If Monument Valley got you hooked on mind-bending mobile puzzle games and you’re looking for a new fix, Lost Journey just might fit the bill. The new indie iOS game meshes the brain-frying optical illusions and seemingly impossible puzzle elements of Monument Valley with a platformer-style gameplay.
The story begins with the main character, Jennifer, asleep and hovering over a bed of stone. While she sleeps, Jennifer is visited by an angel in the form of a butterfly. She is awakened and sets off on a mission to gather shards of lost memories in a world she left behind. The forgotten world mirrors the one in which she currently finds herself, and that ties heavily into the gameplay.
As Jennifer begins her journey to find the missing shards of her memory, she encounters obstacles that she must jump over or climb on to progress. There are time warps Jennifer encounters that lead her to other segments of her journey, but the puzzle elements come when Jennifer finds herself unable to move farther or jump high enough to overcome obstacles.
There is a feature in the game that allows Jennifer to reverse gravity, which turns everything in the game upside down and inside out. If Jennifer encounters a tall obstacle she can’t jump high enough to get over, hitting the reverse gravity feature flips the obstacle, turning it into a pit she can jump into. Reverse gravity again, and now Jennifer is on top of the obstacle.
This is just one example of the many Monument Valley-style, mind-boggling puzzles players must work through in Lost Journey. There is little in the way of a tutorial, so you have figure things out as you go along. For example, it took us several minutes to realize you can push some obstacle against others to form steps rather than trying to jump higher or reverse gravity.
The graphics in the game are simple yet aesthetically pleasing and there is a mystical musical score to go along. Overall, we found Lost Journey to be an intriguing new puzzle adventure game that is sure to exercise your visual-spatial processing skills. The game is available for iOS devices and can be purchased for $0.99 on the Apple App Store To learn more about SoulGame, the company behind Lost Journey, visit their official Facebook Page.
