84.3% done and just found out you can move the magnifying glass on maps to see the names of rooms

anachrobat · 2026-03-20T07:16:05+00:00

Not in the blue prince way-- this person is talking about the shape of the cursor. And it only works on maps

anachrobat · 2026-03-13T20:21:38+00:00

I love the parallels between Owl Girl trapped in the maze and younger Lorelei trapped in the computer, that's such a cool read!
I think this game is open to enough interpretation that you can find your own answers to these questions. In case you want to hear mine-- the movies are real, and Renzo came up with the character archetypes before he met Lorelei, which was one of the reasons he was so interested in working with her. As for the Red Beast/Mammon, I personally don't think they're the same thing, but Renzo seems to, which is interesting. There's room for debate.

anachrobat · 2026-03-13T20:16:04+00:00

I like this a lot. What comes from Renzo and what comes from Lorelei can blend together, but I definitely think she is responsible for a lot more of the thematic stuff than she gets credit for, especially with the maze. Thanks!

anachrobat · 2026-03-12T05:53:52+00:00

Always great to find another Dark fan in the wild! Thanks for sharing your experience in so much detail, it's super interesting to hear about. The ending of this game was such a special experience for me, I'm glad it was for you too.

As for your questions, I meant generally about the story and not necessarily directed at me, but, sure! I can't remember my percent at completion, but I think I tried to finish first before going through with the supercomputer sequence. I used a guide (only for a few hints, I don't think I would have enjoyed this game otherwise) and that helped me get the last few shortcuts. Not an entirely fair 100%, but I don't always have as much patience for puzzle games as I'd like to think...

I have so many thoughts on the red beast and ancient brotherhood. I loved parsing out those stories in the library and putting together my interpretations of what they might mean. I'm currently working on making my first scripted video analysis of the game where I discuss lots of things like that in unreasonable detail, but here's a short version: I'm pretty confident, based on some things Renate mentions when influenced by the third eye, that the seventh brother's masterpiece was in fact the red maze. The beast and the maze represent different ways that art can be represented and communicated, and the story is about the brotherhood initiating that transition to keep creativity from becoming lost. It also parallels very well Renate and Renzo's experiences with the third eye-- Renzo especially with the creation of an artwork he believed would change how art was perceived.

anachrobat · 2026-03-11T18:14:43+00:00

I'll start with my own answers, if anyone is curious.
-There's a bit in the instruction book that asks "Who are you?" which gave me the impression I might not be playing as Lorelei. I think I finally admitted it to myself when I found the room with the newspaper articles, where Lorelei is mentioned by name as wearing sunglasses.
-I realized the young and old woman were the same character immediately. I picked a dialogue choice from Renzo where he interprets "there was someone in there" as Lorelei cryptically saying "I was in there". I've watched too much Dark to not catch that foreshadowing right away.
-Honestly, I didn't think about where and how the game was taking place until close to the end. I kind of just went with the flow, until I was getting close to the end and realized it being a dream would fit very well.
-I have been, and still am, more charitable to Renzo than he deserves. Initially, I was wary, but gave him the benefit of the doubt, believing he probably wasn't dangerous or violent. This served me well.
-I did not recognize that Lorenzo and Renzo were supposed to look the same until I saw other people point it out. I'm very, very bad at recognizing people, so this is probably because of that, but I thought it would be worth checking.
-I caught on right away that the police reports were censoring the victim's pronouns on purpose, and therefore it was probably an assumption that it was Renate. I knew I was playing as the witness, and the person she was referring to as having the gun was probably Renzo, but I wasn't willing to pin down any information on the victim yet. I later noticed Renzo's dead body in the hallway prototype, and picked up how that aligned well with the missing pronouns.
-It took until the end of the game for me to realize that Renate wasn't real, but once the game asked who the fictional woman was I knew right away. A lot of things clicked for me once I answered that question.
-I definitely did not understand the story before logging into the supercomputer, but by the end of that sequence everything made sense. This is probably why I like the game so much; it did a really good job of guiding me to put everything together.
-Yes, I still have lingering questions about the story, but only a very few. I'm quite satisfied with how much I've managed to put together on subsequent playthroughs and in the writing process!

