Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: game review, Light Tracer, Oasis Games, PSVR, Steam, Void Dimensions

Light Tracer Review: A Pretty, Kid-Friendly VR Puzzle Platformer

Published Tue, 20 Mar 2018 13:45:30 -0500

Void Dimensions and Oasis Games' Light Tracer is a pretty adorable VR game puzzle solver. At its core, Light Tracer is nothing more than a 3D puzzle game in VR. Like Moss, you view the game from the outside, rather than being directly in control of the character. Its a relatively short game, with only eight total puzzles. But each puzzle will take you a decent amount of time, depending on your puzzling abilities. So if you're looking for a short, cute VR experience, well, you're in the right place.

That said, sometimes those puzzles get a bit grueling, and there is very little in the way of a tutorial or any kind of hand holding from the game itself, which makes it a glorious challenge. Because of your outside view, the game does occasionally make your life harder. You've often got to control two things at once on different levels of the map, and if you screw up, you've just doomed a poor princess to an untimely death by falling from a great height.

As with any good platformer, the puzzles scale in difficulty as you go on.

The game controls are pretty easy to grasp and the mechanics should be familiar to anyone who has played a platformer before. Its a lot of obstacles to negotiate, jumps to make, and treacherous falls to avoid. Yes, you can absolutely run right the hell off the tower and kill the princess.

In terms of story, there really isn't much of one. You control a spunky princess scaling a massive tower of traps to get up to the top. Sure, you get to interact with her a bit, but ultimately she is a blank slate of a character.

Which is kind of glorious, because as you sit there frustrated as hell by the late-game puzzles, you have something to think about. Who is she? Why does she want to get to the top of the tower? Where in the hell is this tower, because mostly you just see roads in the sky spiraling upward? What's even at the top of this tower? Is there a tower? Is this whole game nothing more than a drug-induced nightmare? Why have I done this to myself?

But at least it has a great soundtrack?

All told, Light Tracer is a fun game, and a glorious way to amuse yourself for a night or two. There's a decent bit of replay value thanks to the fact that most puzzles can be solved in a few different ways. They're also just, well, fun. Light Tracer is not a game that asks many serious questions, it isn't designed to emotionally torment you. It isn't a complete and utter artistic revelation. It is a simple game that set out to be an entertaining way to solve puzzles, and that's just what you get — which makes it all the more satisfying, because the dev team at Oasis Games set out to make a good game, and they managed it well.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!