I’m still bumbling, tumbling and blundering through the cavernous labyrinths of first-person spelunking sim Lorn’s Lure, in which you are an android exploring a series of enormous machines and sunken artificial habitats. I hope one day to level up from “bumbling, tumbling and blundering” to “running and jumping”. Perhaps I’ll even get as far as “speedrunning”. But in the likely event that I plateau at “blundering”, it’s a relief to know that developer Rubeki Games has updated the game with an Explore Mode that makes certain sections dramatically easier.
Explore Mode “aims to smooth out very difficult spots for players that were expecting an atmospheric exploration game throughout”. I have to confess, I wasn’t expecting quite this much death myself – Lorn’s Lure looks like a footloose open world gadabout in trailers, but in practice, there are quite specific ways of navigating its levels, and falling too fast kills you instantly. So it’s nice that Rubeki has thrown in a few lifelines for butter-fingered parkourbots. The game is still plenty hard even with the aids – you’ll need to keep your eyes peeled for the tiniest of ledges. The reward for doing so is that you get to explore a world that feels like cyberpunk Gormenghast.
Explore Mode is activated by ticking a box in the settings – Rubeki cautions that you shouldn’t try to resume a chapter after turning Explore Mode off, as it may screw up your progress. Here’s what it changes according to the Steam announcement post, with spoiler tags:
– No more chases (Chapter 3, Chapter 8)
– More platforms in Chapter 5 intro descent
– Chapter 6 wind tower has more platforms to help with some of the difficult wind sliding parts.
The highlight is Chapter 8, since it’s basically completely different, and even has a different ending so that it makes sense lore-wise!
Rubeki adds that they’re “open to expanding on this mode, so if you have other places that could use smoothing, just let me know.”
I called Lorn’s Lure the “anti-yellow paint game” in a recent journomusing, commenting that it’s been a while that I’ve played something that obliges me to pay such careful attention to the textures. There’s still a demo on Steam if you’re hovering on the edge of a purchase. Best not hover on the edge of things for too long in Lorn’s Lure.