Albino Lullaby: First Impressions
Albino Lullaby by Boston-based developer, Ape Law, will meet—and in many cases exceed—your expectations about what an adventure game can and should be.
I grew up in the blossoming age of PC adventure gaming. I’m a privileged guy and I know it. I had classics such as Thief II: The Metal Age, The Curse of Monkey Island, and System Shock 2 to keep me happy. It seems today that very few games hit that oh so sweet spot of being-creepy-yet-engaging-your-sense-of-adventure-and-sense-of-humor-at-the-same-time style. From what I’ve seen so far, Albino Lullaby is marching confidently in that direction.
This chair raises so many questions…
You don’t know what’s going on exactly and you are afraid to find out, yet it’s the only way to proceed. It seems like common sense that this is the way a horror adventure game should be, but lots of games of this genre made by mainstream developers don’t always create this atmosphere with as much care and consideration as Ape Law does. In Albino Lullaby, you have to take your time and explore your surroundings, discovering everything for yourself. Some of what I say may spoil the element of discovery, so if you want to find everything out for yourself, please wait for the game and read no more.
The game starts with you driving your car on a dark and lonely road. You abruptly collide with a semi-truck which leaves you—I assume—unconscious. You awake inside a cage in a house (not even sure you could call it a house), or what resembles an entire world that takes place in a haunted mansion-like environment.
Like…where are we…?
You still have no idea what is going on, but you move forward finding a button which simply says “do not press button”—a situation that is oddly familiar to another weird favorite of mine; Starship Titanic. You have no choice but to press it, and so you do. What results is your journey into a myriad of rooms with revolving walls where Thief like notes are left strewn about that hint at the existence of a child-like group of people that violently enforce good behavior for someone named “grandmother.” It’s disturbing, and strangely familiar to (but not the same as) the late nineties horror adventure games that weren’t afraid to be downright weird.
All prisoners...? But, I don't see any prisoners--oh wait, they're referring to me.
When you finally do get a sense of what is going on, it isn’t what you would call “family friendly.” One of the puzzles has you taking a ride in a cage that leads into the room of one of the grandchildren. You discover a note that suggests that you are either a meal or a sexual favor to the grandchild who has “earned it.” The note instructs the grandchild to shut his door so no one will walk in “this time.” Creepy, creepy, and creepy.
The game has a gorgeous interactive environment with a somewhat twisted texture style that is at times reminiscent of the old Nickelodeon show, Rugrats. Although quaint and charming, it is still breaching the cutting edge of video technology. You are going to need a decent setup to run this game as it is not small and makes great use of the Unreal 4 engine. Additional polish is still being added and I can only imagine what the final product will look and feel like.
Just look at these toilets. Gorgeous, I tell you. Apparently, the grandchildren will sit on them for hours at a time.
The voice acting is appropriately high quality and makes the strange creatures that you eventually encounter, human and relatable (further giving more life to this austere adventure). I thoroughly appreciated the effort put into the voice-over work. I know I’ve already praised the original Thief series enough as it is, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of the efforts that Looking Glass Studios put into it’s creepy yet funny characters. Ape Law does the same thing here. It is believable and fits the creepiness and cult-like behavior of the grandchildren.
Another homage that Albino Lullaby (perhaps unintentionally) pays to the Thief franchise is your ability to crouch and sneak. You can even manipulate some lamps in the game, that will cast a blue light which deters the grandchildren from following you. Although sneaking is optional, it takes a significant amount of satisfaction away from the game if you don’t. Part of reaching certain objectives requires a little bit of espionage. Simply running through all of it can be rather impractical (not to mention its easier for the grandchildren to get a hold of you).
It's creepy fun sneaking around this place...
Only having played a small amount of the game so far, I can say I am already sold. My only gripe is that the press demo does not show more (then again, that is why it is just a demo). My favorite moments included having to retrieve a TV clicker from ‘Buck’: one of the grandchildren who has “misbehaved” and is therefore locked up in the top floor of the mansion, in a series of white padded rooms where he is forced to watch videos on proper etiquette. It’s unsettling, but funny at the same time.
Obviously the demo is designed to get you to want to play the game—and it succeeds—however, the most refreshing part about Albino Lullaby is that it shows there are still game developers out there who appreciate entertaining the player through smart and subtle story progression. This game has that at its core. You could argue that there is a little bit of Monkey Island, Thief, BioShock, and System Shock 2 all wrapped into Albino Lullaby. With attributes of games like that, it’s hard not to be excited about the rest of the game. Personally, I’m looking forward to it, and so should you.