‣ Planet of Lana
From: Wishfully, Thunderful Publishing • Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Release: 2023
Steam Link • Demo Video
Lana and her creature companion, Mui, must help save their planet from an invasion of alien machines. Rendered in stunning hand-drawn art, players guide the pair on this epic side-scrolling adventure that mixes platforming with puzzle solving and some quick thinking to explore the lush planet and avoid its dangers. Play as Lana to navigate a lush world, avoid enemies and overcome obstacles. Run, jump, climb over obstacles, avoid enemies, and solve environmental puzzles, often by working with Mui.
Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:
📽 The adventure begins: Awaking in a forest. What happened?
📽 Basic mechanics: Run, jump, don’t fall!
📽 Helping out: You and your critter make a good team.
📽 Hungry rocks: Is that rock trying to eat us?!
📽 Puzzling: A taste of the puzzles.
📽 Trouble: Oh, no, we’re not alone!
📽 Things get interesting: The puzzles get a bit of physics.
📽 Survive: Watch out - something’s hunting us!
📽 The beginning of the end: There’s trouble ahead.
AIIG's Take: It's a great time for fans of side-scroller games, who can choose from hundreds of modern titles in the genre. Yet Planet of Lana stands out among all that competition. The demo gives a good sense of the game’s mechanics, which combine genre controls and tropes with some new ideas. Play as Lana and coordinate with her cat-like companion, Mui, to overcome obstacles and enemies, rendered in beautiful art and smooth animation. The word 'cinematic' gets thrown around a lot. But Planet of Lana deserves to be called an epic cinematic side-scroller. It channels classics such as Prince of Persia and Heart of Darkness and compares comfortably with modern hits like Ori and the Blind Forest and Neversong. We look forward to the final release, which is still a vague '2023'...