Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a fascinating puzzle game developed by Sayonara Wild Hearts developers Simogo! Read up on our review to see what makes it great, what it could still improve, and if you should get it for yourself!

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Review Overview

What is Lorelei and the Laser Eyes?

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a third-person puzzle game that features the most intricate and mind-bending puzzles presented in an abstract otherworldly art style. You play as a woman who was invited to a hotel in the middle of Europe, where she’s forced to participate in a Hotel-wide experiment by solving every puzzle and all riddles.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes features:
　⚫︎　 Third-person perspective with fixed camera angles
　⚫︎　 Over a hundred handcrafted puzzles
　⚫︎　 Beautiful art direction
　⚫︎　 Unnerving atmosphere
　⚫︎　 Mysterious narrative
　⚫︎　 A dog you can pet an infinite number of times with various animations

For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes's gameplay and story.

Steam		PlayStation		Switch
Price		$24.99

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Outstanding and Challenging Puzzles Otherworldly Art Style and Atmosphere	Primitive Menu Controls Lack of Visual Accessibility Features

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Overall - 92/100

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is the prime and shining example of how a puzzle game should be executed, where the challenges prove only to be difficult in correlation to the knowledge you have or will gain. Not a single puzzle seems absurd or unfair, and all are meticulously handcrafted to challenge players to think, look at it from a different angle, or have the patience to look elsewhere and come back. The story, the art, and the audio all work in tandem to elevate the experience to deliver an excellent puzzle game that is Lorelei.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Story - 9/10

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a gigantic mystery where bits and pieces of the narrative are scattered across an ever-expansive hotel full of twists, turns, and misleading hallways. The game doesn’t outright tell a story, but shows and exposes it through all the information you collect and all the puzzles you solve. The execution is masterfully done, as everything ends up becoming connected even if the order of events perceived is not.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Gameplay - 9/10

The puzzles residing in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes never once feel unfair. It’s almost always just you either insufficient information, failing to see something from another angle, or being unable to link two and two together. Though the puzzle-solving is great, the game has a problem with its menu traversal, where it’s rather primitive and unintuitive, having no back button and having to fail puzzles just to exit everytime. Nevertheless, Lorelei is still a superb game, where solving one puzzle could take hours of finding the knowledge to crack it, all for the ‘lightbulb light up’ moment to come and provide that satisfaction when everything finally clicks.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Visuals - 9/10

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes completely maximizes its shroud of mystery through its eerie and art style. Almost entirely rendered in grayscale, it presents a neo-noir aesthetic that sets an inquisitive detective tone, only to introduce a striking color of red to accentuate its importance as part of the story and act as a guide for players. However, due to its strict adherence to the art direction, There sometimes come instances where visibility and contrast takes a hit, and surveying the scene (an important gameplay aspec) becomes difficult due to its colors or lack thereof. More visibility features for those vision and color impaired will be appreciated.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Audio - 9/10

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes audio design is a prime example of less if more, utilizing powerful and uncomfortable silence and perfectly spaced out SFX(sound effects) to continually set the ambience of scenes. Having minimal music would often lead to a void of boredom, but Lorelei sprinkles its optional music and pronounced SFX all throughout, leading to an immersive experience as you wrack your head together in solving the next puzzle. Though the overall usage of sound is masterful, the music itself has some left to be desired, only being a handful of phonograph records across the game.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Value for Money - 10/10

A puzzle game that costs $24.99 might be a turn-off to some, but Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is everything a modern puzzle game should strive to be and more. Every puzzle can be solved through enough thinking and discovery, and the earned satisfaction is always guaranteed. The story is the icing on the cake, the art is the neatly folded box, and the audio is what ties and wraps it all together. Every aspect of Lorelei fires on all cylinders, and that’s what makes it worth every bit of money well spent

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Review: The Quintessential Puzzle Game

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is pretty much a masterpiece of a puzzle game, where its enigmatic story, consistently otherworldly art direction, multitude of challenging but fair puzzles, and masterful use of music and SFX all contribute to the greater sum of its parts. Each aspect is magnificent on their own, but together they deliver an enthralling and brain-wracking experience all throughout the game.

