[h1]Launch Day Review[/h1]
[h1]Video (gameplay + commentary):[/h1]
https://youtu.be/Vb_OqSdHbNs
[h1]Short Version:[/h1]
Equal parts puzzler and sneaking game. It's not bad, but definitely rough around the edges. Lots of sneaking, simplistic and often artifically long puzzles as well as decent exploration with a lot of backtracking. Light on story.
[h1]Longer Version:[/h1]
If Steam had a rating between thumbs up and thumbs down, I'd probably put Light The Way there as the game has a neat premise and big ideas, but is rough around the edges. In light of that, I'll give it a thumbs up with the caveat that hopefully the game will fix some bugs and flesh out some of its puzzles/ideas.
Light the Way is equal parts puzzler and sneaking game. You've been kidnapped and made to navigate a complex maze of a warehouse in order to locate several keys to fully unlock a door allowing your escape.
You spend a lot of time hiding in the dark and trying to avoid detection by inky, shadowy creatures that shriek when startled and cause a nice deal of dread when you see them. They have predictable patrol routes and, if detected, will kill you and you'll have to start that sequence over again. The game is thankfully generous with checkpoints so dying to creatures doesn't hold a lot of punishment.
You're also provided a gun early on that has a flashlight and allows you to fire two types of projectiles: balls of light and other, sturdier balls. Unfortunately neither are explained very well and after several hours of playing I still can't understand what the light balls are supposed to do outside of lighting your path in a way that monsters can't detect (they will however react to your flashlight). That's fine if that's all they're for, but further explanation would be preferable since for a while I tried to figure out how to use them to distract patrols in order to more dynamically sneak by to no avail. Likewise, the other ball type, from what I can tell, is used in very few situations and overall has no practical application.
When you're not sneaking around, you're usually solving puzzles or exploring. The puzzles themselves are decent enough, however they can feel very padded in order to make sequences feel longer than they need to be. There's also a lot of backtracking in the game, which also feels like it's padding the game.
Exploration is usually a means to get from room to room. Some areas are interesting while others look like identical warehouse rooms. You can also discover bodies that help provide more details to the overall story as well as collect little objects called "fragments" which aren't explained and I still have no idea what they're for.
The story is told almost entirely through notes you come across as you traverse the warehouse and give you a glimpse into the person who kidnapped you.
Speaking for the launch day version, the game has its share of bugs and oddities which I hope are mended as time goes on. The biggest was a showstopping glitch from completing a sequence then having to reload to an earlier checkpoint and rendered the now not completed sequence from functioning properly. I've also run into bugs where enemies can't hit me when they should be able to.
Ultimately I found the experience intriguing but kinda lacking, even if the bugs are fixed. The environmental puzzles are basic and there are more than a few instances where "because you can't" is the reason you can't solve something a certain way as noted by things like invisible walls or platforms that are JUST too high to jump onto without the help of a box.
Still, if you're curious about it, no reason not to investigate and see if it's more a fit for you.
