Review for Lake Ridden. PC game, the video game came out on 10/05/2018
With Lake Ridden, available exclusively on PC via the Steam platform, the landscape of independent studios can officially welcome the very young Swedish team Midnight Hub. The studio based in Malmö, driven by a deep passion for nature and biology, has shaped a story-driven first-person adventure, in which a plot that is not very original but built with intelligence and studded with good puzzles will unfold.
The year 1988 is at the end of the summer, and a mystery will lead us to a journey made of discoveries capable of making Marie, a young girl of 13, grow up. We are not on the set or among the pages of Stand By Me but the location, the pristine nature of Maine, and the “girl” protagonist evoke memories of Kinghian memory. Marie's reluctant camping in the company of her sister and friends seems to unfold as expected but, during the second night, something unexpected happens: a classic quarrel between family members leads to the disappearance of Marie's sister. Thus begins a search inside the forests, a bit like what happened in Through the Woods, which will lead Marie to the discovery of a mysterious abandoned estate.
If the early game stages of Lake Ridden will be quite simple, with only one path and a few basic puzzles, as we get closer to the estate, both the areas to explore and the number of puzzles will increase. We are still in the perspective of 6-8 hours of play but some puzzles, although it is possible to receive help by pressing the "H" key, will be quite challenging.
However, it should be noted that, for experienced players of point and click and story-driven adventures, there will be no major difficulties in solving the puzzles and you will be able to appreciate the interesting plot and the good care of the environments. From this point of view, as already noted in other similar titles, the interaction will be reduced to a minimum with the ability to examine and throw objects (useless for gameplay purposes), open doors, drawers and lockers in which, only in rare cases, we will find something really useful. These rare items will be used for solving puzzles and can be selected in the inventory (key “I) as well as documents. The manuscripts, containing details that will enrich the plot or useful information to overcome the puzzles, and the photos we will find will be archived and can be recalled from the appropriate menu at any time.
Beyond the main puzzles, in order to continue with Marie's events there will be some extra puzzles (one per zone) that will allow us to fully complete the objectives (16 in all) inserted by Midnight Hub in Lake Ridden.
Also Lake Ridden, like many other similar titles, was made with the Unity graphics engine. The care taken is evident, especially with regard to the play of light and shadow, but in general the first impact will not make you cry a miracle. However, it is a completely functional and pleasant job, free of blocking bugs. Only on one occasion an unexpected crash forced us to repeat an area already explored and to solve the same puzzles again. In this regard, the automatic save function is only useful in some ways, while not being able to save freely creates a considerable inconvenience, and not only in the event of an unexpected stop of the title.
On the audio side, the work is of a good standard, with a light and pleasant but not unforgettable soundtrack, assisted by minimal effects and excellent dubbing in English, the real strength of the title. In fact, strictly speaking, we will have a convincing and satisfying acting.
Midnight Hub's debut feature is promoted. Lake Ridden does not enter the panorama of story-driven first-person adventures with full marks but carves out its own comfortable space in the midst of the most famous, but still indie titles. The level of the enigmas is interesting, even if in some cases they lack repetitiveness, while the interaction and the variety of objects are one of the defects that have always been found in these productions. The care behind the title is there, both in the texts and in the landscapes, while the brevity and lack of localization in other languages could prevent several players from appreciating the plot. Needless to say, for fans of puzzles and mysteries Lake Ridden will not be disappointing.
► Lake Ridden is an Adventure type game developed and published by Midnight Hub for PC, the video game was released on 10/05/2018
