After playing through Movie Games first title in this erotic horror series, Lust for Darkness, and enjoying it despite its flaws, I was excited to see that Lust from Beyond was announced. After they set up a Kickstarter, which quickly met their goal, they were able to offer a demo on Steam to those who helped fund the project. This demo is what I based the first impression on and it shows a very promising sequel.
Story
You are Christopher, one of the few Seeing’s that are part of the cult that praises the erotic god and wishes to glimpse into the land of Lusst'ghaa. As the lucky Seeing, you are the first of them to make your way into the land and quickly find that pain and pleasure go hand-in-hand. But will the actions of you and the cult be blessed or cursed by the god within?
Gameplay
Before you even start getting into the game, they added a censorship mode. This was interesting as it was not an option in Lust for Darkness. I did play through originally on uncensored, but did the first half of the demo in censorship mode to see what had changed. This mode simply adds blurs to cover anything that resembles genitals creating a comical, since the sexual nature is not even remotely hidden, yet effective way for them to make the game friendly for a wider audience.
Just as the first game, you find yourself traversing either a mansion or a strange world. Either way, you are defenseless against the dangers that lurk around the corners when you lease expect it. Your goal will be changing to different objectives, but it is often a mixture of finding a specific item you need by exploring various rooms or locations that can range in visuals containing heavily sexual or horrific themes (if not a mixture of the two).
There are plenty of puzzle elements in the demo alone and is sure to be expanded on in the full game. They provide a turn-to-shape style puzzle, where you have to line up a wall with different colors on them in a specific pattern by turning the various slides, and a few searching puzzles that get you looking around for specific items in both the mansion and within Lusst’ghaa.
An interesting aspect is how they kept the dangers inside the mansion as well as within the erotic realm. In the first game, you were an unwelcome guest, so it was naturally dangerous to be spotted. This time, as an actual cult member, you have your own room, but it is the actions that you take and the ritual that you help the cult perform that turns out to be the ultimate downfall of your safety.
Expectations
I can see the player spending a lot more time within Lusst’ghaa throughout this game than we got to in the first title. The demo does end stating that you will be continuing the story as a different character named Victor Holloway, but if his experience is going to be anything like the demo, then the erotic realm is going to be a frequently traveled location.
The puzzles are sure to get a lot more extravagant and difficult, bringing us to be mixing the way we use our mind to solve things by having to figure out little puzzles within a much larger one. The demo features the turn puzzle in the midst of the item hunt and hope to see this style of “solve this in order to get that which is needed to continue progress in the ultimate puzzle” more often and expanded upon.
I am also hoping that they intend to make this game a longer experience than their first title. With a game featuring a unique theme, especially since they prove to be doing it properly, we are going to want more than just a few hours on this journey. The demo showed that we are going to be changing characters, which should both lengthen and fluctuate the experience we go through.
Conclusion
The Lust from Beyond demo was a great way to kick off this new game and shows some serious promise as the series continues. Mixing multiple scenes of subtle and pornographic level erotica with scares ranging from unsettling to horrifying, they are looking to make a better game than they did before. I am looking forward to what the full game will hold and have no doubts that it is going to be full of the sexiest scares Lovecraft could hope for.
