The Town Of Light Brings Horror In History
The go-to phrase employed to describe LKA.it’s The Town Of Light is “a different kind of horror game”. While true, after getting my hands on the console build for the Italian development team’s harrowing narrative game. I don’t feel that statement captures the delicacy and starkness that gives The Town Of Light it’s edge over other ‘horror’ games.
The Console Edition Of The Town Of Light Brings New Features
The console additions of the game feature the whole experience but with some added diary features that add wider context to Renée’s internal monologue. As she recounts how her time in the facility laid waste to her mental faculties. How it crushed her spirit, her mind and mutated her psyche. These diary entries aren’t an integral part of the game but rather require you to seek them out. All illustrated with scratchy artwork, changing tone according to Renée’s mental state as your progress. Pencil lines distort into bluntness with aggressive abandon and childlike doodles become figments of disturbed nightmares.
The Town Of Light plays like Myst. You progress by using your surroundings as visual navigators and puzzle solvers.The Town Of Light art team have made a special effort to keep the location as close to the original as possible – Italian signposts included.
However, even in my short play-through, I found it difficult to appreciate the craft when the game evokes such realism and pain through it’s world. Real people suffered her, relatives of people you might know. They forced to live in such dire situations at their most vulnerable – The Town Of Light amazing example of how we can use history in games to frame an exploration of a topic that’s painfully relevant still today.
The Town Of Light is currently available on Steam and will be available on PS4 and Xbox One this spring
Will Butler | @QuesaWilla