Lake Ridden is an old-school puzzler done right
Gareth writes: "The narrative and atmosphere are both great from start to finish and it's easy to pick up and play. The puzzle elements are excellent and for conundrum fans out there, this delivers a bit of a treat. It can get tricky mind, so you’ll want to be aware of that, and there are definitely a few odd issues that crop up - the ease of getting lost, and lack of mission signposting, both worry."
Neil writes: "It promises not to be a horror experience, nor a standard walking sim. But when a bunch of ex-Minecraft and Paradox devs come together, the end result should be something special. The question is, dare you visit Lake Ridden on Xbox One?"
“The budget just doesn’t add up,” say former Minecraft devs. Lake Ridden studio Midnight Hub has shuttered, laying off its entire team. The studio announced the news on Twitter this evening, just days after a tweet welcoming back the team from vacation.
Sad for all five developers. Howewer thit is why marketing is super-important. Lake Ridden is just not a game you can do great marketing for.
They still had publicity:
"We made a 96% positive rated game, got featured 5 days on Steam front page on top selling, had massive stream coverage, exhibited at 4 conferences, worked with 2 PR firms,” they said, “but it didn’t help.”
I never heard of it either, but after watching a review I'm glad I didn't. What's the point of a game like this? There are so many puzzle walking games and the genre is stale, this adds no new mechanic to freshen up the genre.
I mean how much did they think this would sell? They should have a better feel for the pulse of gaming to realize there are so few people this game appeals to. If they wanted to make money they need a hook. The original creepy, but no real danger, puzzle, story walking sim games had a hook as that was new, it wasn't a fps shooter.
The hook might have been an entirely new game mechanic built under the guise of a walking game. Such as after the initial guise of lulling you to sleep thinking it's a puzzler, you realize I don't have to figure out the puzzle, I can craft a digging tool out of lose materials and dig out the damn puzzle and dig a tunnel out of the room. Or you find a npc that you think is generic but find out you can stick the digging tool to his neck and threaten him if he doesn't give you the keys. The npc could then tangent off to a professional actor giving a pleading speech to save his life and keep his kids with a father.
That would be a hook.
How about a Walking Simulator that is also a Battle Royale, where you see 60 other players walking around being creeped out, until one-by-one players leave as they get bored.
