LUNA The Shadow Dust

 PC
LUNA The Shadow Dust Image
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 18 Ratings

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  • Summary: LUNA The Shadow Dust is a fully hand-animated Point&Click puzzle adventure, brought to life through wordless storytelling, beautiful cinematics and a breathtaking original soundtrack.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. 4Players.de
    Feb 13, 2020
    85
    Quotation forthcoming.
  2. Ragequit.gr
    Feb 13, 2020
    85
    A small work of art, well-made and compact, flooded with colours and bittersweet feelings. Unfortunately, it doesn't last longer than a Saturday gaming session.
  3. Noisy Pixel
    Feb 13, 2020
    85
    Luna: The Shadow Dust is a nice nod to classic point-and-click puzzle games. Everything melds together beautifully, and it provided me with a solid puzzle experience. Despite my aversion to this genre, I found the experience pleasant overall. Some of the puzzles left me stumped, but after getting through them I felt accomplished in their defeat.
  4. Buried Treasure
    Feb 13, 2020
    78
    So what price beauty? Patience. And how much you have with the game will determine your enjoyment. For me, an hour or so after finishing it, I’m already finding the memory of the irritations melting away, and the lovely art and story taking over. But the exasperation happened, and it’s my job to say so.
  5. New Game Network
    Feb 14, 2020
    76
    LUNA The Shadow Dust is a streamlined point & click adventure that offers superb art design and peaceful music. While many of its puzzles are simple, some late-game challenges make fantastic use of the two well-animated characters in a brief tale told adequately without words.
  6. Game Informer
    Feb 13, 2020
    75
    If Luna had not been so obtuse, it might have been close to greatness. I loved the atmosphere and the little touches in this world. Many puzzles are a joy to solve, but the bad ones are so poorly constructed that they tipped my frustration over the edge. As much as I wanted to love Luna, I felt like the game was pushing me away.
  7. Slant Magazine
    Feb 12, 2020
    50
    Its point-and-click adventure elements eventually feel alternately rudimentary and more than a little tedious.

See all 13 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. paol0
    Feb 14, 2020
    10
    Amazing illustration style, a bit like Shaun Tan's artwork. Very enjoyable, not-too-hard puzzles, ambient music, overall great family game.
  2. farkasdavid01
    Feb 13, 2020
    10
    LUNA The Shadow Dust is one of the very best indie game I have ever played. Charming art style, beautiful music and great story.
  4. GamerGuysNGals
    Feb 17, 2020
    8
    “Luna the Shadow Dust”

    Reviewed By: Mouseboy Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux (Steam) Developer: Lantern Studio Publishers: Application    “Luna the Shadow Dust”

    Reviewed By: Mouseboy
    Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux (Steam)
    Developer: Lantern Studio
    Publishers: Application Systems Heidelberg, Coconut Island Games
    Release Date: Feb 13, 2020
    Price: $19.99 US (Steam)
    Players: 1
    Genre: Point-and-click Adventure

    Game reviewed on PC (Steam).

    Luna the Shadow Dust is the kind of game that you have no idea why you’re playing, but you enjoy it every step of the way. A classic point and click adventure, with minimalist design, lacking any narrative, voiceover or dialogue, Luna still manages to get its point across with great animation and superb game development.

    Created by a Chinese team from Shanghai, this game exudes the love of its designers, from hand-painted incredibly detailed backgrounds, to instantly loveable characters to the thought-provoking puzzles in every level. While similar in game design to classics like Botanicula and Machinarium, it’s clearly visually inspired in part by Miyazaki films and the Little Prince and the combination goes well together with the overall art style and direction.

    The music is phenomenal, orchestral and rich, and the sound design is clean, with just the right amount of sound effects (and good use of audio positioning). It’s the kind of game you just want to leave running in the background for the soundtrack alone.

    The game itself follows a boy named Üri and the strange cat-like creature he rescues, Layh, as he climbs a tower full of mysteries. Each room of the tower has different challenges, puzzles that often involve interactions between light and shadow or pattern matching using the environment. Clues to solve the puzzle are often hidden in the background, though sometimes they are too obscure to be very useful.

    There are 24 easy-to-medium difficulty achievements on Steam for those achievement hunters out there, and the game as a whole can be finished in 4-6 hours (with another hour for completionist achievement hunting). Although the game lacks native game controller support, as a point and click game, all that is really needed is a functioning mouse. The settings menu is remarkably simple as a result of this choice.

    Although the game seems short it has a variety of interesting puzzles and a beautiful story told through animated cutscenes.

    Pros: Amazing hand-painted backgrounds, but still low-impact graphics, could play on a computer built out of canvas. Diverse variety of puzzles. Beautiful cutscenes.
    Cons: Some puzzles lack the clues necessary to proceed without random clicking. Occasional mild bugs. Puzzles often require overly-repetitive actions.

    Overall: 8 of 10
    A beautiful work of art to point and click through.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

10
#10 Best PC Game of 2020
16
#16 Most Discussed PC Game of 2020

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