Lake (2021)

I've seen the first 15 minutes of Lake on Twitch before I bought it, and I really expected it to be a great game for me. It has a lot of potential, but it feels like the developers rushed to release it, as there are many areas that need improvement.

The game is meant to be story-driven, featuring numerous dialogues, simple gameplay centered around delivering mail, and an overall relaxing, cozy atmosphere. While the atmosphere is mostly effective thanks to the charming visual style, other elements fall short. You play as Meredith, a temporary mailman, and your primary task is to deliver various letters and parcels in the small area around the lake. This can be fun and relaxing at first, but by the third in-game day (out of 14 total), it becomes monotonous. Most deliveries lack rewards, additional challenges, meaningful dialogue, or cutscenes, making it feel more like a tedious job as you progress. Keep in mind that driving isn’t particularly enjoyable due to primitive physics, and Meredith walks quite slowly.

The story is also lacking. It’s a simple slice-of-life narrative with no big mysteries or intriguing elements. Most dialogues don’t have any impact and lead to the same outcomes. Some conversations feel so empty that I wanted to skip them, but unfortunately, that option isn’t available. This means that if you want to see all three endings, you’ll have to watch the final 30-minute scene three times. Not ideal, right?

Additionally, there are many technical issues, such as glitching animations, clipping objects, floating characters, sound problems, and even mismatched voice lines. How could such oversights occur in a story-focused game? This lack of polish is really frustrating and it ruins the overall atmosphere.

There’s also a DLC called Season's Greetings, which adds nine more days of the same dull gameplay and new empty dialogues, but this time you play as Meredith's father during New Year's Eve. Consider playing it only if the original game wasn’t enough for you.

I grew up in small town Oregon, so this was a lovely bit of nostalgia. Lake's a sweet game about taking a deep breath and figuring out where to pursue happiness in life, and I enjoyed the quirky cast of characters and getting to explore their beautiful surroundings. Without getting into spoilers, I will say that one thing I deeply appreciated is that there are three endings and I didn't feel the narrative was railroading me into a "correct" one. Characters might be saddened by her choice, but they are refreshingly mature about it. What matters, both in and out of game, is that Meredith just decides what is right for her.

Lake's biggest drawback for me is that the story and mechanics don't mesh well. After an in-game week or so, driving around delivering the mail, listening to the same three songs on the radio and the same recycled commentary from Meredith, interspersed with the occasional new cutscene, really starts to become tedious. Lake's story really can't be shortened without losing something, but it's too long when paired with two in-game weeks of repetitive gameplay. Though it would be a shame to lose the lovely graphics, Lake would have been stronger as a visual novel.

Not a bad experience, but not one I would recommend to everyone. Three out of my customary four stars.

The hands down funniest thing about this game is that if a car comes up behind you while the mail truck isn't in motion, it gets stuck. It doesn't realize when the truck pulls away, so it just sits there for the rest of the day honking angrily. And backing up traffic. I found this out when early in the virtual day I stopped the truck to deliver a package, came back to find a car stuck behind the truck, took Meredith on her rounds, and came back at the end of the day to find 27 cars backed up across all corners of the intersection. (Not a guesstimate. I counted between giggles.)

I kind of hope they never patch this. It's a thing of beauty.

J'ai lancé le jeu à l'aveugle et, avec un titre comme ça, je m'attendais à tout sauf à un simulateur de postier mais j'ai apprécié la ballade en camionnette !

J'ai l'impression qu'il y a un vrai mouvement de fond de la part des studios de développement américains qui est de sortir des jeux témoignant de leur amour pour leur pays, leurs paysages, la culture de leurs campagnes. Ici, comme les montagnes de l'Alaska dans Tell me why, comme les forêts du Wyoming dans Firewatch, le paysage de l'Oregon est un personnage à part entière.

Lake c'est ainsi l'histoire de la petite communauté de Providence Oaks, "PO" pour ses habitants avec son diner, sa station service, son épicerie, son motel, son vidéoclub et son bureau de poste. C'est l'histoire de gens qui vivent en vase clos entre la forêt et le lac et de ceux qui partent.

On est en 1986, Meredith Weiss travaille dans le secteur de l'informatique naissant. Après 22 ans "à la ville" comme on dit, elle revient chez ses parents pour leur rendre un service. Le père Weiss a en effet demandé à sa fille de le remplacer pendant ses deux semaines de congés à son poste de facteur. C'est l'occasion pour Meredith de réapprendre à prendre le temps, faire le point sur sa vie et reparler à d'anciennes connaissances entre deux recommandés.

On va pas se mentir, il y a une petite ambiance téléfilm du dimanche après-midi "la campagne c'est mieux". D'ailleurs vous pouvez même draguer un bucheron dans le jeu. Pourtant la thématique est traitée avec une grande bienveillance. Votre patron n'est pas un con loin de là, il est juste surexcité à l'idée du grand boom que va bientôt connaitre l'informatique, la vie à la campagne a plein de défauts...Comme dans la vraie vie il n'y a pas de bons ou de mauvais chemins, d'ailleurs les habitants de Providence Oaks seront contents que vous choisissez de rester ou pas !

