A unique music experience

PROJECT FORLORN is a free indie game developed by synthcoder. This unique game is more of a visualization of an album than a video game in the conventional sense, setting you off into a different adventure than you’ve experienced so far. 

PROJECT FORLORN is closer to an interactive concept album than a traditional video game, putting it in the same class as other unique experiences like Gardens of a New World or First Land. It still has a set of controls for you to interact with the album but there are no characters or objectives to complete.

Project for Lorn

PROJECT FORLORN is described as a tribute project that was created by fans of the electronic music artist LORN. As such, the songs created by different artists have the same rhythm and overall feel. This creates a coherent theme that binds all tracks in the album together. Still created within the Unreal Engine, each track is accompanied by droning yet addictive visualizations that are mostly black and white waveforms.

Its controls are only for choosing the song and moving between them like you would when playing songs on Spotify or VLC Media Player. You can access the system menu but you can’t stop or pause the currently playing track. Also, it is an audiovisual experience and not a game. As such, it has no objectives or tasks to complete and no enemies to face–just you and a listening session.

The entire tribute album was wrapped in the idea that you’re a new employee for the Wednesday Research Association (WRA). Aside from the controls, you are provided with a WRA non-disclosure agreement that contains the classified information, namely, the album. Although there are no gameplay mechanics in the conventional sense, this semblance of a story separates it from listening to songs with visualizers.

Must-have for audiophiles

If you’re a music fan, not to mention electronic music or Lorn himself, then PROJECT FORLORN is a must-try experience. The game takes you on the role of a newly-hired research facility employee privy to confidential material. It has powerful and surreal tracks paired with visually engaging and thematically coherent visualizations. The developers managed to create a great audiovisual experience using one of the latest game development engines.