Game: Lake
Genre:Â Indie, Adventure
System: Steam (also available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S)
Developer | Publisher: Gamious | Whitethorn Digital
Age Rating: US M | EU 16+
Price: UK £15.99 | US $19.99 | EU € 19,99
Release Date: September 1, 2021
Review code used, with many thanks to Indie Bros on behalf of Gamious.
Lake is a unique, story-driven game like nothing I have ever seen before. The game is a mix of connecting with others and unending fetch quests to bring mail to a small town.
The Gameplay and Story
Lake is the story about a computer programmer in 1986 who is taking a break from her high-pressure job to take over as a mailperson for her vacationing father back in her hometown. During the course of the game, players come across several new faces and old friends, making connections and indulging in nostalgia.
The main character is Meredith Weiss, and she grew up in the small town of Providence Oaks. While many things have changed in the 22 years since she’s been back, many things remain the same. As she delivers mail to every citizen in the area, players get to meet everyone in town. Through in-game choices, this visual novel-style game will bring Meredith closer to those in Providence Oaks, and she may even fall in love.
Lake has very simple controls; players walk and drive with WASD, and there is a single interact button. This is the button used to leave the mail truck, deliver the mail, talk to the homeowner, open the back of the truck, grab packages… You get the idea. The game is very repetitive with the same sort of slow actions happening over and over again.
The Pros of Lake
This game is pretty. It takes place in a small town in the middle of nowhere in the USA with some great views. I would love to live in this place for sure. It’s a calming location with a lot of trees and a gorgeous lake in the centre of town. Players get to drive their postal truck around the lake every day and see the sights.
There is also a very strong feminist message here. Meredith has two options for romance: a man named Robert and a woman named Angie. However, players don’t have to pick one to romance; Meredith can instead focus on her career and move forward with her programming into the bright future that tech has. Or she can even stay and continue her career as a mailperson with or without one of her two love interests.
The Cons of Lake
This game is so incredibly slow. Driving the mail truck around town is slow, delivering the mail is slow, and even talking to people is slow. Players can go through whole minutes where almost nothing happens as they drive from delivery to delivery. And the main character has to get out of the truck for every single delivery.
Meredith Weiss has two speeds while walking around town. One of them is the speed of teenager that is throwing a fit and dragging their feet. The second is the pace a normal 40-something-year-old would have walking while on the clock. It’s a little infuriating to be holding down SHIFT in order to move faster and the increased speed is still the speed of an injured person.
Lake forces players into a forced path of play; there is no open world wandering. If you don’t make plans with someone for after work, you end up reading a book at home alone instead of being allowed to wander around town and talk with friends. The story feels awkward and the romances feel fake. There are no facial expressions in this game at all, making all the characters feel even more unreal.
Conclusion
I had a very hard time getting anywhere near the end of this game. It was so slow; it would have been better off as a real visual novel instead of making the player do long, boring hours of forced labour. Delivering real mail would be a lot more interesting.
The delivery mini-game padding in this game makes it less likely that visual novel fans will love this game, and the repetitive nature of Lake will ensure that adventure game lovers will also not really dig this title. I’m not entirely sure who the target audience for this game is, but I feel like it misses the mark completely.
Final Verdict: I Don’t Like it.Â
This is probably the most pathetic review I’ve ever read. This game is supposed to be chill. Do you expect a mail carrier to run when pressing shift? Have you ever seen a mail carrier run?
Go back to playing Fortnite, you’re obviously not open minded and/or grown up enough to be able to appreciate a game like this.
Good afternoon, Cathy! This review of Lake is entirely my opinion. As a fan of the genres that Lake falls into, I found it lacking in several areas. Just because a game is “chill” doesn’t mean it has to be monotonous, which is what I found Lake to be. I’m glad you enjoyed this game, however! Everyone has different likes and dislikes, and I would love to hear what it was about Lake that you liked.
I am going to have to agree with Cathy Brimstone here. It appears the game is judged on something that it’s not trying to be. For instance, running would be quite out of character for Meredith. And complaining about having to exit the mail truck each time… I am honestly slightly bewildered reading this in a professional review. It can’t reasonably be ‘an opionion’ that an immersive and laid-back mail delivery game should instead have the option to just magically deposit parcels from a driving car.
Greetings, Miranda! I judged the game based on other relaxing games I have played; I’m a huge fan of the relaxing game genre. I mentioned the movement speed only because it was just a small thing that made this game even less fun than it could have been; I didn’t intend to mean she should be running all the time. Also, in the United States (it may be different for other countries), mail people do not get out of the vehicle to deliver mail. Mail trucks are designed so the person does not have to get out, but rather leans out of the window and deposits mail into the box (this is how it would have been in 1986 as well in the USA). If the game had been more open world and given players more options for interacting with the NPCs, if the romances had been less flat and rushed and fake feeling, the getting out of the mail truck and the walking speed would have been much less of an issue. But these were very present flaws in an already flawed game. I wanted to be able to leave my route and chat with people as I chose. I wanted more romance options. I wanted to buy into the romances. I wanted a lot from this game that I did not get. I know that I will not always have the “popular” opinion when it comes to games, but I always try to be as objective as possible in my opinions on any game I review.
I understand that you loved the game, but I recently went back and replayed Lake, and the issues are even more glaring on a second playthrough. I am glad you enjoyed the title and would love to hear why you liked it and what your favorite parts of the game were, however. I know that everyone likes different things, and I am always interested to learn more about other people’s opinions on video games.
Thanks for the extended review, Mina! That’s a reasoning that makes sense. And for the rest yes, it’s all personal. 🙂