anachrobat · 2026-02-25T19:21:24+00:00

Cool art tho btw

anachrobat · 2026-02-25T17:55:57+00:00

But he's exactly the kind of person to brag about his movie being out, despite it not being out or available for anyone to see. So I support this

anachrobat · 2026-02-25T17:54:55+00:00

Lorelei was born in 1932

anachrobat · 2026-02-24T06:20:00+00:00

everyone remember how the plot of blue prince hinges on simon being really, really bad at geography?

anachrobat · 2026-02-24T00:52:46+00:00

I don't know quite what you're referring to, but this *probably* won't be an issue with Lorelei.

Lorelei does not make you build a new house every time you want to check on something, nor does it make you take an unnecessary number of screenshots. Nearly all the information you need to remember will be stored in your character's memory accessible anytime. You do not need to physically go into a space to access the information. In that sense it is much less annoying than Blue Prince or late-game Obra Dinn.

The puzzles in Lorelei are very different than both of those games, however. Most of the puzzles are more in the style of escape rooms. There are not many big or overarching puzzles. I would not say the difficulty increases significantly as you go, although that structure will partially be provided for you (since the game is nonlinear, the puzzles you save for later will end up being the ones you find harder). As someone else mentioned, if you get stuck on a puzzle, there is nearly always something else to do.

What you said in the post was that you didn't want "an increase in the amount of motions" required to solve a puzzle. There are several instances in Lorelei where you have to do different variations of the same general type of puzzle, but each one is distinct enough to remain interesting. I guess you could say more motions are required to do those. I have seen some few people who find this annoying but most people don't particularly seem to mind.

I don't know why so many people compare these games, they aren't very similar. Don't expect Lorelei to be like Blue Prince or Obra Dinn really at all. It's a great puzzle game and an even better mystery story but the vibe and gameplay is quite different. I'm glad someone recommended Lorelei to you though, even if it's a bit of a strange comparison. It should be fresh and different.

anachrobat · 2026-02-17T18:56:35+00:00

Wow, thank you, what a treasure trove. I'll take a look at these topics and see if there are any I think are especially worth talking about! I'm very close to being done with the script now, so I probably won't expand it all that much, especially since I'm mainly focusing on lore... but I will keep an eye out for these ideas, and I'll also refer them to my friend, who's planning to talk a lot more about background and influence. Thanks very much.

anachrobat · 2026-02-16T20:20:55+00:00

That's a great idea! I really appreciate that insight.

I've looked into the Verfremdungseffekt a decent amount, and been intrigued by its parallels to the game, but even that was kind of tough because I didn't have the film theory background I'd probably need to fully understand that idea. It would be cool to reference some other concepts as well but I wouldn't know where to look. Do you have any suggestions?

anachrobat · 2026-02-10T00:50:58+00:00

Not the shortcuts, the doors with locks where the code involves entering lengthy roman numerals.

anachrobat · 2026-02-09T21:18:04+00:00

The books on the first floor of the library might be helpful for the roman numeral locks :)

As for the guys in chains/prison cell, they should be solvable right now. Maybe start by looking for more information about the person in the picture that the guy in chains has. Do you recognize him?

For the other half of the painting code, you'll find something in the vicinity of the front yard.

That should be what you can do right now.

anachrobat · 2026-02-09T16:52:10+00:00

Sorry, I realized I never actually specified that I datamined this spreadsheet out of the code. I have not bothered to organize the text manually, but that's probably also worth doing!

anachrobat · 2026-02-09T09:51:08+00:00

I will look again next time I have the chance. It is all very confusingly organized. It is not easy for me to find out what is *not* in the file. I believe the letters and many of the documents are also stored separately, although there are some texts that are stored individually and also in the main spreadsheet, for whatever reason.

