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There are a couple distinct vibes in the demo for Locator, a mystery puzzle game from developer Empty Exhibit. It’s got some DNA from Geoguessr, as you look at photos taken at ground level and try to suss out the locations they correspond to on a top-down zoomable map. It also gave me a big Strange Horticulture mood since you’re examining a journal, diagrams, pictures, and other clues as if they’re in front of you on a desktop.
As a final sweetener, you’re doing this detective work on an alien planet. An archeologist crashed her spaceship there, so starting at the wreck site you need to follow her footsteps, figure out where she went, and discover her ultimate fate. The full game isn’t out yet, but you can play the Locator demo for free on Steam right now.
I recommend it! Things start out pretty easy: the photos taken near the crash site aren’t hard to identify on the map, and when you think you’ve ID’d the location of a photo, you drop a pin, Geoguessr-style. Place three pins correctly and you can move on to new photos that take to new locations around the map.
Things pretty quickly get more complex, as the deeper you go the harder it is to tell where the photos were taken just from images alone. Sometimes you’ll need to read journal entries for clues, puzzle over alien hieroglyphs, and even do a tiny bit of (gulp) math. Along the way you learn more about the alien planet you’re exploring and the missing person you’re trying to track down.
There’s no release date yet for the full game, but the demo of Locator is an enjoyable one: great art, chill vibes, and the hint of a satisfying mystery and exploration game. You can try the demo yourself here on Steam.
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Kurt Indovina
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