Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure

Worth buying? What 242 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 242 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 91%Very Positive · 91%2021

$15.99

US Steam price, checked 5 h ago

The verdict

A short, atmospheric pixel-art sci-fi noir with a strong story and light, easy deduction puzzles. Skip it if you want challenging detective gameplay or hate replaying without skip or manual save.

Great for

Story-focused players who like noir, cyberpunk, pixel art and reading-heavy narrative adventures with choices

Main risk

Puzzles are trivial and the story is linear; seeing all endings means replaying everything without saves or skips.

What players love

Gripping story and worldbuilding

Mentioned in ~1 in 2 positive reviews

“Turned out to be one of the best short stories I have encountered in games.”
Steam review · 9.8 h played ↗

“The story itself is incredibly gripping and keeps you hooked from start to finish, where your choices actually feel like they matter.”
Steam review · 7.6 h played ↗

“Interesting plot, interesting setup, and of course a great ending.”
Steam review · translated · 12.3 h played ↗

Atmospheric noir vibe and soundtrack

Mentioned in ~2 in 5 positive reviews

“Wonderful, atmospheric and gritty noir story of a hard-boiled cop in a cyberpunk futuristic city.”
Steam review · 7.7 h played ↗

“some good lofi jazzy music and gorgeous pixel art”
Steam review · 7 h played ↗

“Atmospheric jazz, pleasant pixel art, interesting puzzles.”
Steam review · translated · 5.7 h played ↗

Choices with real consequences and multiple endings

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews

“The choices felt meaningful and like they had consequences and never as if there is a clear "right" answer.”
Steam review · 3.3 h played ↗

“Decisions really do strongly affect the plot. Not just 'a different line here and there', but serious changes.”
Steam review · translated · 4.9 h played ↗

“The branching story is so seamless integrated that you only realize how drastically things can change in retrospect.”
Steam review · 5.1 h played ↗

Beautiful pixel art

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews

“absolutely stunning pixel graphics and atmospheric music”
Steam review · 6.6 h played ↗

“The lighting that changes when you move under a lamp, or light a cigarette, perfectly executed panoramic blurs, occasional bokeh”
Steam review · 17.8 h played ↗

“The music and graphics are chic! You could use it as wallpaper.”
Steam review · translated · 4.9 h played ↗

Satisfying deduction with case sheets

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews

“The sweaty trembling before hitting submit on my case sheets is an addiction.”
Steam review · 6.9 h played ↗

“The mysteries are not particularly difficult to solve, but I enjoyed them and appreciated the fact that you need to pay attention”
Steam review · 6.3 h played ↗

“A nice thing: you can make mistakes and it has consequences.”
Steam review · translated · 8.9 h played ↗

Good short length and value on sale

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews

“At 90% off you should buy it without thinking.”
Steam review · translated · 5.8 h played ↗

“A well done game to spend 1-2 evenings.”
Steam review · 14.2 h played ↗

What players complain about

Boring, generic story and flat characters

Mentioned in ~1 in 2 negative reviews

“it completely leans on a generic story with no real characters, and a sort of noir moodiness that is only alluded to, never evoked.”
Steam review · 12.7 h played ↗

“Characters are limited entirely to their baseline tropes, you play as a generic Noir detective with the prerequisite divorce, estranged kid, and chain smoking habit”
Steam review · 6 h played ↗

“A very mediocre quest with an ordinary story and stuffiness.”
Steam review · translated · 15.2 h played ↗

No skip, manual save or chapter select

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“No manual saves, no reloading previous saves, no skipping cutscenes, multiple clicks needed to skip each line of dialogue. This game has no respect for your time.”
Steam review · 5.1 h played ↗

“Playing through the same thing 8 times — I'm not sick.”
Steam review · translated · 8 h played ↗

“the developers thought it would be a great idea to include 8 endings but not include a chapter select or a way to skip cutscenes”
Steam review · 15.3 h played ↗

Clunky controls, navigation and interface

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“the interface doesn't facilitate this at all (no searching your conversations, notes, clues, news, etc)”
Steam review · 4.1 h played ↗

“the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane camera yanking around left and right”
Steam review · 0.4 h played ↗

“having to hold shift throughout my gameplay to sprint is immersion breaking”
Steam review · 7.7 h played ↗

Little real gameplay, tedious walking

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“A game without gamplay. You're railroaded to travel to a particular location.”
Steam review · 9.8 h played ↗

“The game features an absurd amount of boring running around (holding your controller stick to the right or left) through environments that offer zero interaction”
Steam review · 6.2 h played ↗

“the second half of the game turned into a train-ride simulator with tedious conversations”
Steam review · translated · 4.1 h played ↗

Choices feel illusory

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“according to the list of endings, only the last two choices affect the ending in a significant way”
Steam review · 5 h played ↗

“it's an extremely false sense of choices matter”
Steam review · 15.3 h played ↗

Puzzles too easy and over-assisted

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“The puzzles are trivial and the game highlights every relevant clue in yellow.”
Steam review · 2.6 h played ↗

“made the puzzles so easy that failure is entirely theoretical”
Steam review · 4.5 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Verified

Minimum

OSWindows 10 64-Bit

ProcessorMulti-core 2.5GHz

Memory6 GB RAM

GraphicsGeForce 750M / GeForce GTX 650

Storage3 GB available space

Recommended

OSTBD

OSWindows 10 64-Bit

ProcessorMulti-core 2.5GHz

Memory6 GB RAM

GraphicsGeForce 750M / GeForce GTX 650

Storage3 GB available space

More games to check

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Very Positive · 83%

+ Stunning visuals and art direction

− Hand-holding, railroaded detective work

analyzed 3 d ago

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Overwhelmingly Positive

+ Satisfying deduction puzzles

− Worse than Obra Dinn / shallow gameplay

analyzed 5 d ago

This Is the Police

Very Positive · 83%

+ Gripping noir story with moral dilemmas

− Repetitive gameplay that drags on too long

analyzed 5 d ago

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

Overwhelmingly Positive

+ Powerful, twist-filled story and ending

− Weaker cast and story than the first game

analyzed 5 d ago

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