A few years ago, Cuphead changed the game when it came to what games could look like. The hard work of Studio MDHR showed what could be done with modern tools available to game designers to create beautiful 2D animation in any style they wanted. Since then, other games have strived for capturing the magic and unique visual fidelity that 2D animation can offer. One of the latest of these is Luna The Shadow Dust which features hand-drawn animation in a style that I would describe as Over the Garden Wall meets Adventure Time with the cute visual appeal of Studio Ghibli films. So aside from its distinct visual design does Luna The Shadow Dust stand out? Let’s find out!
Luna The Shadow Dust starts with a beautiful cutscene of a young boy, Üri, who finds himself in a desert place where a tower magically appears. Unsure of how and why he is there, he enters the tower. Luna The Shadow Dust is a point-and-click adventure puzzle game in which the player ascends the tower and solves the puzzle of each room such as playing with light and shadow, observing various wall and floor patterns, and combining forces with a magical cat-like creature named Layh. Using the two of them to navigate each puzzle feels comparable to the Trine games. Üri is able to manipulate machinery, pull levers, and push heavy objects. Layh can get up to high places, fit into smaller locations, and has the incredible ability to transition into a shadow that casts on the wall jumping and interacting with the other shadows being cast. The puzzles offer some good variety with some decent challenge without being complete madness. Usually, this means experimenting with the gimmick of each room until you understand what the puzzle is. The main difficulty I faced with Luna The Shadow Dust was the controls, as it’s sometimes difficult to determine what can be interacted with. This is a problem that plagues most point-and-click style games. It can take someone out of the experience though, as the solution could be simple but the thing that needs to be interacted with is just missed on accident. The simplicity of most of the scenes helps alleviate this in Luna but didn’t eliminate it completely.
Visually, the game really shines. There is a lot of charm put into every aspect of the design. Utilizing subdued colors like watercolor pencils and pencil linework combine to create a texture that really enhances the hand-drawn aspect of the art direction. The characters feature nice arcs in the linework giving them a soft and appealing look, this creates a contrast in the environments that will usually have straight lines. The animation is solid and isn’t afraid to take its time and let you really feel the weight of an action when necessary. The real standout though is the cutscenes which are beautifully done and awakens that childlike sense of wonder in me and motivates me to move forward.
While I knew going in I was going to be pleased by what I saw, I was surprised to also be pleased by what I heard. The soundtrack is wonderful to listen to and has become a part of my regular rotation. Hitting all the right emotional beats, being intense or triumphant when it needs to or calm and otherworldly when needed. The soundtrack features a wide range of beautiful harmonizing stringed instruments and percussion. A majority of actions are accompanied by a soft and subtle sound effect, selling that the action was successful.
Luna The Shadow Dust is a fun and charming point-and-click puzzle adventure. Making your way through the tower and uncovering more of the mystery and story is really enjoyable and the puzzles themselves offer enough challenge to make solving them satisfying without being too frustrating. It all comes together in a package that is appealing to not just me but my 5-year-old daughter too. We thoroughly enjoyed playing through this together and I would recommend it to any parent looking for a more educational based game to play with or to get for their kids.
Learn more about Luna The Shadow Dust on the official website. A digital copy was provided for this review. For another family-friendly adventure, check out my review of Shovel Knight: King of Cards, a retro-inspired platformer with a card game element. Secondly, a mischievous game about a rogue fowl, Untitled Goose Game was an instant hit with my family and definitely worth looking into.
