Published , by Will Borger
Published , by Will Borger
If I ever see Ysbryd at a trade show, I always make sure they’re one of my first — or last — stops. When I go to Ysbryd, I know I’m seeing something good. This year, I saw Ysbryd near the end. The last thing I played at their booth was Love Eternal. I knew absolutely nothing about Love Eternal before I sat down with it, and honestly, that’s how I’d recommend anyone play it. Like I said, it was my game of the show. If you can, go in blind. Don’t even read the Steam page. Seriously. It gives too much away. Just add it to your wishlist and be done with it.
Still here? Damn, all right. I guess I actually have to write this thing. Here goes nothing: The Love Eternal demo I played opens with a young girl named Maya being called down to dinner with her family. They’ve just started eating when the phone rings. You take Maya into the next room to get it, and when she does, her family’s gone and the front door is open. When you head outside, the house is nothing more than a burned-out husk. The only way now is forward.
Love Eternal’s setup is immediately intriguing, but what really grabbed my attention was sound design, whether it was the echo of Maya’s footfalls or the lovely and haunting score. Every sound in Love Eternal carries a sense of purpose, a feeling that adds to the overall ambiance. The same is true of the absolutely stunning, beautifully animated pixel art. Love Eternal feels surreal, ethereal. Like Maya, you are moving through a place that should not be, but is. The journey alone would be compelling enough, but that’s not all Love Eternal has to offer. There’s a good game here, too.
The gameplay is simple. Maya can run and jump, but what makes her special is her ability to reverse the flow of gravity. At its simplest, that allows her to avoid pits by walking on the ceiling, but because Maya carries any momentum she’s built up when that happens, it makes for some creative platforming that asks you to trigger it at just the right moment. Once you feel comfortable, Love Eternal introduces red gems that you can crash into in mid-air, which allow you to change gravity’s flow again. Love Eternal demands precision, but once you understand it, you’ll be dodging pits, reversing gravity, skimming the edge of a block of spikes, touching a gem, and doing it all again before safely touching down in the right place. And then it’s onto the next room to see what’s waiting for you.
If the opening wasn’t a clue, this is a psychological horror game. I’d rather not spoil what I saw beyond that initial scene; suffice it to say, it was creepy, weird, intense, and often raised more questions than it answered. I never got any answers in my demo, but I almost didn’t want them. At least, not yet. I gave myself over to the mystery, the vibe, and the platforming, and that was enough to ensure I was hooked.
Once I put my controller down, I had exactly two questions for Toby Alden, one of the developers at brlka, the team behind the game: “How?” and “How dare you?” I meant the latter in the best possible way, but the former was a genuine question. Love Eternal is the product of about seven years of work, and the level of care brlka has put into it shines through every second of it. I’m a little upset I can’t just devour the whole thing now. But I’m happy to wait a little longer if it means playing more of something this good. Good things come to those who wait, and we often don’t know what we want until it’s right in front of us. I’d love to tell you I planned it like this, but the truth is I got lucky. I just happened to save the best for last.