Lucidity

You can pretend Lucidity is about beautiful watercolor-style artwork, a light story told through artsy postcards, or a puzzle game disguised as a downloadable $10 platformer. But it's really about killing a little girl. Many, many times. Not intentionally, of course -- and technically, you're in her dreams, so the developers probably use a loophole like she "wakes up" when you fail -- but because of the game's design, you fail a lot. And that works as both a positive and negative. The idea here is this girl, Sofi, automatically walks towards the right side of the screen at a slow, consistent pace. You don't directly control her, but instead stamp platforms and power-ups around the screen with a cursor, using them to indirectly guide her. You set up fans to boost her into the air, slingshots to fling her across gaps, bombs to clear paths, etc. Think of it as a game-long escort mission, a la Lemmings or Mario & Wario -- you spend your time trying to construct the ideal mousetrap-style path so she doesn't get stuck for too long, run into an enemy, or fall into a pit at the bottom of the screen.

Revealed September 10th on an episode of GTTV after weeks of rumors, Lucidity is developer LucasArts’ new downloadable title. Unlike their last few releases like Secret of Monkey Island: Sp...

A clear winner.

There are games that try to follow in the footsteps of other successful games, and there are games that try to carve their own path. It’s hard not to root for the games that try to do something new, but the danger with innovation is that what’s new isn’t always good. Often original games are admired more for their intent than their execution. ...

This visually enchanting game tries to whisk you away to a young girl's dreams, but the often frustrating gameplay makes for a rude awakening.