EDIT: SPOILERS OPEN

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our 19th game of 2023 is Planet of Lana. The target completion date is September 12, 2023. (Note: it would normally be the day before but because of what that date represents I'm moving it one day later.)

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after September 12, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You are also free to come back any time after the completion date and share your thoughts! This club is meant to be open to all whenever you want to join in the fun!

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What is Planet of Lana?

Planet of Lana is a 2D exploration puzzle platformer with a chill alien vibe.

How long is Planet of Lana?

How long to beat lists it as 4.5 hours long.

I'm interested to see what people thought of this one. I....did not really like it, even though I wanted to. The aesthetics are great (except for the nonsense language) and the story is fine for what it is, but it's yet another puzzle platformer in an absolutely saturated genre and the gameplay is just so boring. It was a real slog to get through. Oh joy, 2D stealth elements in a game that doesn't control very well. Oh look, a puzzle where you search the environment for clues to see what symbols to enter. AND ANOTHER ONE!

If this were the first puzzle platformer I'd played maybe I would have liked it more but after so many others it just felt bland and boring to me. I loved how it looked and there are some genuinely thrilling or moving moments in the game, but I feel like the developers had everything you need to make a game except a good idea for the game part, and they just threw in puzzle platformer because it's kind of an indie standard genre. I would have preferred an action platformer, or an adventure style game.

And the stealth was so tedious. 2D stealth can work (I actually think the Assassin's Creed Chronicles games are underrated. They're not masterpieces but they can be fun.) but not this kind of 2D stealth.

Aesthetics 9/10

Gameplay 3/10

Overall 6/10

That feels right to me.

Ironically I think I had a better time with Sommerville, another Limbo/Inside inspired game that I didn't think was great, but at least that had some really trippy visuals and some kind of interesting mechanics.

ETA:

To be a bit more positive the best moments were the opening that introduces the world quite well, the song interlude in the middle, and the mid-game boss fight, all of which were really sweet. Also in the ship when you see the babies and the human habitat. It's jarring in a good way.

To be a bit more negative, that final boss fight was hot garbage. It wasn't hard, but really you want to end your bad playing puzzle platformer with a button mashing QTE boss fight? Was it to intentionally show contempt towards the player? The first part where you're running between the platforms was okay, though a bit annoying, but I thought it was going to be some epic platforming challenge where you have to run back and forth and use all your tools from the game to defeat the boss. No. QTE. Mash those buttons like it was 2003!

In typical fashion I haven't finished it yet, but I do plan to. I know it is a short game, but the repetitive puzzles have prevented me from being able to sit down with the game for long periods of time. I do think the presentation of the game is beautiful, but having played a lot of these types of games, this one just doesn't do much to set itself apart outside of the art style.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to solve two of the puzzles so far though, but I think it was mostly of my own accord. One was the a wind chime puzzle where you had to line up objects on the pipes to make it match clues found around the environment. I found two of the clues immediately but spent a 5-10 minutes looking around for the other two before I eventually just gave up and brute forced the puzzle. I'm still not sure where the other two clues were.

The other was one of the stealth puzzles where I just didn't realize that so long as you were hidden in the grass, the enemy could run past you without harming you. I think I just forgot about that between playthroughs though.

Overall, I think it has been an OK experience, but I already wonder if it is something that was just kept being made longer for the sake of being longer, if that makes sense. Although I am now especially curious to see this final boss.

@noboners: I also disliked the wind chime puzzle. Two of the choices are revealed if you backtrack to the cave and light up the purplish wall painting thing. One is revealed if you take Mui to the upper left where there's a light node he can activate. I didn't bother looking for the last because it was easy to brute force it from there.

I think I get what you mean which is that the game doesn't feel like it has enough ideas to carry its length, even though it's not very long. It just repeats itself visually and in terms of puzzles over and over, with minor variations, and its boring because the visuals are nice but not exciting and the puzzles are dull. I agree. I understand why they felt they had to make a 4.5 hour game for commercial purposes but they didn't have enough ideas to flesh one out.

Compared to the puzzles (and set pieces) in games like Limbo or Inside, which it is CLEARLY heavily inspired by, it's just a lot less interesting. It doesn't have great mechanics like Boxboy or a compelling narrative like Lost Words: Beyond the Page. We live in an age of enormous numbers of puzzle platformers and "it's kind of pretty" and "it's not broken or completely horrible to play" just aren't enough.

I feel bad ragging on this game because a lot of very talented people clearly worked on it, but it has an 80 on Metacritic and just...no. That's the same rating as Boxboy, and Boxboy is a whole lot more fun to play.