The snippets of story conveyed through the nicely animated cinematics are cryptically told, hindered by the lack of dialogue. Not that you’ll ever really understand very much. We’re probably to assume this is where he came from, but this is a wordless experience so any understanding of the world is derived mostly through cutscenes. Once safely on the ground, the child sees pieces of a tower assembled right before his eyes and he makes it his task to enter and climb to the top. It’s an enticing fantasy opening that instantly raises many questions. You take control of a young boy with rosy cheeks, white bunny hat and dungarees, whom we first see falling from the sky, only to be saved by a spirit. It was like being served a delicious-looking meal that is every bit as good on the first bite, but peaks too soon with diminishing returns. I wanted to enjoy it more fully, but I felt underwhelmed.
I did enjoy my time with LUNA and there are some fun puzzles to solve along the way, but it doesn’t do anything incredibly noteworthy (other games have done similar things better) and one’s overall appreciation is undoubtedly elevated by the rich sensory experience. That’s not to discount the actual gameplay entirely. That said, the further I progressed, the more I realised that there wasn’t much more to the experience than the same basic formula established early on. The end result is an adventure bursting with creative vision: its art is warm and inviting, while the music will enchant and transport you. According to her, the aim of this game was to expand on the world established in the film and blend it with the kind of gameplay the team enjoyed playing. LUNA was inspired by an animated short that artist Beidi Guo made at university. And indeed I was thoroughly impressed by a gorgeous aesthetic that could rival many animated films, though the game's linear procession of puzzle sequences is a bit too shallow to warrant the same kind of enthusiasm. So I was excited to play LUNA: The Shadow Dust, the successfully crowdfunded debut by a small team promising to pair charming visuals with adventure game puzzling goodness. It’s becoming increasingly rare these days due to how time-consuming it is to produce, but seeing it always makes me feel comfortably nostalgic for the classic cartoons I grew up watching. I’m a sucker for traditional hand-drawn 2D animation.
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