LORN’S LURE - A JOURNEY INTO THE MACHINE DEPTHS
Venture into the enigmatic world of "Lorn's Lure," a masterclass in atmospheric narrative platforming that seamlessly blends the nostalgic charm of 90s PC graphics with the finesse of modern gaming. This title isn't just a game; it's a haunting journey that beckons players to dive deep into its mysterious depths.
At the heart of this tale is an android, venturing far from the safety of his home colony. Lured by an elusive glitch, he finds himself ensnared within a colossal, perilous structure, previously unknown to his kind. As players, we're not just observers; we're participants in his quest for answers, unraveling the reasons behind his departure and the secrets that lie ahead.
The game's ambiance is its crowning jewel. The dark, foreboding atmosphere, accentuated by retro-styled graphics with a contemporary twist, creates an immersive experience that's both eerie and captivating. Every corner turned, every shadow cast, adds layers to the game's rich lore, urging players to venture deeper.
But "Lorn's Lure" isn't just about the narrative. Its innovative gameplay mechanics set it apart. Gone are the days of searching for specific "parkour ledges." With your trusty pickaxes in hand, almost any vertical surface becomes your playground. Climb, jump, slide, and scan your way through intricate challenges, all while enjoying the game's forgiving nature. Mistakes won't send you back through tedious sections, ensuring that the challenge remains enjoyable, not exasperating.
Whether you're a casual gamer looking to soak in the game's rich atmosphere or a seasoned speedrunner aiming for record times, "Lorn's Lure" caters to all. It's a testament to the beauty of exploration, both of the world around us and the stories within.
Can you introduce yourself and share a bit about your journey into indie game development?
Hello, my name is Radu, and I run Rubeki Games! I’m a solo developer from Ontario, Canada. My journey into game dev actually started a very long time ago: I was into 3D modeling in middle school because my dad was a mechanical engineer and always had software lying around that I could play with.
Then I saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel about the making of Turok: Oblivion, after which I was obsessed with trying to make games. I obviously could not code in middle school, so I was always looking for no-code ways to implement games. One day I found a book about the no-code Blender Game Engine - begged my mom to buy it for me and she obliged. From then on I kept making little demos as a hobby - pausing and continuing with school workload.
During university I sort of paused while being obsessed with digital painting, but after getting a job as a software engineer and learning how to properly scope and complete projects, I decided to start trying to make games again. I picked up Unity and have made 2 commercial games thanks to the Haunted PS1 Community and their game jams - which helped me build an audience. That community also encouraged me to try this crazy project called Lorn’s Lure.
I’m still technically a hobbyist with a full time job, but who knows, maybe that will change soon.
What was the initial spark or inspiration behind Lorn's Lure?
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact spark - it was more a mix of a few things.
I was working on a concept for another game about exploring a very large city after falling all the way to the foundations - meeting various people also lost within and chatting with them. Basically a walking simulator. I then saw a Youtube video showing off Blame! and decided to make the city much bigger to capture the feeling of the manga. This ended up being too ambitious so I reduced the concept to Hatch, and released that game.
Hatch was similar to Only Up: you use a basic mechanic to climb a large tower. I was learning Unity at the time and just wanted to make a game with existing mechanics in the engine. Folks really liked that game, and introduced me to KZ climb, defrag, and other climb map based games.
After Hatch I had the option to do another horror game like my first project, Hollow Head, or expand on the concept behind Hatch into something more ambitious. The Haunted PS1 community encouraged me to go for the Hatch idea - the one I felt more drawn to - so I took the plunge! While working on this next idea, I had to solve the problem of making a “walking” simulator in a large 3D traversable structure. I Iterated on the ideas like floating, pure parkour, and jetpacks; but I wanted to slow it down a bit more and make it challenging - so I landed on the climbing picks.
I did 2 more Haunted PS1 hosted game jams so that I could test and develop the mechanic further: Due and Kill the KOTH. Kill the KOTH did so well that I almost decided to make a full game and expand the story, but decided on taking up my old concept before Hatch instead. There were also many projects that inspired me along the way that you wouldn’t expect.
The "climb-anything" mechanic is a standout feature. Can you walk me through the development process of this feature and how it differentiates Lorn's Lure from other platformers?
