The neighbour toggle puzzles are frustrating and unfun. The big puzzles are mostly cool but rare and over before you get into them. The explorable area is messy. Story is basically impossible to follow and the game just dumps it all on you near the end. Graphics are the one great thing about it. Everything else is just dragging along.

I had reservations about [b]lake ridden[/b] due to its [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/696530/discussions/0/1675812484341533898/]suboptimal save system[/url] discussed on the forum, but it turned out to be tolerable and the overall experience just about recommendable on deep sale. there's a lot to unpack though. the premise is that you, marie, are looking for your sister in what I thought would be an abandoned camp site in a forest. it turned out to be a big abandoned estate on a big lake with a big house and a big garden and a big courtyard. and since we're not talking about food or other stuff benefiting from size, big is one of the issues. the game claims not to be a walking simulator, but [b]there's an awful lot of largely pointless walking, often from one end of the map to the other, then back[/b], while opening drawers containing mostly nothing. you can also light a bunch of candles, lanterns and such because [b]most of the game is dark as fuck[/b]. you'll eventually find a map to ease with navigation, but [b]no fast travel[/b], and so no reason not to sprint everywhere. you'll piece together [b]the story[/b], including other missing people and the former residents of the estate, via [b]journal entries and other documents[/b] scattered around. there's an option to look at them as pure text, been seeing this a lot lately. and while it's a [b]spooky 1st-person adventure where you communicate with ghosts, it's not scary at all[/b]. a couple really mild jump scares in one location and that's it. it's a [b]linear game with bigger open areas to explore[/b], and that's where the [b]inconsistent checkpoint-only saving[/b] becomes a problem. some locations and some events trigger a save, others don't. [b]there's not a single checkpoint in the entire lower garden with all the branching paths[/b], and what's more baffling (and 'explained' by the devs in the forum thread linked above) is [b]solving a regular puzzle usually doesn't have a checkpoint either[/b]. e.g. getting [spoiler]out of the cellar[/spoiler] doesn't trigger a save, even though it involves a semi-new location and a puzzle, then leaving the entire place. no, gotta chit-chat for a while and walk around until you find a checkpoint. lame. speaking of dialog, [b]the choice wheel sometimes has a timer[/b], because of course, except they can be repeated over and over, so why exactly? lines can't be skipped even if listening for a second time, and while most interactions are with the mouse, here you [b]have to press random number keys to pick what you want to say[/b]. really? [b]puzzle variety is another concern.[/b] most regular items will be in a puzzle box opened with simon says (tons of hammers lying about, but when you need a screwdriver, it's hidden really well and also inside a puzzle-locked box), every single gate has a rotary puzzle, and there are [b]9 hidden puzzle boxes[/b], each with a lights out mechanic. basically, [b]they took my least favorite puzzle types and plastered the game with it[/b]. hidden boxes are optional but provide a bit more background info. I missed the first, but that's what [b]chapter selection[/b] is for. and a proper save system that this game lacks, not sure if I mentioned it. there's a bunch of other puzzles, some relatively straightforward, others more obscure, a few even more so, but you should be able to figure them out by re-reading journal entries and looking at the puzzly object again. a list of current goals is also available, as well as a [b]hint system[/b], but I haven't tried it, just peeked at a walkthrough occasionally (and simply looked up all the lights out nonsense, hate it). controls are mostly as they should be in a [b]wasd-controlled[/b] game, right click zooms out and all that, plus everything is rebindable. don't recall jumping being necessary in the entire game, but as I said above, no reason not to sprint all the time. there's even a toggle for it, which [b]doesn't trigger global auto-run, only while you're moving[/b]. so for the current duration you can press the toggle or hold shift, but as soon as you let go and press forward again, have to do the same. complete nonsense. even more annoying is [b]coming out of sprinting the camera always zooms back[/b], would've loved a toggle for that, and an fov slider too. other smaller issues include a puzzle where mouse wheel could've rotated the pieces on top of a hotkey, and I wish the inventory were part of the notes/hints/goals screen. tab would be convenient to bring it all up and choose with the mouse, but I had to go with the second best thing: changed the notes hotkey to tilde (current ones are shown, not defaults, sadly it has to be mentioned even though it should be a given). [b]the presentation is mostly fine.[/b] not much variety in scenery and objects to litter the floor with, plus the almost constant darkness and later fog doesn't help either. then again, a bit of sunshine, candle-lit rooms, and even the lit-up mansion look pretty nice. there are a bunch of graphics settings too, and I could play it without issues by turning some stuff off, didn't even need the supposed minimum of 6 gb ram, nor did I notice an iota of difference. other settings include camera sensitivity and invert, resolutions, windowed mode, vsync, and brightness. separate volume settings are also at hand, but weirdly, I found everything a bit too soft even maxed out. it's always the opposite, can't act fast enough to turn down blaring music and annoying sound effects, if the game even lets me. the protagonist did a decent job playing marie (not while reading puzzle box lore though), can't say the same about the others. let me reiterate: [b]the save system is crap, but it didn't cause me a lot of trouble overall[/b], and I played the game over multiple sessions and several days. after some patches the save and load icons don't look the same anymore (who thought that was a good idea?), but they might not happen at the same time, so make sure to take a few steps after the cog icon shows up and the new location loads to actually see a disk icon and save your progress. once you're on the estate, leaving or entering the house triggers a save every time, along with some other places. it's not unmissable and definitely not something to pay full price for (which is now half of what the original price was), but [b]with the right expectations it's okay if you can catch it on a deep sale[/b]. it'll probably take [b]about 8 hours[/b], a lot more than many other similar games offer, though there's a lot of extra walking here.

