Lake is a game that sat around on my steam wishlist for a long while but only two weeks ago I decided to buy it and give it a go. These are my impressions of this game.
Lake was released on the 1st of September 2021 and is a story-driven open-world game. You are a woman from a big city that decides to take a break and go to her hometown for two weeks. It should also be a break from her job at some tech company. The game takes place in the year of 1986. In the small town, she takes up a mailman job that her father did previously.
The gameplay, well... You deliver mail and that's about it 馃榾. You get a van which you use day to day to deliver boxes and letters to the people or doorstep. Doesn't seem that interesting right? Exactly, it's not that interesting, unless you are a fan of mail delivery 馃槅. Fortunately, there are other aspects to this game. While doing your job, you get to meet different people around the town who know you or knew your parents. With these characters, you also have a storyline, nothing complicated, just some simple plots.
Basically, lake is a simple game that takes a no-pressure approach. You open up the game, do some mail delivery and talk to people. This is absolutely not a serious game and I loved it! It takes about 7 hours to finish the game.
There are about 10 different characters you come to meet. All of them look a bit cartoonish, more on the visuals later. While talking to everyone, you also regularly have some dialogue options. I'm not sure how much the choices matter in this game but I know that the game has 3 different endings. I think the characters were well made and chosen, all of them seem interesting to listen to. What I like the most was that all the voice acting of the character was exceptional, I didn't expect it from a low-budget game like this.
I mentioned that this is an open-world game. Well, it is but the map is pretty small. While delivering parcels, you can roam the map freely. In the center of the map is a large lake. You have a town right next to the lake and wilderness on another side. There is one main road that goes around the lake.
A photo of the map is attached below.
Lake uses kind of its own style of design but I really liked it. It's not realistic, and resembles some 2010-era games but not outdated by any means. It was done like that on purpose. Overall a bit of a semi-cartoonish look. The lighting and atmosphere was spectacular, it really gave a chillax look to the visuals and resembled peaceful small-town vibes.
If you love story-based games and are in the mood for casual, simple time killer then you should try it out. Lake has a huge calming effect due to its gameplay, simplicity and visuals. Probably is one of the most peaceful and calm games I had ever played. I would love to see another game like this from the same developers. The lake has very positive reviews over on steam so people generally have enjoyed playing it very much.
Currently, you can buy lake for 20Eur in Steam.
