Lit
February 12th, 2009
Last spring I blogged about a game called Lit, by WayForward Technologies. The game’s premise, as described in a press release, came scarily close to an idea I’d had some years before. Naturally I seized the dwindling opportunity to prove I’d thought of it first.
Lit is now available for download on Wii Ware. Its similarities to my concept are gratifying, but it is resolutely its own game. And I like it a lot.
In Lit, you are a guy making your way through a haunted high school. The darkness is toxic; venture from the clearly-delineated light areas of the floor and you’ll instantly be abducted by shadows. You must therefore light a path using whatever devices you come across: lamps, computer monitors, motion-activated security bulbs, spotlights on rotating necks, and more.
Rhythmically, the game alternates between careful observation and planning — sweeping your flashlight over the murk to spot useful features — and bursts of action. These include fun, punctuating events like knocking out a window with your slingshot, and more complex sequences, like dancing through a series of moving spotlights while turning other fixtures off and on.
I love the balance of the clear, puzzley, rulesy elements and the filmic, immersive elements. So many games these days swing hard towards one or the other, giving us total abstraction or else doing everything to hide their game-ness. Lit seems quite comfortable being a videogame. It resembles a schematic as much as it does a movie. It uses an overhead perspective, its dynamics (like the contours of light areas) are modeled simply, and each room is a single-screen puzzle board … But its darkness is evocatively horrible, its soundtrack is emotive, and it’s perfectly happy to jump into a Resident Evil 4-style over-the-shoulder view.
In some ways this feels a bit retro. I can’t help but be reminded of Playstation 1 games, games leaping at the opportunities of 3D while remaining grounded in the simpler models of 2D design. That duality sometimes looks like a sort of adolescence next to a modern game like Dead Space, which uses all its cleverness to sustain a cinematic impression. That’s the right thing for Dead Space (I’m a fan), but it’s refreshing to play a game like Lit, which readily admits to artifice. That’s something I’ve always loved about videogames: human, tactile situations expressed through artifice, as a system.
Other things I love about this game: That the opening cinematic simply shows your hero running through the dark, then crouching beneath a blackboard, which becomes the main menu. That there is no other early exposition. That I can skip just about anything non-interactive by pressing A. That there is no tutorial. That you have to figure out on your own what everything does.
Try this game. It’s a gem.
February 12th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Dammit, am I supposed to buy a Wii now?
What do they do that uses motion control? Their faq says “LIT is exclusive to the WiiWare platform and was designed to take advantage of the Wii’s unique control scheme and features.”
February 12th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
You mean you didn’t buy World of Goo???
(EDIT: Oh, forgot that was on PC too. Probably even before headsets!)
About the Wii stuff, aiming your flashlight with the pointer is a pretty big deal. That’s the biggest one. You could do it with a mouse, but not with a control stick. Actually, considering the physical form of a flashlight, a Wii remote is probably the most appropriate game input device for that.
You also have to shake your Wii remote to recharge your flashlight after every 10 seconds or so of use. At first I didn’t really get the point of this, but it does make you more conservative about when you use it, especially when you are multitasking.
The other two that I can think of: When you throw a cherry bomb, you hold A and flick the remote forward. A lot like Boom Blox, but with less variability. And to light a flare you hold A and make a horizontal stroke.
I’ve found all the Wii stuff to be tasteful and work reliably.
The only controls quibble I have is that the “use inventory item” button is the same as the “activate nearby object” button. Meaning that you can’t use your slingshot if you are standing next to a lamp. D’ohh…
February 12th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Oh, almost forgot. Some rooms have a telephone. If you answer it in time, your girlfriend, who is also trapped in the building, will give you some kind of hint, or just tell you that she is scared. The messages actually play through the Wii remote speaker. Yeah. It’s kinda cute.
February 14th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
“You must therefore light a path using whatever devices you come across: lamps, computer monitors, motion-activated security bulbs, spotlights on rotating necks, and more.”
Freaky, my friend had a similar idea back in march-ish of last year, except in his version you were stuck in an office space cubicle maze kinda deal, fending off vampires who could be trapped by light walls just as much as you could be trapped by blocks of shadow.
Theres a pretty sweet episode of samurai jack which plays with this visually which would make such a cool artsy take on survival horror – jack (wearing all white) disappears when he goes into the light, and his black ninja foe vanishes when he goes in shadow.
http://iandallas.com/games/swan/ is a good example of the potential for creeping the pants off’ve you with light/dark without going into your typical dreary abandoned building type environment – soundscaping alone, in such a seemingly blank area where you’re blind most of the time = highly unnerving.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:41 am
Wow. All of these games are showing how much quality mileage you could get from one (almost) new idea.
As soon as I read the original post by David and the follow up comments I thought of a story almost the reverse of Braid, where you start with a clear intention and purpose but it slowly gets more and more lost and confused as to what you want to do, until finally reaching the centre of the maze and doing something you cannot reverse.
Wait.
That is the plot of Braid.
I think. Now my head hurts.
Oh gods, I promiced the doctors I wouldn’t do this again.