Indie Game of the Week 405: Planet of Lana

Here I go, an entire review where I quiet my inner Archer fan and won't mention a "Danger Zone" even once. Wishfully's Planet of Lana is a 2D puzzle-platformer game in what is increasingly the Chahification of that Indie genre: a mostly wordless, vibes-based experience full of cinematic ambition that balances its time with platforming, environmental puzzles usually involving moving boxes around to reach higher ledges, and occasionally a bit of stealth. Playdead cornered the market on these things for a little while but I've seen them pop up regularly over the past decade (The Way, Gris, Inmost, etc.). That's not to say I personally am growing tired of these cinematic puzzle-platformers, mind, and Planet of Lana is certainly one of the better ones to come along in a while thanks in part to both a striking presentation and some pretty involved puzzle instances.

The story sees the titular Lana, orphaned and without kin save her elder sister Elo, visiting the graves of her parents when a force of black robotic entities raids her village and takes everyone hostage including Elo. Chasing after her sister's floating prison pod, Lana stumbles through forests, swamps, caves, beaches, and deserts eluding these automaton abductors while figuring out a path forward through decaying remnants of human civilization, everyone having long abandoned the wilds to hostile boar and insect creatures (which she also has to look out for). Lana eventually meets a small monkey creature she names Mui who, while not filling the gap that Elo left behind, is still a Livin' Thing to which she needs to Hold On Tight (sorry, I'll behave) and also becomes instrumental to solving puzzles—as well as sometimes being the source of same; it absolutely hates water, so finding something for it to float on is frequently a short-term goal. While the only spoken words are names and a foreign language (possibly fictional, but I don't want to reveal my ignorance if I can help it) the game opts not to translate there's a few context clues in the background that might fill in the background of this world and that of the robots.

Much like the Playdead duo the game occasionally takes on some lofty presentational ambitions by zooming the camera out to soak in whatever's happening in the background, whether it's something as quotidian (but still beautiful) like a sunset or the spectacle of a whole army of robotic foes tearing ass across a desert, and uses these moments as a sort of stylistic breather between its brain-scrambling environmental puzzles. Lana eventually picks up a couple of items that adds to her repertoire when making it past some hostile force or deadly hazard: the first allows Mui to hypnotize animals into moving around or growing less hostile so she can pass, while the other lets her hack computer panels to basically do the same thing with nearby patrolling robots. Before then, though, your best bet is to hide in tall grass or squeeze under small gaps where enemies cannot pursue you. Being caught by a foe is an instant game over (it checkpoints pretty frequently, at least) but it's sometimes necessary for one of you to create a diversion, especially when you consider that both Lana and Mui have to pass whatever's in the way and they have different skillsets to work with. It feels like I've played so many games now where I have to escort some little critter around (or a really big one, in the case of Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom or The Last Guardian) but I still appreciate when games give those companions as many cool hero moments as they do the protagonist. Plus, there's a dedicated pet button for it so all's forgiven.

While the animations are smooth and most interactables are well-telegraphed that puzzles are mostly about execution than they are about stumping you for hours with obtuse solutions, there's parts of the game that can feel a little awkward. Stuff like missing jumps by a hair when you expect it a game this deliberately structured be a bit more "regimented"—not like Mario where a jump's height and distance comes down to player involvement, but more the old Prince of Persia system where every movement has a set distance—but I guess it's a credit to the precision of whatever engine this game uses that I can fluff a straightforward leap because I wasn't quite at the edge of the platform. My biggest bugbear, achievement nut that I am, is that the game has several rug-pull moments that you can't always account for in time and will likely die from as a result the first time you encounter them and then despite that chooses to institute a "no deaths" achievement for the entire course of the game (which, conservatively, is about five or six hours long). There's ways you can cheat to avoid a death "counting" but it's still one of those cases where the developers of a game don't always have the keenest idea what achievement types work and which don't, specifically when it comes to crafting same to suit the type of audience they can expect. I don't think anyone's playing a cinematic and entirely linear story- and puzzle-driven platformer like this aiming to attempt multiple runs until they're capable of absolute perfection in their execution. Even if those types are coming to this game, it's only because they've already mastered all the masocore platformers on the other end of this genre's accessibility/skill spectrum.

A few minor gripes aren't enough to diminish an attractive and involving game with a few surprises and a generally strong command of its narrative (easier when you can only go one direction I suppose) and a pretty cool '70s sci-fi aesthetic for its solid-black circular robots and their neon-colored lights creating a strong juxtaposition with the planet's more natural and technologically primitive backdrops. As someone who's been playing Chahi-esque games since they were new in the early '90s there's always a warm feeling I get when I meet another traveler in the wild who were inspired by the imagination and scope of those games to create their own (or, as might be the case as the years go by, one or more intermediates instead). The game is equally as compelling when you're having a quiet moment with Mui as the sun goes down as it is while sprinting through a danger zone with hordes of matte black droids in pursuit. (Aw raspberries, I almost made it to the end of the review.)

Rating: 4 out of 5.