One of the big problems with gods is that they don’t tend to notice who they stomp on when they get caught up in their own affairs. The wind and sea gods are usually on good terms with each other but, being siblings, they’re going to fight as well. This leads to storms, and storms lead to endless repairs of the damage left in their wake. Houses can be fixed but people are much more difficult to replace, and in the latest storm the aero-delivery pilot Lou has disappeared. He’s a living legend so probably ok, but his family is still concerned. The best way to find Uncle Lou is by taking over his business, flying errands from one end of the archipelago to the other and repairing every inch of the islands until its secrets are revealed.
Hopefully Lou Didn’t Go Down In a TaleSpin
Lou’s Lagoon is a semi-open-world platforming adventure in a bright, tropical setting, with a bit of life-sim sprinkled in for good measure. Its demo dropped today and shows a fun little slice of gameplay, starting from the very beginning all the way up through the first flight in Lou’s plane. Once you’ve created a character it spends a minute or two setting up the story, then leaves you alone to explore the home island. While there’s a fair amount of run & jump the main tool is the Swirler 2000, which is a half-vacuum, half-ghostbusters-style gun used to suck up junk and detritus then toss it out again when needed. Driftwood is great for repairing broken staircases, for example, but scrap and other components are needed for the bigger repair jobs.
Review: Cozy Grove
Cozy Grove is a wonderful, loveable, colorful take and the life-sim genre, with a huge amount to discover spread out over a long period of play.
Exploring the island turns up other mini-quests as well, such as helping a pair of rambunctious kids and their Granny, but it’s all in service of repairing Lou’s plane. Once fixed there’s a little flying around to the next island, at which point the demo ends unless you’re a little curious about what the sky may hold. Balloons hold unspecified stuff but are fun to fly through, while giant floating life preservers open up aerial ring courses if you fly through them. There’s even a leftover side-quest back at the home island that can be completed with a bit of flying about, if you keep your eyes open and are curious. It’s a short little demo, coming in at about an hour, but dense with content and highly promising for the full game to come.
The demo for Lou’s Lagoon is going live today and can beplayed on Steam. It’s a cute and upbeat slice of the bigger adventure to come, with lively characters in a colorful (but not garish, which is a mistake far too many games of this type make) ocean world. The demo release also comes with a brand-new trailer, so if you don’t have an hour or so for gaming then you can get the gist of it in a thirty whole seconds instead.
