What is it about puzzle adventure games that compels gamers? What secrets do they hold? For some, it’s the one-of-a-kind experience that brings deep intellectual satisfaction, a strong sense of discovery, and immersive storytelling that feels personal and well earned. Games like Myst or The Talos Principle reward keen observation, logical thinking, and perseverance. Unlike action-packed or fast-paced titles, they encourage a slower, more thoughtful approach at a contemplative pace with utterly surreal or isolated locations. With a baffling title and a visual style that looks straight out of a Grasshopper game, how does Lorelei and the Laser Eyes fare on Nintendo Switch 2?
One of the biggest mysteries in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes isn’t the puzzles. It’s the story, but unlike the puzzles, the answer is nowhere near as interesting as its set-up. The game kicks off with a strikingly cold open, offering almost no context. Lorelei Weiss, a chic and poised woman, arrives at the remote Hotel Letztes Jahr in central Europe after receiving an enigmatic invitation. She’s been called there by the eccentric and temperamental Italian filmmaker Renzo Nero to work on a daring artistic project that blurs the boundaries between reality, memory, and fiction. None of this is clear when the story begins because even the plot details are kept in complete mystery, and players are expected to piece it all together.
Imagine playing the original Resident Evil without any enemies; it features fixed camera angles and around 150 puzzles, many of which can be solved in any order. Wandering through the vast, baroque-style hotel, the story slowly comes to life through scattered documents, old photographs, film reels, and subtle environmental details. Certain years stand out with particular significance, and the overlapping timelines feel as if they’re stacked in a surreal, dreamlike way. The story dives into deep themes like artistic obsession, trauma, guilt, the fragility of memory, and how stories can both reveal and hide the truth. Reality compounds on itself, sometimes even going full meta with games within games.
The puzzles in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes are designed around logic, observation, pattern recognition, and creative thinking over trial-and-error. Its non-linear design lets players approach challenges in different orders, with many solutions randomised each playthrough to foster genuine problem solving. Yes, it’s true. Cheating with a guide online won’t be helpful. Puzzles are woven into the hotel’s setting, documents, and storyline, often involving cross-referencing clues from books, notes, photos, and architectural sketches. One type features math and number-based challenges, but for story-related reasons, the answers usually revolve around a few recurring years connected to the plot.
Some puzzles can be anything from coin distributions and bar graphs with hidden details to mazes focused on minimal turns, cost estimates for structures, area recalculations, and completing sequences or patterns. Some add a twist by rotating perspectives or revealing hidden elements, mixing math with clever visual challenges. The games mentioned are playable on a legally distinct Game Boy, and the hotel even has consoles in dedicated game rooms. The puzzles in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes can be tricky and downright stupefying, blending brain-teasing challenges with surreal artistic flair to deliver a deeply rewarding, if sometimes overwhelming, experience for committed players. It has to be commended for daring to let players loose and not holding their hands at all.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes has a lot going for it. The ambience, visual design, and clever puzzles are outstanding, but it throws in a totally random design choice that just doesn’t make any sense. Some savant at Simogo thought it was clever to make the entire game playable with just one button that changes depending on context. The minimalist approach isn’t inherently bad, but it did come at the expense of having no back or cancel button. This choice makes navigating menus and performing basic actions more drawn-out and tedious than necessary. It completely flies in the face of gamer muscle memory that’s been conditioned over decades, leading to constant minor friction during exploration and puzzle solving.
As great and challenging as these puzzles can be, they can sometimes verge on being overwhelmingly cryptic, offering minimal guidance and relying on tiny environmental details that are easy to miss. Expect periods of aimless wandering, backtracking, and the feeling of hitting a wall. Some sequences practically require heavy note taking or even a calculator, which definitely won’t please the average gamer.