From the mysterious introduction in the middle of the woods, to the winding corridors of the mysterious hotel, the game at no point halts in its mysticism that instills this sense of "I need to know, I need to get to the next puzzle" that continually haunts you. ‘Haunts’ is the perfect word to describe the feeling of Lorelei, as you never at any single point feel the unease alleviate (save for when you get to pet the dog).

What also makes Lorelei great is how it’s nowhere near a linear game, and that progression is entirely up to the player how and when they solve which puzzle that opens up another path. There are always several points of interests or leads available to you, never making you feel like you’re trapped and need to find one specific thing or else your progress is locked. From problem to problem, puzzle to puzzle, they’re all self-contained, save only for a special few.

The puzzles you find range from challenging and thought-provoking, to just simple math, but Lorelei seems to always be able to grant a sense of satisfaction after every solved puzzle. It’s like your life continually depends on getting them finally right, and you’re left chasing that sense of high for the rest of your playthrough as you venture the hotel halls. In a way, it’s addicting, knowing how the game treats you with respect but challenges you with the scattered clues and knowledge you require to solve puzzles. You feel ‘safe’ that you won’t get cheated by some absurd method, and so you’ll end up doing your best to figure out the answer.

This respect Lorelei gives players is what should be the norm in puzzle games, and not include the most farfetch’d or outlandish methods or item combinations to proceed. So much thought and care has obviously been put into the creation of Lorelei, and the developers over at Sigomo deserve all the praise for the outstanding work they have done with Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.

Pros of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Things Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Got Right
Outstanding and Challenging Puzzles Otherworldly Art Style and Atmosphere

Outstanding and Challenging Puzzles

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes does a fantastic job of laying out its puzzles, allowing players to solve them through brute force (though it’ll take you quite a bit of time), or appropriately have a second to think and observe how to proceed from the bits of clues you’re given. Most puzzles in Lorelei are accompanied with nearby clues on how to solve them, and said clues range from simple arithmetic operations, or will require lateral thinking, obscure perspective shifts, and knowledge of Roman Numerals and Astrological signs. What’s great is how all said miscellaneous information such as Roman Numerals or the Greek Alphabet are all provided within the game through books you find. The game doesn’t handhold you through the problems, but gives you ALL necessary information either directly through found textbooks, or through riddles you find.

From this, it truly feels like every puzzle can be solved one way or another, and it’s only up to the player to eventually achieve that eureka moment and solve them, granting them the satisfaction of success. Every single puzzle completed in Lorelei gives this sense of victory and achievement, seeing as you definitely worked hard to think about the solution, or found the information later elsewhere and made you excited to go back to what stumped you before.

Lorelei’s puzzles are what modern puzzle games should strive to be, where it instills unto players a sense of perseverance of critical thinking or searching for more information.

Otherworldly Art Style and Atmosphere

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes has an outstanding otherworldly art and atmosphere that nails its objective in delivering a mysterious and eerie environment for the story and game at hand. A mystery thriller set in the third person with fixed camera angles just screams classic horror games such as the cult hits of Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Taking the puzzle elements of the early titles of both franchises and upping it to the max with your own unique take on neo-noir aesthetics is a formula made in heaven.

The fixed camera angles give off this sense of being watched all throughout the hotel as you venture through your tasks, and the trippy grayscale and stuttering VFX(visual effects) all further add to the unease. Then, Lorelei uses the color red as its main motif throughout the establishment, sprinkling it wherever it might cause curiosity or discomfort.

