Laserlife isn’t like most video games coming out this year—it’s short, simple, and fairly low on production value. That said, it’s also hauntingly beautiful and engaging.
Laserlife is a very minimal game. Its setup sees a strangely-shaped alien ship happen upon the floating corpse of an astronaut drifting through space. From there, each of the 12 stages in Laserlife takes the form of memories from the astronaut’s life, extracted by what can only be described as shooting lasers into the skeletal remains. Through a series of hallucination-esque visuals the player explores the life of the astronaut, going all the way from their childhood to the fateful mission where they wind up dead.
It’s a very smart narrative concept, with the astronaut’s face, voice and even sex intentionally obscure, making it easier for the player to identify with their life. Memories touch on ideas such as being part of a community, making companions, falling in love, and going to school. It’s a story about how we create memories—or rather how our memories shape us. The return to the spaceship at the end of each stage is a grim reminder of the hopeful young astronaut’s fate.
Players navigate these memories using the two thumb sticks of their controller, controlling two on-screen laser trails that are used to collect nodes, pass through gates, and avoid obstacles. It’s a very involved process, with levels getting progressively harder as Laserlife introduces more mechanics with each opening stage. By the end of the two hour game, this writer found himself holding his breath trying to keep beat with the background music and match the on-screen prompts.
The background music is very much at the core of what makes Laserlife special. It’s bass-y and electronic, blending well with the neon laser visuals to create an engrossing experience for the player. Musician Chris Osborn should be commended for his efforts, with tracks like “Dawn” and “Freedom” being true standouts.
If there’s one problem with Laserlife, though, it’s that it feels poorly paced in the name of padding the runtime. Of the three parts to each level, the beginning and ending tend to become repetitive in terms of background visuals and music. This isn’t terrible since the gameplay itself is still engaging throughout, but one can’t help but feel the need to rush through these sections to get to the middle of the memories where the bulk of the story is found. It would be interesting to see how the game would be paced without these less interesting sections weighing down the flow of the story.
Overall, Laserlife is a resoundingly positive experience. It’s the perfect game to play on a weekend night with headphones on and time to kill. It lends itself well to the “games as art” movement, and moves the medium forward as a whole. Anyone who can look past the $15 price tag will find developer Choice Provisions’ most recent game something truly special.
