Okay, Locator isn’t really all that much like Return of the Obra Dinn, I just said that so you’d click the article. Headlines aren’t long enough to squeeze in a full description of the game, but I’m doing what I can. It’s like Obra Dinn and Golden Idol in that it’s a detective game, and those are two of the best and most well-known indie puzzlers out there. I gotta do what I gotta do to get your interest.
X Marks The Spot
And Locator does deserve your interest, even if it technically isn’t really like either of those games I just mentioned (sorry). Maybe it’s even more deserving, because of its unique gameplay loop. You play as an interstellar cartographer who receives an urgent package in the mail – a woman’s sister, Abigail, has gone missing on an alien planet, and she needs your help to trace her movements so she can be found.
Alongside a missing person poster and a letter from Abigail’s sister is a diary and a photo journal. Your job is pretty simple, at least at first – look at the photos, taken from ground level, and compare them to your map of the area to figure out where those photos were taken. Then you mark the area on the map. Locations are confirmed in batches of three, so you have to mark three locations correctly before you know they’re right.
As batches of locations are confirmed, you gain access to more photos and journal entries. Naturally, as with games like these, it gets harder to pinpoint locations the further along you get. You go from identifying landmarks in photos to squinting at maps, trying to figure out which of the near-identical options is the right one based on the position of the land and the exact angle of a walkway. It’s fussy, yet rewarding work.
You’ll have to work with information in the journal to understand the planet’s constellations, get a grasp of basic astronomical navigation, and (quite literally) get your bearings. It’s unclear as of yet what’s happened to Abigail, but I’m eager to find out.
Puzzle Me Puzzle Now
I’m an avid puzzle lover, and Locator scratches all the right parts of my brain. While its premise is fairly simple, the maps are very cleverly designed to familiarise you with its concepts slowly without ever really throwing you into the deep end.
The second map in the demo has its hardest puzzles, partly because it consists of four near-identical villages and three near-identical “projection pools”. You’ll organically learn to tell them apart with their geographical differences and with help from the journal entries, which give you just enough information to tease apart the puzzles. Every location confirmed also gives you the foundation to solve further puzzles – it’s just really good game design.
It also helps that the game’s art is absolutely gorgeous. I love that your workspace, a desk with the maps, photos, and journal on it, is gently illuminated by lamplight, and that the maps are beautifully detailed, with textured water and a surprising amount of detail.
I can’t wait to play Locator in full, but it doesn’t have a release date just yet. In the meantime, you can play the demo here.
A Geoguessr-inspired detective game set on an alien planet. Pinpoint the exact locations of photos to track down missing archeologist Abigail Lidari. Cross-reference journal entries, decipher cryptic symbols, and uncover the mysteries of an ancient civilization.
Locator combines the spatial reasoning of Geoguessr with the logical deduction of detective games. Use constellations, alien architecture, wildlife, cryptic symbols, and even temperature to pinpoint the location of photos.