Point-and-click puzzle idea LUNA The Shadow Dust was born back in 2016 and was inspired by a student animation about a little man who flew to the moon. Artist Beidi Go (Beidi Guo) shared her thoughts about creating a game with her developer friends, and they showed great interest in this idea. To the team Lantern Studio included only four people living in different parts of the world (in China, Great Britain and Canada). This, of course, created certain communication difficulties, but the studio managed to overcome them. As well as problems with financing: money for LUNA The Shadow Dust collected by the whole world using Kickstarter. Despite the successful campaign, the project still had a very limited budget (about 20 thousand dollars), so Lantern Studio I even invested my own savings into the game. And, of course, a piece of your soul.

Moonrise Kingdom

The game begins with a boy in a funny hood with bunny ears falling from somewhere in the sky and landing in the desert. Having walked a little forward, he finds a door to a tower directed towards the stars and goes inside. There he meets a companion – a cat-like creature, and together they go upstairs.

The tower rooms are full of detail – they are decorated with frescoes and paintings, filled with all sorts of trinkets and ingenious mechanisms. To move from one such room to another, you must first solve the puzzle. To do this, you should take a good look around: usually the environment tells you what you need to do to move on.

Characters in LUNA The Shadow Dust they don’t speak, there is no text in the hand-drawn cutscenes, and the books that the silent boy finds are written in a language made up by the developers. The history of the world, its legends and traditions are depicted in many rooms of the tower, but the wall paintings also do not provide a full explanation of what is happening. We understand that we are again being told about the confrontation between light and darkness. The latter has won, and we need to restore harmony.

Unfortunately, due to its “silence” the game sags if you dig into its history. Yes, the main plot is clear, but the details, such as what kind of deities are on the frescoes and how they are connected to the tower, the player will have to either figure out or simply ignore.

Man and cat

Gameplay LUNA The Shadow Dust may remind you of Chuchel from Amanita Design. There is also no inventory or backtracking: puzzles are located on separate screens and are not interconnected. The developers themselves cite the following as sources of inspiration: The Neverhood — plasticine quest from Dreamworks – and the game is still the same Amanita Design: Machinarium and series Samorost.

There are usually several interactive elements https://cosmo-casino.co.uk/ on one screen – buttons, stairs, drawers, etc. They are not highlighted in any way, possible actions appear only if you hover the mouse pointer over the objects. Considering that rooms are full of small parts, finding what you need can sometimes take a while. Since we don’t have inventory, on each screen we just need to select a sequence of actions, not forgetting the ability to switch controls between the boy and the cat.

The characters complement each other perfectly. The boy can press buttons and move heavy objects, and his newfound friend, thanks to his dexterity and compactness, can climb where a person cannot climb. Sometimes the puzzles even require you to quickly switch between two characters, but for the most part the pace of the game is quite measured, and there is usually no time limit for solving problems.

In addition to all of the above, the cat can turn into a shadow and, in this form, jump on platforms formed from other shadows. The boy himself can become such a platform.

Most of the riddles in LUNA The Shadow Dust are harmonious and will not cause difficulties for an attentive player. But there are a couple of not entirely obvious moments in the quest. The illogic of puzzles is the problem with many games in the genre, and LUNA unfortunately, it was not avoided. On the other hand, there are few such tricky tasks here, and they occur only at the very end.

Another annoying point is the slowness of the protagonists: the boy and the cat move very slowly. Considering that in some rooms you will have to constantly move from one end to the other (add here also walking while searching for a solution), such a leisurely pace can tire. Some actions in LUNA The Shadow Dust for some reason it needs to be repeated several times: for example, in the library you need to make four identical trips on a cart to collect books. There is no way to skip this animation, and by the third time it starts to get boring. The game has a pleasant, soothing tone, but I wish it was a little more dynamic in some segments.

The logic of the quests in all its glory: the fresco in the other room suggests that the hero needs to scare away the birds, and it would seem that you wave your hand so that they fly away, but no – the boy does not do this, because, according to the developers, the riddle must have another, much less obvious solution.

Moonlight Sonata

Visual style LUNA The Shadow Dust evokes associations with the works of a Japanese animation studio Ghibli. Artist Beidi Go does not deny this and in several interviews admitted that she was inspired by the works Hayao Miyazaki (Hayao Miyazaki). In addition, she added the French comic artist to her list of creative references Jean Giraud (Jean Giraud) and Australian writer and illustrator Shauna Tana (Shaun Tan).

The musical accompaniment also did not disappoint and sets the mood for the entire game. It involves a lot of instruments – a piano, a flute, a harp and a violin. Each location plays its own melody, and since the rooms are traversed quickly, the music does not have time to get boring. Among the sources of inspiration this time were Celtic and ancient Eastern European music, as well as soundtracks Journey and series Trine.

Lantern Studio plans to release LUNA The Shadow Dust also on mobile platforms, and it seems that this format will suit her perfectly. The game can be completed in just 3-4 hours and is beautiful in its simplicity. Her heroes have no inventory, and they do not need to return to previously completed rooms. Towards the end, however, the locations begin to grow, and the riddles become more challenging – they force the characters to split up and try different solutions. Considering the leisurely walking of the heroes, such movements seem almost like a punishment for the fact that the player does not solve the puzzle on the first try.

Gameplay flaws, however, can be forgiven based on the game’s appearance alone. Her warm colors and detailed backdrops are amazingly beautiful. Plot videos are also pleasing to the eye – the story is told without a single word and overcomes language barriers. But this approach also has a drawback: even after completing the abstract plot, blank spots remain.

Pros: visual style reminiscent of works Studio Ghibli; interesting puzzles that require the use of the abilities of two characters.

Cons: due to the fact that the story is told without words, many of its moments can only be guessed at; solutions to some riddles at the end of the game may not seem obvious; leisurely walking of the main characters.