62 / wfmag.ccReviewRated
GENRE
Adventure
FORMAT
PC (tested) / Mac
/ Linux
DEVELOPER
Lantern Studios
PUBLISHER
Application
Systems
Heidelberg,
Coconut Games
PRICE
£16.99
RELEASE
Out nowInfo
ReviewRising out of a crowded field
ong-time perusers of the world’s
PC digital storefronts will know that
these places are far from shy of
indie point-and-click adventures that
are, you know, fine. I’ll be honest: I
was expecting LUNA The Shadow Dust to be yet
another of these very OK puzzlers. I was delighted
to discover that I was wrong.
The game begins with a child falling from the
sky and landing at the base of a huge tower.
The reason is revealed as you progress towards
the game’s climax, but your goal from the outset
is obviously to get to the top. Each room of the
tower is a self-contained puzzle – there are no
items to pick up – that you must solve by switching
between the child and a cat-like companion you
meet early on. There’s no text or dialogue in the
game, so there’s often a bit of experimentation
needed to work out what you need to do and how
you should go about achieving it, ensuring that
there are lots of satisfying little eureka moments.
There’s nothing groundbreaking about LUNA’s
puzzles, but they are nevertheless well designed
and varied, and the game gets good mileage from
its character-swapping mechanic. Every time I
thought it was settling into a rhythm, it would
come up with something new: the idea of your cat
companion being able to leap into the realm of
shadows or a season-swapping dimensional door.
What I really like about the game, however, is
much more intangible and difficult to articulate.
That is, the feeling it evokes. Through its music,
its art, its animation, and its storytelling, itcreates a gestalt of sentimental cosiness. In that
sense, it is reminiscent of the films of Studio
Ghibli. They are clearly an inspiration for LUNA’s
beautiful art and, unlike many other games
that have also employed that style, it manages
to capture something of the spirit of those
films: that homeliness; that sincere kindness;
that bittersweet sensation of nostalgia; that
aforementioned gestalt of sentimental cosiness.
The argument here isn’t that LUNA is as ‘good’
as a Ghibli film, rather, that it resonates in similar
ways. It cushions notes of sadness in affability
and warmth, making it a pleasant place to inhabit
and generating plenty of affection in its favour.
LUNA delighted me on many occasions – with
a stunning flash of colour from stained-glass
windows, the scale of a wonderful magical library,
a moment of insight that allowed me to penetrate
the logic of one of its character-swapping puzzles- but I’m not going to claim it’s going to shock you
with anything revolutionary. There are no grand
claims to be made about it ‘pushing the genre
forward’ or anything of the sort. But who cares?
It’s a good adventure game and a lovely place to
spend a few hours.
L
VERDICT
A cosy and confident
point-and-click puzzler.74 %
ReviewRated
Though it lacks any words or
dialogue, the game does
have cutscenes throughout,
which tell its story visually.HIGHLIGHT
The game’s art is a real strong point.
Though its locales vary from the everyday
to the magical, there’s a coherence tying
everything together. This is only enhanced
by LUNA’s fantastic hand-crafted animation,
which brings its characters and world to life.
REVIEWED BY
Paul Walker-Emig
LUNA
The Shadow Dust
That instrument lets you clone
your little cat companion – and
who among us can truly say we
wouldn’t want multiple versions
of that chunky little cutey? The rooms of the tower range from
functional, to cosy, to magical.