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Lucidity: Dreaming of a New Kind of Game

If you haven’t at least tried the demo of the Xbox LIVE Arcade game Lucidityyet, I urge you to head to the Marketplace and grab the free trial version. It’s from LucasArts, a company renowned for its Star Wars games, and it was developed by the team that recreated a classic with Monkey Island: SE , but Lucidity is a wholly original game.

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And I do mean original. The art and animation style feels like a children’s book come to life, with beautiful graphics that are two-dimensional but smoothly animated. Like the award-winning Braid, part of the incentive to get to the next level is just to see what it’s going to look like.

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But don’t let the art style fool you into thinking Lucidity is a kid’s game. While the content is totally appropriate for the younger gamers in the house, Lucidity can put the skills of even experienced gamers to the test. It’s an action/puzzle game with a difference: You don’t control Sofi, the main character. Rather, you guide her safely past dangerous creatures and traps by placing various objects, such as stairs and springs, in her path. The gameplay is really simple—place the current object, or swap it with the one in the “hold slot.” But coming up with the best spot to place an object in order for Sofi to collect all the fireflies in a level requires some real puzzle-solving skills.

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The designers did a great job here creating gameplay that appeals to both casual and hardcore gamers. Younger or exploratory gamers can just try to get Sofi safely through each level. Hardcore gamers and Gamerscore collectors, on the other hand, will want to collect all of the fireflies in each level. And doing that can take some creative combinations of game objects. Give it a try—you don’t want to miss one of the most creative and innovative games released this year.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 15, 2009
    a new kinda mario from Lucas arts? looks really intresting

  • Anonymous
    December 28, 2009
    This really is a good example of emergent gameplay. I actually thought the game would be rediculously easy and it surprised me by how quickly I had to react and how creative I had to get. I would say give this game a bit of time to grow on you for the general gamer, and that once it does the game really is a charming experience.