Lost Words: Beyond The Page
Craving wordly possessions
On the first page of her new journal, Izzy leaves a mission statement: “I want to be a writer!” While she’s yet to realise what a terrible mistake that is, she does know that just wanting to be something isn’t enough. A writer writes, and so Izzy creates a story about a young word magician chasing a terrible dragon.
Your role is twofold: in journalling sequences you control a nimble girl who literally jumps between the sentences Izzy writes.1 Sometimes you pick words to complete sentences, or interact with the images that go with the journal entries – after deciding to get rid of a history essay about Vikings, for example, you can pick the Viking’s torch up off the page and burn the image of the test. In the second portion of the game you play Izzy’s fantasy heroine in a 3D side-scrolling platformer. As Izzy narrates, you make your way through small dungeons and a use a book of magical words to remove obstacles – so with the word “rise”, you raise platforms, while “repair” can get rid of debris.2
This is a beautiful game with a clever concept and a wonderful soundtrack, but it’s unambitious in its execution. The story is an obvious metaphor for Izzy’s grief when her gran has a stroke, valuable for young players but too on-the-nose otherwise. There are very few magic words to use, and no real puzzles to speak of. It offers a sweet story clearly geared towards children like its protagonist, but the gameplay doesn’t live up to its potential.
FOOTNOTES 1 Lost Words was written by Rhianna Pratchett, who’s written for a number of well-known videogames, including the Tomb Raider reboot, Thief, Mirror’s Edge, and more. 2 If you’re playing on the base PS4 rather than PS4 Pro, Lost Words can struggle a little – when things start getting busy on screen, it stutters.