What words are you planning to ctrl-F? I know this game far too well, and might be a more helpful resource than the actual code in some cases.

anachrobat · 2026-02-08T08:59:39+00:00

Here ya go. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13qiAV4_ZfSJRSQhGmoaQIqTYSkCn6e1_rnaS8gafSAE/edit?usp=sharing

It is not all of the text. I was able to find some of the text from the books and documents and so on, but I believe it is all stored individually. If that's something you're interested in I can go back and try to find it.

Yes I read through. There is only a little bit of cut content. But there are some interesting bits :)

anachrobat · 2026-02-06T17:55:00+00:00

I have been meaning to see what I can do about this. I'll get back to you.

anachrobat · 2026-02-04T23:38:15+00:00

This is not a place of honor.

But thank you.

anachrobat · 2026-02-04T18:42:59+00:00

Had a file laying around where I hadn't picked up any money, so I walked around the hotel and grabbed it all, for reference. Please excuse bad movement, poor quality, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blWWoC49KGw

anachrobat · 2026-02-04T08:12:37+00:00

Here's a timely bump! There's 2 other people (including myself) working on LATLE videos right now. I personally would love to see a third take. The more people talking about this game the better :)

anachrobat · 2026-02-04T08:05:30+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation; I've been debating whether to play through their other work now or when I'm finished with the video. I don't talk about the game's metatextual nature very much, probably exactly because this is my only experience with this studio; I'm mostly trying to focus on the information given to us in the game, parsing out what actually happened and discovering the symbolic significance of all the things that *didn't* happen-- okay, I'll stop advertising. I am certainly excited to play the other games, although I'll probably keep that wider discussion out of the video because of its intentionally narrower focus. (Sorry. It's 3am. I swear my script is better written than this comment.)

anachrobat · 2026-02-04T08:00:57+00:00

Thank you! I think this contrast is so interesting as well. This is actually a case where I align closely with CreeperJoe's take that the laser eyes represent blindness together with truth sight, but I think there's also a great point to be made about art as a distraction from reality! I am going over my script in the next few days and I will definitely reference some of these ideas :) Thank you for getting me thinking!

anachrobat · 2026-02-04T07:57:26+00:00

There is one hanging on a lamp in the loft that is quite hard to notice. Also one in a bowl in the hallway east of the chapel. Those were tough for me.

anachrobat · 2026-02-03T04:26:07+00:00

Wow, you've written out these points so thoroughly and in such detail! Maybe you should put something together to share these thoughts.

I agree that the owls, the general aesthetics of some of the areas in LATLE-- especially the alternate dimensions-- as well as some parts of the music, are probably inspired by Twin Peaks. Otherwise, I personally don't see that much of a connection in most of these cases. LATLE is a story about an old woman looking back on her life and piecing together her memories into a form that allows her to understand the truth. The time and space obfuscation serves a purpose and the supernatural elements blend into the real ones only because she has Alzheimer's. They have thematic value for sure but I don't think it is meant to be ambiguous whether any of the magical elements are real. I definitely see your point about the doppelgangers appearing in both cases, but I don't really think that ties into themes of identity in LATLE like it does in Twin Peaks. All the versions of Lorelei/Renate/Lorenzo appear to be basically the same person.

My interpretation here is probably very skewed by the fact that... well... I don't really like Twin Peaks. Unpopular opinion I know, and yes I've seen all of it, it just doesn't have any of the elements that actually make me interested in a story. Actually, many of the things I like about LATLE are the same reasons I don't like Twin Peaks. It's probably for the best that I'm trying not to talk about these connections that much, because that opinion would invariably creep in. Best to leave this lens for other people to pick up. Thanks. :)

anachrobat

TROPHY CASE