It's more Lorn's Lure and it supports the dev who made Lorn's Lure, what more do ya need :)

Seems like it could be good for some, just not my cup of tea I think. Won't be refunding since it was cheap on-sale and I don't mind the dev keeping the money :)

Combat just feels a little lame to me. There's a lot of focus on precision while moving at high speeds, but with little accommodation for anyone who isn't a sniper. There's a slow-mo mechanic built-in that is clearly intended to be leaned on heavily, but this slows down the combat to a crawl, and if you know what you're doing it simplifies encounters a lot. No issue with the parkour, it's pretty intuitive and fun. Though it is weird that the game wants you to jump around, but has no way to dodge while in the air besides strafing. It made me never want to leave the ground, which I think added onto the sluggish combat for me.

On the plus side, the aesthetic, sound, and level design is very impressive! I do look forward to seeing more titles from this dev, because they clearly have the talent for it.

It's fine. It's an entirely free mod that offers about 5-10 hours of playtime (depending on your proficiency completing the chambers) There's not much of a story, but it doesn't really set such a precedent early-on.

The time portal concept is amazing and done very well. The chambers are unique and feel like they utilize the new mechanic properly. It can be hard to wrap your head around at first, but once you gain a focus of understanding about the time portal, more chambers go pretty smoothly. You'll probably hit more than a few where the solution is vastly simpler than you were thinking.

My only complaint is that as the chambers go on, the solutions just get more and more tedious. You start to feel less of those classic "eureka!" Portal moments and more "Okay, I know exactly what I need to do, now what contorted 15 step process do I need to pull off to get there". If you mess something up or need to redo a section for any reason, it often requires a complete reset back from step 1 due to the rules of the mechanics. It's punishing, but also just plain tedium. I don't feel excitement for each new later chamber because I take one look and I suddenly realize the whole process I'm going to have to go through to complete it. Makes it hard to stay motivated to continue.

This is not a perfect game by any means, but for a free fan-made mod created by people in their spare time, this is awesome and should be played just because it's very good by those standards. It's not perfect, but you can still feel the love put into it.


Scrutinized by itself, there's a ton of cool ideas here that probably would've been realized much better if done as a full game production.
Each and every level was pretty easy and straightforward, the only real outliers being chambers that had me convinced they were more complex than they actually were. A lot of the test chambers follow a step-by-step or looping puzzle pattern where you complete one step, then that step becomes the setup for the next step of the puzzle, etc etc. Lots of running around in circles and setting checkpoints for yourself to return to a prior part. I think this improved my intuitive understanding of the test chambers as I went, and as such don't think there were any moments where I felt outright stumped as the campaign progressed. If anything it only got easier. The amount of time we were locked to the blue portal gun was fresh, but it overstayed its welcome a little too long for my liking.

The new mechanics were great, but most didn't stick around longer than a few test chambers. On average I think most of the new stuff showed up for about 3-4 levels then were either quickly referenced at random points later, or just never seen again. A lot of the new content doesn't even show up in the final boss at the end of the game, which felt like a huge missed opportunity. The new laser cubes were probably the coolest new addition, and it's unfortunate that we only get them for a few levels.

The voice acting was great. Both brought a fun new personality dynamic to the game's universe. Definitely a highlight.
Story and writing-wise, it's immediately obvious the parallels to Portal 2. I think the base concepts were cool, but squandered a bit in what felt like a rush to the end after the first half. The character dialog was fine; It was funny at best, and felt derivative of the inspiration at worst.

The environment design is another highlight, and managed to separate itself from Portal 2's aesthetic despite the obvious similarities. A lot of the game has you walking through these areas, and while some weren't a fan of these sections, I thought it was a nice break of pace to finally get a chance to look at everything going on around you.

The final "boss fight" and ending were the most disappointing part of the entire game. You're just sort of taken through a loop of areas that don't really do anything new, and only seem to use the same three mechanics. This was once again a situation where the game posed itself as more complex than it ended up being. You press some buttons and then it suddenly just... ends.

There's flaws here, but it's difficult to say no to free new Portal content.

The quests in the game range from boring at worst to mildly frustrating at best, which is basically my only complaint about this game. Kill X with X, go to X location and press E, find obscure location from obscure directions, etc. There's not a lot of good meat there, but it's bearable and does add some good variety to play sessions.

Everything else is the peakest of peaks. There's an incredible amount of run variety here down to the people you meet in-game alone. The ARC that add that extra layer of unpredictability that makes every match completely different is the cherry on top. Sometimes you'll be strolling through sandy beaches with the sun dipping through the clouds, plucking as many pretty seashells as you can off the ground before taking a nice relaxing plane ride home. Other times it's like an immediate apocalypse where every minute creates new ground for reliving your own Vietnam War and everything is on fire and everyone wants to kill you.

The core gameplay loop and mechanics are much more casual and everything is vastly more digestible than your average extraction shooter. The playerbase is generally kind to each other when topside, and the average etiquette when meeting others is to go about your business or help each other with ARC encounters. In all of my games thus far, the spread has been about ~70% friendly and ~30% shoot-on-sight. It's refreshing to say the least. It feels like a good balance of chill player encounters and the occasional high intensity death battles. Obviously, none of this is stopping you from being part of that 30% every encounter.

There's a lot else I could pack in here but for now this is an EASY recommendation.

Arena Instagib in 2025 and actually adding onto the concept is a blessing. Fun as hell game.

Simply some tight and quick gameplay basking under a $0 price tag. Doesn't do any more than it offers in the trailer, but it doesn't undersell itself either. There's very little to complain about here unless you're just not for this kind of game.

The content here is definitely minimal; The original map can be completed in like 5ish minutes once you get the controls down, but there's some neat lil workshop maps to play as well. Worth giving the shot if you're a fan of megastructures and/or unique platformers.