Le jeu fait des économies de moyens mais sait où vont ses priorités: les modèles manquent parfois de polygones et la texture de l'eau est un peu hasardeuse mais les forêts que vous parcourez avec votre camionnette sont magnifiques. Le jeu n'est pas exempts de bugs, les trois chansons pop-folk de votre radio auront tôt fait de vous taper sur le système et à la fin des deux semaines que durent le jeu vous commencerez à saturer de livrer le courrier mais la ballade vaut le coup. Voyez Lake comme un petit jeu sans prétention pour prendre une pause dans votre voyage vidéoludique.

First of all: I like the stories being told in this game. It has a lot of issues though. The worst offender is the default gameplay loop. You go around a small town delivering letters and packages in a truck, which will sometimes result in interactions with the local population. These interactions are how the story is told and are, by far, the best aspect of the game.

The moments in between are just tedious. When delivering a letter, you get a small voice cue from the main character. There are only a small number of these, so be prepared for a lot of repetition. When you get out of your truck, instead of an animation of the door opening and the character getting out, the screen fades to black and the character is out of the truck. When you open the back of the truck to get out a parcel, you're greeted with a grey plane with parts of the packages sticking out. This lack of animation is all over the game and makes it feel very static.

The voice acting is mediocre at best, the soundtrack limited, even for such a short game. Characters walk in a very unnatural way and the physics when driving the truck are equally weird. I feel a lot of this could have been avoided with the game being styled more simply, possibly even in 2D.

I don’t know how much I could recommend this to anyone at full price. A game that, on the surface, wraps its core gameplay around delivering mail using the most simplistic mechanics doesn’t exactly sound tantalising to most people. As a game you pick off a subscription service or a sale, however, it’s an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys short narratives told in a chill tension-free environment. Because underneath the basic gameplay loop lies a simple, slice of life-type experience that becomes endearing and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

The thing that surprised me the most about Lake was the number of choices you can make throughout the game. Even taking all its linearity into account - it restricts you quite a bit in terms of interaction - you get a satisfying amount of freedom to craft your own story, which affects your relationships and results in different endings. This is done by one of the game’s 2 main gameplay pillars, which is the dialogue aspect. Although there’s nothing groundbreaking here, there’s enough for you to feel your choices matter and shape the connections you make, romantic or otherwise. The other main gameplay pillar - driving around a small charming town in your mail truck - feels incredibly relaxing, more than I remember experiencing in any other game in recent times. It gently nudges you into this contemplative mode where you start vicariously appreciating the simpler things in life and, in a weird way, thinking about your own life decisions. This is because Lake actually presents a story that, one way or another, lots of people will be able to relate to and see themselves in. Which in itself is a great accomplishment for any game.

Lake isn’t perfect. It is, in fact, far from perfect: it’s quite clunky and buggy; the Firerwatch-type graphics can look pretty rough at times; it is very limited in its variety (in interactivity, in how lively the town actually feels, in its soundtrack, you name it); even the core gameplay aspects lack polish (some interactions feel wooden, relationships and backstories aren’t as deep as they could’ve been, and being able to drive recklessly with zero consequences takes away from the otherwise grounded experience). But not only are none of these issues game breaking, the positives you get from playing it outweigh all of this, so long as you are into these types of journeys. If you are, you’re sure to enjoy your 6-7hrs with this game. 7/10.

Between the walking simulator, and the video game experience, Lake is a contemplative title that takes advantage of rather well-written characters, and a system of dialogues enough impacting for us to think about the meaning of life and its priorities. No choice is better than the other, which means that the title really lets us choose what we want, without it having a positive or negative impact on the gaming experience.

The sublime artistic direction, the incredible landscapes, and the chill soundtrack are a perfect setting for such a reflection. Lake could almost be reimbursed by social security because its soothing virtues are numerous. Unfortunately, a few bugs tarnish the picture, with also very low replayability.

Playing this was kind of like my first time playing "Gone Home" in that, without spoiling that one or this one I thought I was playing a horror game and was waiting for the horror that never came and this game I did the same thing.

Like, that game even though it is not what I thought I really enjoyed the experience. This actually has loads in common because this is also mostly a narrative experience with some light gameplay and no fail states.

This is not for everyone as it forces you to kind of take your time and do redundant tasks but for whatever reason it was interesting enough and I was invested in the story enough to hold me to the end.

It was like a slice-of-life anime. I was in for the good vibes. Worth trying to see if it is for you if you have GamePass.

Lake is a very neat game but it's probably not for everyone and even then, not for everywhen. As a small town mail delivery simulator, it goes for a very specific vibe. Everything is super chill, nothing is of serious consequence and there is zero stakes (unless you count the ones at the dinner).

Driving around delivering letters and parcels is very relaxing, and chatting with people, getting to know them and their little stories is nice.

My only real issue would be that the game coaxes into a "big decision" toward the end which is not really earned, I think. But it's fine.

Play it if you need a short palate-cleanser or a quiet game to relax.