The use of red is masterful, as it also acts as a guide for the players. Certain riddles or clues have red underline markings in them, denoting that the specific marked phrase is the important clue. This gives the players a sense of friendship with color. However, as we move further along the story, the players are reminded that red is also the color of blood, with numerous bloodstained markings, smudges, and footprints scattered all across the hotel. Then, there are other numerous objects that are given the color red to provide further confusion and or significance to the mystery and plot.

Lorelei’s use of its art is a master artist at work, guiding the players along on a journey not knowing what they’ll feel or find.

Cons of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Things Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Can Improve
Primitive Menu Controls Lack of Visual Accessibility Features

Primitive Menu Controls

With all the outstanding positives Lorelei and the Laser Eyes have, a glaring issue that’s present all throughout will be the navigation of its menus. The most particular problem is how there is no back button mapped at all, and having to go back a menu or exit completely will require players to manually scroll and select the ‘back’ or any ‘quit’ button in the menus usually located at the top-most or bottom-most parts. This is a very unintuitive and tedious process that will have to be done countless times across the game’s playtime, where all the knowledge and information you gather will have to be traversed through your photographic memory menu.

Not only that, all puzzles are also devoid of exit or back buttons, requiring players to fail first in order to exit. This is specially annoying as you might continually mislick selecting to solve the puzzle and have to fail it JUST to exit. If you’re an impatient gamer, you might also spam the action button and once more accidentally select the puzzle, starting the process all over again.

One could reason that this is a purposeful design choice to further immerse players with the early 2000s feel that Silent Hill and Resident Evil had, but this causes more harm than immersion as it’s such a prevalent issue that players will have no choice but to get used to.

Speaking of purposeful design choices that players have no choice but to get used to…

Lack of Visual Accessibility Features

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, for all of its exceptional art and aesthetic direction, unfortunately falls into the same trap of prioritizing artistic vision over visual accessibility. Though its examples aren’t egregious to the point of becoming unplayable, there are numerous points wherein the color visibility due to grayscale color scheme becomes very straining for the eyes to investigate the scene, or even just traverse. This is also a problem when playing on the Switch in handheld mode, as the smaller screen squishes the little details even more.

What could alleviate these would’ve been a ‘Better-Contrast’ mode to further separate the different shades of black, and also perhaps a color-blindness mode for those who unfortunately have difficulty seeing the color red.

Is Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Worth It?

Get the Game, Stay Laser Focused, and Keep Your Eyes Peeled!

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a definite must buy, even for a puzzle game that costs $24.99. It has everything a fan of the genre should enjoy, with challengingly fair puzzles and an overarching mystery narrative, accompanied with amazing visuals and masterful use of audio. There is so much information to learn, so many hallways to traverse, so many puzzles to crack, and an unlimited number of chances to pet the dog.

Lorelei will have you spending hours and hours roaming around the halls of the hotel in search for more clues or where to go next, and not once will make you bored, as it’s entirely non-linear with its progression, having multiple avenues for players to proceed with the story and uncover the game’s secrets. You will never feel stuck, and instead will have this drive to keep on moving forward to crack the next puzzle.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes FAQ

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes How To Get Into the Hotel

The hint to get into the hotel is delivered to you through a letter by the dog, where you are told "Find the year," hinting that the code to the lock into the gatehouse is the year. Open up the letter you inspected from the car or in your photographic memory menu and you will discover that the letter highlights "next year" and is dated on 1962. Thus, the code to the gate is 1963.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes How to Solve Document Tubes

All the answers to the document tubes are found in the architectural plans, within the diagrams themselves. You will either have to turn the plans sideways or upside down, perform some arithmetic, or manually count and match shapes accordingly. Solving all will give you access to the hotel’s entire floor plans through your photographic memory.

What are Lorelei and the Laser Eyes‘s System Requirements

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Clark Jason Kong

Growing up playing all sorts of games, they love playing a little bit of everything, all of the time. Favorites include Counter-Strike, Life is Strange, Final Fantasy, Spiritfarer, and Devil May Cry.