If you’re a sicko for challenging puzzle games with a striking art style and a dreamlike setting, you’ll like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Players just got a new opportunity to play it too, as The Game Awards-nominated title is set to launch on PlayStation.
Publisher Annapurna Interactive announced Tuesday that the game will be releasing on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 on December 3, so you’ll only have to wait a couple of weeks to play it. It’s already available on Steam and Nintendo Switch.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes comes from Sayonara Wild Hearts developer Simogo, and is just as visually distinct as its predecessor. What makes it a standout in a sea of excellent indie games this year though is its intricate and unyielding puzzle gameplay, many of which require you to pull out some paper and scribble down notes as you work toward the center of a creepy hotel. No wonder it was nominated for Best Independent Game at The Game Awards in 2024.
However, The Game Awards often snubs smaller titles. The Indie Game Award nominations were announced Tuesday, and Lorelei picked up two nominations: for Game of the Year and for Innovation. We expect it to show up at more awards shows as the season commences.
Digital Trends’ Giovanni Colantonio said it was the “best video game [he’s] ever reviewed” in his review earlier this year. “Simogo’s cryptic adventure doesn’t just challenge players with intricately designed puzzles that are a devious delight to solve. It draws a parallel between the ways we deconstruct both fiction and reality, imposing our perspective onto both to try to make sense of that which we don’t understand. It’s a landmark work of interactive fiction that invites players to get lost in its labyrinth,” he wrote.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?