The climbing picks allow the natural traversal of very large vertical levels. Most games tend to opt for long ladders, elevators, double jumps, or anchor based grapple hooks. These all make levels feel like they are designed for the player to go through - which would break immersion for Lorn’s Lure, since the megastructure is not supposed to be designed for humanoid traversal. I got the initial idea from BOTW, which has an effective climb-anything mechanic. The only issue is that angled climbing is a bit confusing in first person, so I had to limit it to only vertical wall faces.
This mechanic is the first thing I developed actually - even before there was a game. I then used it in a jam game called Due - where it was limited to only one wall face (you couldn’t climb around corners). I developed it further by removing bugs, and adding the animated climbing picks - updating Due, and using it in Kill the KOTH to get more feedback and bugs.
After KOTH, I implemented a sandbox where I added things like climbing around corners, moving platforms, collectibles, level completion summary page, and handled more bug fixes / edge cases.
I just kept iterating it until its current state.
How did you ensure that the pickaxe-based climbing didn't make certain sections too easy or bypassable?
Without limits, this mechanic allows you to infinitely traverse in any direction, so it did take a lot of creativity to limit it without the use of invisible walls or floating platforms. I combined a variety of techniques to make traversal more challenging, including stamina limit, fall death after certain velocity is reached, non-climbable surfaces, environmental hazards, large drops with thin platforms, and confined spaces with few exits.
Now I’m afraid of the opposite: that it’s too difficult in some parts…
The choice of retro 90s PC graphics is nostalgic for so many of gamers both young and old. What challenges did you face in blending this style with modern graphics techniques?
The main challenge is balancing realism with simple geometry for platforming and climbing readability. I want the levels to look interesting and detailed, but not so much that you can’t tell where a platform begins and ends - which leads to frustrating deaths.
Getting a volumetric fog effect without volumetric fog was a bit of a challenge, but I ended up combining Unity’s default fog with cloud particles around the player and that seems to work well. Lighting is also very important to this game, and given how large the environments are, with many pieces overlapping, I cannot use baked lights. So I had to use very few real time lights, and use real time ambient occlusion to get a nice volumetric feel to the structure. Both techniques are not really compatible with the 90s aesthetic, but I think they come together nicely with the fog and ambient light to create a volumetric effect that still feels retro.
Using real time lighting allows for neat mechanics like flares in the cave area, so I don’t feel bad about this inaccuracy.
Were there specific games from the 90s that influenced the visual design of Lorn's Lure?
The biggest influences are: The legend of Zelda OOT, Silent Hill, Half-life, Metroid Prime. But I’m sure I’ve absorbed many more that I just don’t remember.
The android's journey seems to be both external and deeply introspective. How did you weave the story into the gameplay, especially in a platformer where narrative can sometimes take a backseat?
This was actually insanely difficult to do and is primarily why the game took as long as it did to get to this point (well, that and the fact that I have a full time job).
That being said, I use a variety of techniques to portray the story without getting in the way of gameplay. I just borrowed them from games that do this well - nothing too innovative: Scans - which are just like notes or PDA entries in some sci-fi games, cutscenes in between chapters, characters with minimal dialogue a la Dark Souls or N64 Zelda games, and environmental storytelling techniques like messages on walls, objects left behind, lived-in places, etc.
These are all optional though. If you want to speed through just the platforming, you can do that too and pay no attention to any of this for the most part.
Can players expect any twists or revelations as they uncover the reason behind the android's departure from his colony?
I’m sure there will be some surprises. But to really understand what is happening, you have to pay close attention to the lore. I love obscure stories like Dark Souls or Silent Hill - where players are still trying to understand it years after release - Lorn’s Lure should be no different if I did a good job.
"Lorn's Lure" accommodates both explorative and speedrunning playstyles. How did you balance level design to cater to these vastly different approaches?
The levels have many folds, cracks, and hidden parts which beg for exploration given the mechanic. Explorers playing the demo tended to challenge themselves to see how far out of the map they could get (which they often did successfully) This curious desire for technical exploration is similar to the feeling you get from rock climbing, or practicing parkour. You know your abilities, and start to see opportunities in the environment that you can take advantage of, whether or not there is an obvious path. I’ve hidden bits of scannable lore in concealed or offbeat places that people naturally want to explore, so their efforts are rewarded! Crystals are there to help both explorers and speedrunners. They are also not trivial to find, but once you know all the locations, speedrunners can complete levels like a Mario 64 100% star hunt. Mario 64 is where I got that idea actually. The extra levels you unlock by getting all the crystals were inspired by the Secret Courses in Mario Sunshine - pure platforming levels you unlock when collecting Hidden Shines. These crystal-unlocked levels are designed for speedrunning - offering handicaps, and pure obstacles without the megastructure.
