Archaica: The Path of Light is a pretty puzzler with lasers and mirrors
Debut from Polish developer Two Mammoths looks promising
Archaica: The Path of Light first piqued my interest about a year ago with a trailer showing off some pretty environments and puzzles filled with lasers and mirrors. It's just slid onto Steam, and if you're looking for something to scratch your head to it could be worth checking out.
The objective is simple: you have to rotate and move devices, including mirrors, to direct laser beams and light up all the crystals in a given level. The devices (there's 28 in total) are specific to each of the game's six realms, all of which have a varied art style that I like the look of. The transitions between puzzles look slick too, with ancient stones sliding into place and swirling beams of light shooting into the sky.
Developer Two Mammoths says there's between eight and 16 hours of puzzling to be had depending on how many optional hidden hieroglyphic slates you're willing to find—which is how you learn more about its story—and how many secret levels you stumble across.
The hint system looks promising, too, gradually steering you towards a solution if you get stuck rather than spoon-feeding you the answer.
It's the debut game from the polish developer and it's been three years in the making. For what it's worth, the handful of early Steam reviews are all positive.
If you like the look of it, it's £9.89/$13.49 on Steam, which includes a 10% discount.
There's no gameplay in the trailer at the top of this story, so here's four minutes of puzzling the team released last week:
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Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.