Sometimes it’s fun to put genre aside and think in terms of tradition. When it comes to genre, Lana Planet is easy to pin down: it’s a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer, and more specifically, a game focused on stealth and cinematic storytelling. What about tradition? This makes it more interesting.
The genre alone is enough to place it with games like Inside and Somerville – games with which it shares a post-apocalyptic focus. The world is overwhelmed by terror! Escape if you can! That’s all well and good, but tradition can be surprising, and when I played Planet Lana, I found myself thinking a little bit about the idea of a masterpiece. Maybe not a masterpiece in modern usage, but in the old sense – I may have this wrong, but let’s go on for now – the work that someone does to show the world that they are very good at something.
It is a masterpiece in the sense of consciously making a good work. Perhaps, with the central drive of creating excellence, creating something that trumps a specific mechanic to be explored or a story that just needs to be told. In this way, a 2D cinematic platformer is perfect. Just as everyone at Wedgwood knows what to expect from the bowl, so they can judge that the Wedgwood bowl is more refined in every way, modern audiences are familiar with 2D cinematic platformers. Limbo! in! All that jazz. We’re so familiar with how and how they work that the eye has a chance to shift focus a bit and notice those little traces of cleverness and lightness of skill – the sun playing in the grass, the grass moving in the breeze that stirs the soundtrack and beckons you From one ideally conceived encounter to the next.
All of this is to say that nothing in Lana’s planet is really a surprise, but I’m not sure if that means a surprise. It means elegant finishes, artful details, and no frustration. it is. Over time, I think it has become more of it too.
The game begins in a delightful pastoral community of people living the land, wearing work clothes and building houses out of wood on stilts. Everything is artfully set against a backdrop of large rocks, creeks, and rollings, suggesting that this paradise stretches as far as we can see. Sadly, invaders are on their way, black metal boats with cages for capturing people, huge tankers that probably drink all the water here and process all the wood, smaller units wandering around at human levels killing what they see anyone. And black slime – part of the invasion? slidely different? What is the use? let’s see.
Fleeing from these alien threats means running from left to right and solving a series of puzzles, most of which revolve around stealth as you sneak past those humanoid killing machines. Combat is definitely not an option, which is a great addition to the game because it makes for a more polished design. Instead, it’s a series of challenges focused on avoidance and manipulation, mixed with traversal and some progressive skills.
In the simplest cases, when you know the enemy is patrolling, there are patches of long grass to hide in, rocky passages to sneak in – usually limited to a screen or so – and look for openings. Things get more complicated when you throw in some basic jumping and climbing challenges, and things get even more complicated when you meet a cute critter, an ink blob inspired by cats and dogs .
But don’t get too inspired by cats, obv, because you tell the creature to do things and they obey you. You can guide them onto ledges you can’t reach to drop ropes for you, or you can send them into caves to pop up elsewhere and lure the robot away. Commanding the creatures is as simple as pulling the trigger and aiming, and you’ll find more and more uses for them as events unfold. They can depress pressure plates, pinch cables, and ultimately take control of some other part of the ecosystem.
Crucially, though, sometimes they need your help in return. You can tell them when to stay put and when to follow, but if you’re separated by water, you’ll need to help them get across. In this way, it is a happy judgment. This little animal is useful, but it’s also expressive and delicate, and it needs your care and help too. It’s perfect for the simple piece-by-piece puzzle worlds the game throws at you.
Planet of Lana is steady and rhythmic. Its environment slowly changes as you progress, from dreamy grasslands to gloomy woods, deserts, and beyond into some very strange spaces. It knows when to give you some complex multi-part challenge – avoiding enemies, trapping them in a certain part of the level, making the environment safe before climbing – and when to put some simple traversal on your way so you can Can take a breath. It sends you underground, but never stays so long that you feel claustrophobic. It tells a story that unfolds steadily, but is so understated that you can ignore it if you want. The challenge expands by building on what you’ve learned – you can swing on ropes, but what if they’re igniting cables right now? – There’s something old-fashioned and elegant about the way Planet of Lana keeps shuffling the basic elements of the changing business, never giving you the exact same challenge twice.
In other words, it’s a game that disappears in pleasant sips. There is no incomprehensible content introduction, allowing you to quickly enjoy the fun of puzzling. Nothing is hard to use–your AI companion both behaves well and responds to very clear controls, as do all the machines you interact with in the later moves. There are brain teasers here, but no frustration. As your abilities grow, you can think about broader things in each puzzle without becoming overwhelmed.
Other than that, it’s very stylish, with those softly hand-painted grasses and fairytale trees giving way to different lands, all of which balance beauty and readability. The big rock on the planet Lana! Big slimy monster with shiny eyes. In one sequence, I run across the beach under and between the metal legs of a giant striding robot — I won’t forget it. In another game, I spent two minutes being spooked by a spider creature that turned out to be a perfectly slanted leaf on a bush just to remind me of a spider.
For a while, I wasn’t sure if Planet of Lana was ultimately going to move people. I couldn’t help but respond to the critters I was traveling with, and the story went through all the expected beats that made the relationship count. More than anything, though, I get the sense that Planet Lana is having some sort of dialogue with all the games it loves. Seeing how gracefully I can do this, it seems to say, how subtly I can teach you this mechanic and set this story beat. See how I cleverly nested one puzzle within another and used the second puzzle to change the pace of a certain part of the story.
Yes, all of them. What is certain is that in the course of my gameplay, I never forgot that I was playing a well-made video game–an original masterpiece. Also: run between the thighs of stalking monsters. A cave where I encountered an ancient puzzle that was also – whispered – a musical instrument! A cave, a beast looming in the darkness ahead, eyes glowing. I think that in moments like these, pure craftsmanship becomes something else. It becomes my memory. Years later, that sense of being in a special place can pop up when I least expect it.
iGamesNews