My vision for speedrunning was to have 100% runs feel as challenging and diverse as Mario 64 runs.
Are there any in-game incentives or rewards for players who choose to speedrun?
Not really. I always thought that getting the top run is the incentive itself! I don’t have in-built leader boards, since I’m one person and it’s hard to maintain. I plan on supporting the speedrun.com community, hopefully be a part of GDQ, and generally being involved in the speedrun community on Discord upon release. The community also discussed not having speedrun based achievements, since that might lock out a lot of players, which makes a lot of sense. I’ve also felt that speedrunners will just gravitate to cool games - whether or not they are supported by the developer. So I feel I don’t need to reward them any more than adding the speedrun stats into the game itself.
The game promises a dark and foreboding atmosphere. Can you discuss the sound design and music choices that complement the game's visuals?
The sounds are meant to be punchy, harsh, metallic and brutal. Emphasizing that you are in a big machine made of materials that are hostile to any life within it.To give a sense of scale, some places will have the sound of distant machinery in the background. It should make the structure itself feel alive. Some areas are so big, you might hear weather events in the background. To give a sense of loneliness, some of the equipment left behind by the various explorers will hum when nearby. There’s lots of little details like that.
For the soundtrack, I’ve partnered with Phrakture, an electronic musician who has helped capture that sense of scale, melancholic emptiness, and brutality very well.
The exact directorial notes I gave him were:
Loopable
Heavily moody and atmospheric
Maintains a distinct melody (makes it memorable)
Sad, Lonely, melancholy emotion
The idea behind the melodic approach was from The Legend of Zelda - which to this day varies on the melodies since the first game. I wanted a similar memorable core - a musical identity for Lorn’s Lure. From these basic notes, Phrakture quickly pieced together a unique sound with the first few sketches. “The sound design takes a lot of inspiration from ambient drone music, and infuses it with melodies inspired by games like Silent Hill, Legend of Zelda, or the older Command & Conquer games. One of the key components is using negative space and minimal instruments. The atmosphere should match the stimuli of the large, ominous levels the player explores.” The way we worked is that I’d share early footage of the areas, and he’d come up with musical sketches. Then we’d iterate till we were both happy. We’d do this once over for all tracks, and then he’d master them once we approved them.
This method helps ensure the music is cohesive before locking in with high quality mastering.
Were there any particular moments or areas in the game where you felt the atmosphere was especially impactful?
I’m told the first time you emerge in the open megastructure is impressive. Personally I’m very proud of two areas which I haven’t released any footage of. I want those to be a surprise, so I won’t say anything more. Other than those three, I’m happy with the vertigo you get in the second chapter, where you start off very high up on a suspended basecamp and need to descend a large metal column to reach land. Also another area I’m proud of is a very claustrophobic cave. I haven’t seen any game make realistic caves before - they all just make comfortably sized mazey tubes! Have you seen real spelunking? It’s terrifyingly claustrophobic and silent. I wanted to capture that feeling in Lorn’s Lure as a contrast to the large open spaces and I’m really proud of how this area feels.
Are there any plans for DLCs or expansions that explore deeper into the world of "Lorn's Lure"?
I plan on releasing a few things. Not necessarily in this order, and depending on overall success after launch:
Standalone climb maps pack
Level editor
VR Spinoff - lots of demand for this one
In terms of story based DLCs, the option is there - since it’s a whole universe that I have left room to develop further, but I don’t have anything in mind specifically at this time.
How do you plan to engage with the player community post-launch, especially with speedrunners who might find innovative ways to play the game?
So right now I run a fairly small Discord community, which depending on the level of success, I will have to figure out how to manage at scale. This includes handling bugs, feature requests, feedback, etc. I’m not really sure what to expect after launch.
There is already a small speedrunning community for the Prologue / Demo I launched last year. Again not sure what to expect if it scales, but at least I will add more mods to help approve runs.
I’d also like to see Lorn’s Lure on GDQ, and played by top speedrun streamers. I hope to also attract folks from the KZ, Defrag, and Minecraft Parkour communities.
If the map editor takes off, I will showcase the best maps periodically, and hope that it inspires others to keep creating their own content. I’ll try and attract map makers from other communities - especially Quake, since those maps are highly compatible with the climbing mechanic (vertical walls of metal and concrete). I’m also hoping that a mod community takes off. I don’t really know how this works, but I will be looking to support modders however I can.