Lou’s Lagoon is finally here and I got to dive into it a bit early to see what makes it tick.
If you’re unaware, Lou’s Lagoon is an exploration and crafting adventure game where you respond to your Uncle Lou’s distress call, only to find the islands in disarray and your Uncle nowhere to be found. In an effort to find Lou, you’ll help rebuild the community and create a base of your own. Explore on foot to meet the locals and find secrets, or take to the skies with your seaplane to get a different view and participate in some flying challenges.
Now that I’ve experienced a lot of Lou’s Lagoon, here are the things that I wish I knew before diving in.
Lou’s Lagoon Tips
- If you get stuck, there is a respawn button in the options menu under the general category.
- For controller users, there is a lot of vibration for things you’ll need to do over and over again. If you have sensitivity in your hands, you’ll need to go to the settings to turn the vibration off. At this moment, this does not save, so when you boot up the game again, you’ll need to redo this setting.
- There is a setting that will auto-rotate your map that may be confusing; this is just for your mini-map. It won’t affect your camera view by automatically swirling in the direction you’re facing.
- When pinning quests, a dot will show up in your sightline that will guide you to where you need to go and tell you how close or far away you are from something.
- Be careful when starting a game back after the first gaming session. For some reason, “new game” is at the top and it’s easy to accidentally click on. I don’t think that will be game-ruining if you accidentally click it because there are several save slots, but I was unwilling to test that for certain because I was several hours into the game. So, just be careful, just in case.
- When it comes to saving, you’ll want to make sure that you’re in a good spot to do so. If you’re in the middle of something, you’ll want to finish it because the game will load you back at the front of any map and won’t save the spot that you saved at.
- For controllers, sprint is keyed to RB, which isn’t in a natural hand motion. I found that by rekeying it to LT, it ended up being a more natural gaming experience for me. The only thing that LT does is transfer resources into something that you’re building, so it doesn’t interfere with anything.
- Some maps will have environmental platforms or gimmicks that you’ll need to use a resource for to engage. These generally allow you to reach an area that you can’t get to without it. These platforms don’t last and will disappear, requiring more resources to be put into it to reengage. So, be mindful of that if you have limited resources.
- To pick up resources, you’ll use a swirler that will pull the items to you. It starts at level 1 and can only pick up basic things without upgrading it. You’ll know what you can suck up or not because it will highlight green or red.
- If you try to suck up something your swirler can’t handle, it’ll overheat and you’ll need to wait for it to cool down to use it again. Luckily, it doesn’t take long to cool off, but it can be an annoyance if you’re trying to keep a flow.
- You’ll be able to farm up all the resources on an island; if you need more than the island has to offer, you’ll need to leave it and come back to get them to respawn.
- Your swirler will automatically pick up everything in its range, so when one spot it sucked up, it will immediately start farming the next space. While this is useful, it will also auto-attack enemies because they hold resources. If your swirler isn’t upgraded, you won’t be able to farm anything from them and you’ll likely need to run so that you’re not hit.
- Once you do upgrade your swirler, you’ll want to give enemies a wide berth because if you’re too close, they’ll attack you and not only stop your progress, but knock you down as well.
- As you explore, you’ll want to keep an eye out for hidden chests. They’ll have unique items in them for cosmetics, upgrades, and items to give the villagers. If you keep an ear out for them, they emit a sparkly sound that you’ll be able to follow to it’s location.
- If you’re looking for metals, you’ll find them through fishing. Fish scales will have ores like copper and silver that you can harvest. Whether you’re fishing during the day or at night will affect the type of scale you get. If you’re looking for silver scales, those can only be acquired at night.
- To catch fish, you’ll need to go through a small mini-game where the fish will tug against your line. If you want to have an easier time, drop the lure closer to you so that it has less space to reel in. The fish you see swimming around are not the ones that will come to your lure; they will spawn off-screen and swim in, so it doesn’t matter how close to shore you are.
- When flying, you’ll notice that there is debris floating in the ocean and balloons holding crates hanging in the sky. If you hit the balloons, you’ll get resources. Or, if you decide to just glide along the ocean, you can pick up the floating resources. Also, don’t worry about the Kraken, I sailed right through it while on the water, and it didn’t hurt me.
- Your storage is finite. You’ll only be able to increase it one slot at a time by finding or earning zipper upgrades. If you’re overflowing, you can destroy an item to open a slot by right-clicking or pressing A. Additionally, if you’re near your plane, there is a small amount of storage space there to help you when harvesting on different islands.
- At some point, you’ll be prompted to build an area where you can set up machines. You’re on the dock when this happens, so it can be a bit confusing as to where you need to place things. It’ll be beside the lab on the shore.
- Eventually, you’ll earn the ability to make a drone station. This will allow you to gather a certain amount of resources for a small amount of money and a bit of time. This makes harvesting a lot easier.
- Once you start getting into bigger builds and machines, you’ll notice that the only way you can open up more options is with Spark Cores. These cores can only be obtained through completing quests for the various villagers on different islands.
- Sooner than you think, you’ll be asked to go to Gleam Island, but you won’t be able to progress anything there until you’ve opened the glider. So, be sure to do that before heading that way if you don’t want to waste a round trip. In order to open the glider, you’ll need to first upgrade the swirler to the second stage since you’ll need resources you can’t farm with the base form.
I hope this guide helps you out and I’d love to know if you enjoy playing Lou’s Lagoon as much as I have! As a side note, I am the type of person who is sensitive to motion and while it wasn’t a bad case of motion sickness, Lou’s Lagoon did trigger a mild case for me.
