Love is a game I’ve been intrigued by for quite some time now, so I was very interested to see the alpha available this week. Love is made by Quel Solaar, a one man (Eskil Steenberg) production/experiment, somewhat described as an online adventure game. Essentially, the game revolves around building up settlements in the world, whilst defending them against the AI enemies. Over time, settlements rise, then fall, and begin to dissolve into the surroundings, becoming ruins you may stumble upon days later, a ghost of the shapes you formed.
A game that explores architecture like no other, in the purest most organic sense. The form of a settlement begins as the bare minimum defense structure(usually a wall), but as it becomes safer, modifications begin to reflect the aesthetics of the players. This personal influence is helped by the fact that servers are limited to a few hundred players, rather than the thousands in most persistent worlds, giving a better sense of community.
As it’s still in alpha, the game is rather unstable and has more than a few gameplay niggles, but the overall theme really shows through. Unlike any other game, Love can really suck you in and link you to its world. I’ll put some more thoughts on it as it evolves further.
