Over the years there’s been an incredible number of atmospheric platform games that have a larger focus on the story and how your character navigates through it. Both of PlayDead’s games Limbo and Inside were especially strong examples of this approach and it’s great to see that Planet of Lana from developer Wishfully Studios is carrying on from where those games left off and has delivered a really cool title in the process. You take the role of Lana who witnesses an attack on her home by alien machines that results in her sister being taken away. Alone and defenseless she has to find a way to travel the world and save her. Soon enough she also encounters the cat-like creature Mui and the two of them team up to tackle a hostile environment full of challenges that often require both to work together.

It’s easy to get the wrong impression of the game at first as it’s quite lovely to look at with a painterly art style that starts off bright and cheerful. There’s some real care taken with the visuals with subtle touches such as when you cross between light and dark areas and the screen takes a moment to adjust as your eyes would, or how the camera gently zooms in or out of areas to provide scale without breaking the user’s involvement in the scene. The music is REALLY good and used brilliantly – there are a number of moments where the player transitions between areas and I’ve been surprised with good the tracks are and that they help a lot in making those moments feel important to the overall story.

The puzzles are environmental, requiring use of your abilities and timing to navigate through and they do encourage you to search every corner you can see for information and many of the solutions come down to careful timing and placement. There’re also a few secrets to find which will appease the achievement hunters. There isn’t a huge amount of backtracking as you’re almost always moving forward, or in this case, to the right side of the screen, so progression always feels constant. Players wanting to tackle challenges in small doses should find this an appealing experience.

Planet of Lana is a great game that delivers by combining an engaging story with solid game mechanics and a presentation that shows an incredible amount of polish. I’m looking forward to seeing more games from this team. 🙂

Planet of Lana is out now for PC and Xbox with PlayStation and Switch coming soon. Played on an Xbox Series X via Game Pass.