Love Eternal is a 2D psychological horror that blends platforming with an unsettling atmosphere to tell the story of Maya. Maya, your character, finds that a normal family dinner turns into a nightmare when a selfish, lonely deity kidnaps her, trapping her in Shelter, a world within the deity’s mind.
Maya isn’t alone in this strange prison, but she faces obstacles such as spikes and lasers more often than she faces other people. Instead of combat, you have to rely on your wits to get through the screens, and your tools to do so include running, jumping, and even being able to flip gravity. It’s a platforming that makes you stop and think before you move through the levels.
Love Eternal is developed by Toby Alden, otherwise known as brlka. Prior to this game, most of their games have been available on itch.io. Now, they’re bringing the experience they’ve gained through those platformers to Love Eternal and releasing the game on Steam. So far, it feels like a solid platformer, especially if you love puzzles.
The Visuals Atmosphere in Love Eternal
I love horror games, and I play a lot of them, but I don’t usually play psychological horrors that are platformers. For horror in general, the atmosphere plays a primary role in how successful the game is. If a horror game is unable to properly set the scene, then the storyline and mechanics aren’t going to be able to make up for it fully. You simply won’t be as unsettled or disturbed as you would be with a strong atmosphere.
Love Eternal takes an approach to atmosphere that feels minimalist for most of the game, and I find that it’s a decision that worked in this case. The atmosphere is set through visuals and the audio.
I find that the visuals did a decent job overall. I tried to sit and examine the background for each level to see if I could learn about the story through them. Some of the backgrounds repeat, but they show a lot of emptiness and dilapidated areas, reinforcing that you’re now in a location that isn’t the normal home and town that you started the game in.
It’s eerie to see another Maya ahead of you at times. I liked the story-relevant screens that would change up the visuals and let you get a clue or two about what happened to you and why this deity randomly decided to trap you.
The other visuals are more subdued, letting you see and focus on the mechanics of the puzzle you have to get through. I would’ve liked to see more frequent story-based screens, but I understand the choice to have a heavy focus on puzzles since you’re working to escape with the hope that doing so lets you return to your family and normal life.
Love Eternal Needs more Sound Options
Most sound effects in the game are fitting for the actions. They aren’t revolutionary or anything, but they’re essentially what you expect for platforming effects. However, I’d love an option to lower the volume of just the sound effects while keeping the music at a higher volume. I’d also love the ability to turn off the death sound effect, because it starts to get annoying when you hear it repeatedly.
The music isn’t distracting, which is good. It does well adding to the atmosphere, since it’s often slower, matching the uncertainty of Maya as she explores this eerie location that she’s ended up in when she was just supposed to be at dinner with her family. It’s an overall solid sound design, but the lack of options to tailor the volume of various aspects of the sound is somewhat disappointing.
I also want to point out the use of silence in the game, which is an atmospheric choice that’s becoming more common, especially in horror. It’s well-used in Love Eternal, and you immediately have the feeling that something is wrong when the music just stops. While it might seem like a simple shift, it’s so noticeable in games because you grow accustomed to having the background music. Suddenly not having it is unsettling, which you want to use strategically in gaming.
The Fun of Physics in Love Eternal
While I tend to love stories the most in games, I actually loved the gameplay itself the most in Love Eternal. The physics and the way Maya moves feels smooth, but also like there’s weight to her. Gravity is a core mechanic, and you feel that drag of gravity when you jump and when you reverse gravity.
There are plenty of screens that left me frustrated. I have no doubt that my death toll would be in the hundreds at this point. However, I didn’t reach any screens that had me feel that they were impossible to get through, which is an important part of platformers. If I’m sitting at a screen that genuinely feels impossible to get through with a reasonable amount of skill, I’m not going to want to keep playing that game.
In between the tough levels, you get a break with easier screens that take one try to get through. So, there’s not an endless stream of frustration. It’s more like paced frustration with easy passes and some story bits sprinkled in. In that way, the style of gameplay reminds me of Limbo to an extent, even if Love Eternal has more straight platforming in it than I felt Limbo had.
The puzzles and the way that mechanics work with them are actually quite creative. They look simple at times, but simple doesn’t always mean easy. There were several screens where I would wait and watch the objects moving—if there were any in that screen—and find my path, forcing me to slow down instead of trying to rush through the game.
It helps that save points are generously placed around the screens. I think almost every screen in Love Eternal that had a puzzle you could die in had a save point at the beginning. As long as you use the save points you find, the game is approachable even for players who aren’t big on platformers, but maybe want to try one out that isn’t overly punishing.
The Story of Love Eternal is Subtle
The description of Love Eternal calls the story experimental, and I think that’s a fair way to put it. At the same time, I find that a big reason that it feels experimental is due to the way it’s told in combination with the gameplay. I won’t lie that I went into the game skeptical about the story and the horror elements.
It starts off slow, but that’s not unusual for horror games. They tend to build up the story and atmosphere piece by piece. You get some details that characterize Maya, even if those details aren’t overly important. The opening gives you the impression that Maya is just a normal girl with a normal family. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about her to the point that a deity would decide to kidnap her, so it feels like a random choice on the deity’s part.
The shifts between the family home and prison do a lot of heavy lifting for the story, and they help build the unsettling feeling that you tend to want from a psychological horror. From there, you get more story through bits of dialog when you come across the rare other people trapped by the deity.
As for the content of the story, it feels quite similar to a Greek myth, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that those myths were a core inspiration for Love Eternal. At the same time, it’s not the kind of story that I would sit and dissect, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s interesting, but not mind-blowing. I would say it’s respectable for an indie dev who’s shifting to Steam releases from itch.io.
Love Eternal is a Solid Indie Game
I love indie games. I love seeing people pursue their passion despite the challenges of the gaming industry. It’s not easy, and while Love Eternal isn’t a breakout game, it’s a respectably solid indie game from what I believe is a solo developer. The game is definitely going to appeal more towards players who enjoy puzzles with platforming as part of the game rather than players who prefer the classic style of platforming or Metroidvanias.
Love Eternal is above average. It’s quite a smooth game, and it’s balanced so that you don’t feel that it’s overly easy or overly difficult. The problem is that it doesn’t have enough to set it apart as a platformer or as a psychological horror. It has unique elements that it uses well, and the use of a gravity system forces you to think about the puzzles from the top and bottom of the obstacles, as you usually flip between them.
Love Eternal presents unique puzzles with the gravity system, and it’s a game designed in a way that makes me interested in what might come next from the developer. With the level design skills they have and now the experience of trying something that has the vibes of a Greek myth, brlka could be ready to create a breakout game that Love Eternal didn’t manage to be.
Love Eternal is a solid platformer filled with puzzles and some psychological horror elements that make it feel like its own Greek myth. However, it isn't able to set itself apart from other games in the genre to make it a breakout game.
The Good
- Sound design is well done
- Creative puzzle design
- Difficulty isn't overly punishing
The Bad
- Lack of sound options
- Average story
- Leans towards unsettling instead of full horror elements
