This morning, thanks to the folks at RockPaperShotgun, I checked out the Steam demo for Locator, which calls itself a “Geoguessr-inspired detective game set on an alien planet.” I’m not done with the demo yet, because I am wretched at maps and locating myself in space, but I’ve taken to the site both to tell you about the demo and to get you to play it so you can help me.
You’re tasked with tracking down the location of a missing archeologist, using her notes and photos to drop pins to recreate her journey across the planet. Things start off not too tough: there’s an obvious crash site with an obvious landmark. Later levels get a little more tricky: which wooden bridge are you standing on, based on where some towers are? I struggled for ages with where to position myself related to a set of stairs by some teleporters, because here is where I admit that despite being a 43-year-old man I still sometimes have to turn my whole body or my phone around to understand how to parse a basic Google Map.
Some levels have little puzzles that involve using the missing archeologist’s notebook. One photo is completely dark, but she’s named the statues she’s near, so you can guess where you might be based on that. The level I’m currently wrangling with involves figuring out where in a cluster of beachside huts I am; the archeologist’s notes tell you that huts can only have one of two kinds of doorways, which is helping me narrow things down somewhat (there are triangle doors in one photo, so I can’t be at the huts I previously IDed as having circle doors), but my brain is trying to do so many things at once: determine which cluster the photo is referring to based on its shape or landmarks, turn the overhead view of the map into the on-the-ground view of the photos, and then imagine walking in this imagined 3D space to figure out an exact location.
Locator validates your guesses in sets of three, so I sometimes ran into the situation of setting myself on the wrong path based on an initial wrong guess before learning it was wrong. When the demo opens up a bit, not restricting you to three puzzles at a time, it’s a little easier to come back to wrong guesses or tricky puzzles. Not all the photos and clues are in order, which adds another level of complication: recreating the chronology of the archeologist’s journey to understand her progression through the photos on top of everything else.
I can see the Geoguessr similarities in the core concept and design, but in its narrative, Locator is very different. To me, the fun in Geoguessr (which I also suck at) is learning about new areas of the world; here, it’s more about the spatial puzzle and locating yourself on the ground than imagining different parts of the world.
I have a positively abysmal sense of direction despite being someone who regularly propels himself great distances on foot or bike, which means the constant companion on most of my adventures is Ride With GPS’ “you’re going the wrong way” chime. While playing Locator, I’ve been tilting my head or spinning my chair as I hold a photo and a map in my mind. You, a person who is maybe more fit for basic survival on the corporeal plane than me, might have to do less of this silly choreography. But I’m really digging what Locator is doing and curious to see where the full game goes. There’s no release date yet.
