Lux, City of Secrets

Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 318: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆☆ (7/10) Man, what a bummer. Book 1 and Book 2 has built upon the foundations of each other, and I think the author's excellent prose and use of a Clue system is unrivaled. So, I thought this sequel would be bigger, deeper, and more satisfying. And to be clear: the writing is still great, the atmosphere is compelling, and there are a ton of branching paths to explore. But in trying to go wide,[i] Lux [/i]feels shallow. What’s here is good—but what isn’t here might matter more. 🥇[b] Pros:[/b] [list] [*]Fantastic writing and immersive tone. No complaints about the prose. It’s vivid, stylish, and brings Lux to life as a gritty, sprawling, mysterious city full of secrets. The setting is well realized and layered with enough history, flavor, and tension that it feels like an RPG city hub... if only you had time to explore it. [*]Genuinely high replay value. The amount of choice is impressive. There are a crazy amount of career paths, romance options, alliances, branching investigations, and multiple approaches to the same scenes. It’s clear a lot of work went into letting players tailor their character and story. If you're the type to replay IFs 3+ times, [i]Lux [/i]gives you the routes for it. [*]Strong connections to the previous games. You can import your save from [i]Sordwin,[/i] and it’s a delight to see characters from earlier stories again—alive, changed, and part of this bigger narrative. Some returning NPCs genuinely surprised me and made me nostalgic. The continuity is one thing the game gets right. [*]Expanded worldbuilding. I really liked how you can collect books and lore items to flesh out the world. The city feels big and lived-in, and there are good bits of flavor text that expand your understanding of the political factions and history. [/list] 🤫[b] Cons:[/b] [list] [*]Way, way too short for how much it tries to do. The Steam page says it’s 500,000 words... and I believe that’s true overall. But individual playthroughs barely scratch the surface. Each route is so deeply siloed that it feels like you’re getting only a small slice of the game per run. My first playthrough was around 2–3 hours. I was shocked when the credits rolled—it felt like the plot had just started picking up. [*]The energy mechanic is more frustrating than fun. You only get a couple actions per day, and you’re constantly managing rest or risk. It’s meant to be a tension system, but it mostly just feels limiting. Want to check in with your job and investigate a clue and pursue a romance? Nope. You’ll collapse. There’s a point where realism hurts the story, and this is it. [*]Too many branches, not enough time. There are so many career paths, and they all seem to have cool, tailored content. But with the story being so short, it means you only see a tiny sliver of that content each time. I actually wish the author had chosen fewer paths and written deeper into them, or just added a few more days to breathe. [*]Gameplay pacing feels rushed and boxed in. You only have a few days in Lux, and while you can do multiple things, most paths are closed off the moment you make a choice. The sense of adventure is dulled by the structure; you don’t feel like you're exploring a city, you feel like you’re speedrunning it. And then it’s over. [*] The romance options are decent, but undercut by the structure. All the love interests are compelling, but if you actually want to deepen your relationship with them, you basically have to ignore your job, the mystery, or the plot. It feels weirdly punishing to want to do both. A better structure or longer story could’ve balanced this better. [*]Ends on a cliffhanger. I get that this is part one of two, but [i]Lux [/i]doesn’t feel like a standalone story. It just stops. It’s hard to recommend on its own because you don’t get a satisfying arc or resolution. Just a long setup and then… wait until next time. [/list] [hr] If you enjoyed this review, please check out my curator page to find more: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45814768-Verdict-Play-or-Pass/]Verdict: Play or Pass. [/url] Also, please leave a like and visit [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Indie_Gems]IndieGems[/url] and our YouTube channel for more reviews like this one. [/hr]

Quite surprised by the negative reviews, especially those saying that the game is too hard. I played an investigator mage, I had played through the two previous instalments with. It was almost too easy to succeed. Not sure where people are getting their two hours per playthrough from either. It took me a lot longer than that. Also there's enough content & variation to encourage replays. Since it's part of a series, there are several new plot lines started that will not be concluded until the next game. I think the author spread himself too thin here. If that bothers you, you might want to stay away. Book two had more depth, but I still had a lot of fun in this one. I am invested enough in my character to want to see how it all ends.

从第一部的一无所有到现在的温馨小家，好有成就感：） 好想快点玩到后续，我已急哭。 [spoiler] D你什么时候愿意和mc说那个L开头的单词！！！ [/spoiler]

这一部目前来看和第二部水准相当，但是感觉作者线开的太多了，而且时间根本不够。因此职业线基本人人都会放弃。再加上里面的案子基本这一部一个都没解决，还是非常不爽的。 有些支线还有些莫名其妙，点名O的邪教支线，简直就是意义不明，如果你不romanceO的话建议别做，很大可能性费力不讨好，一顿帮人家结果最后扣你好感（我查了代码，最后如果想说服O并且不掉好感非常苛刻）

Book 3 of Evertree Saga. Characters we met in previous two books and well written as always.BUT as author says this is just the "first half of a two-part epic", though we have some sub cases can close, the main story still unfinished. If you interested in this book, I recommend you to play Evertree Inn and Sordwin first. Then you can know better about those characters in the whole Evertree world(YES, I mean know more about our ROs...heheh). For all I know City of Lies is working in process, hope to read it soooooooooon.

Not going to lie, I feel a bit saddened by the length of this book. It is said to have contained lots of words, but the book felt so short in comparison with the previous two. Although I understand it is because it has numerous story line with both the previous and new characters and such. I recommend this only if you are interested in the continuation of your character's story. I personally think as a standalone story it would be ... I am not sure how to describe it. But perhaps less fun? I enjoyed it regardless, just a bit annoyed by the cliffhanger. I am looking forward to playing the next book!

This does very much feel like the first half of a full game, but it's a pretty spectacular first half if you're someone who likes to replay games over and over again with a different character each time. I've done four runs now and each was almost entirely different. The writing is top notch with very few errors/typos, the characters keep getting more and more interesting (Orion, Dandy, I love you guys), and the layers of intrigue keep building up. My only quibbles are the short time frames in which these games take place - the entire trilogy so far has apparently occurred over less than an in-game month, no wonder the main character is suffering under the strain - and the fact that, as I and others have said, this game feels very short and incomplete without its sequel. Hopefully that sequel is coming soon!

Enjoyed the book after rereading previous two. The plot is interesting and there seems to be a lot of variations of what you can do in this short period of time. Didn't spot any continuation bugs (which is a huge relief after Fate of the Storm Gods -_- ) and writing seems good. That's true that the book is quite short though. I'd like to have more steady in-game pace like in Sordwin where I felt like I investigated almost everything while in this book I constantly don't have time and lots of cases are left hanging.

总是喜欢续作多的ip（何况背景故事很完善了 如果不是剧情较为线性 应该会想多玩几次的 但我决定多创几个人物走不同剧情--当然是从evertree inn开始

Evertree Saga is one of my favorites and the writing of this book was as good as the previous books. But it was shorter than Sordwin and I think harder than any of the previous books. Sadly, we need to wait for the second part of the book (Lux, City of Lies) to conclude this book's story :( I've seen another comment complaining that there are a lot of cases and yet, barely any conclusion in this book. That's unfortunately true. I'd highly recommend this book if you enjoyed the Evertree Saga so far. If you haven't played any of the previous books yet, I think you should play them beforehand. As to when to buy this book, you might want to wait for part 2 to be released if you don't want a cliffhanger.