Awesome Puzzle Game ... if you like Games like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter etc. than its the perfect Game for you. The atmosphere, the music, the little details ... the complete Game is so beautiful and catched me to play 7 hours straight till the end :D

I'm really enjoying this game so far. There is a lot of reading though which may put some people off but I haven't had any issues with it. The puzzles can be quite difficult to work out however there is a hint system which pretty much tells you how to work them out. The game also seems very well put together with a lot of attention to detail. Highly recommend this so far for this price.

I love puzzle games. Let me rephrase that. I love puzzles games where the puzzles have some kind of logical solution that the developers don't try to hide for the sake of being clever. That's what happened to Lake Ridden. Pros Graphics are very well done Open world feel Several puzzles to solve Well optimized Cons Many of the puzzles are nonsensical Dreary atmosphere Some of the clues are out right lies Repetitive puzzles Very short Too much walking back and forth I knew there was going to be a problem with this game right from the start. Your first puzzle is to find the code to the gate. Well, much easier said than done. The game forces you to make assumptions, which may or may not be right. Let's use the gate code answer. There's a note on the gate reminding the owner to change the code to the year his brother disappeared. In his journal (shocker, a journal) he mentions that it had been 50 years and the journal entry is dated 1985. So the code is 1935, right? Wrong. The developer said that you have to assume he never made it back but you don't find that out until you open the gate and continue on. (GROAN) That was just one example. Unfortunately, it wasn't an isolated incident. Many of the solutions to the puzzles are so convoluted, that they don't make any kind of logical sense. There are some clues that out right lie to you forcing you to look up the answer on YouTube and wonder how in the hell did they get that answer. However, not all of the puzzles are like that. There are a some that are very logical and well thought out but they are in the minority. One of the reasons I bought this game is because most of the preview video shows a wonderful, beautiful world full of color. Don't be fooled. Most of this game takes place in a dark, which transcends into a day time sequence but that's short lived. For the last half of this game, you'll be walking back and fourth through a foggy and rainy night. Very dismal indeed. At the time of this review, Lake Ridden was selling for $19.99. This game had me more frustrated then entertained. I'd stay away from it.