Luma Island
Game Title: Luma Island
Released: November 20, 2024
Game Length: N/A
Grade: A
Gameplay
Progress: Let me preface this by saying that the vast majority of the game is optional. You do not need to take on professions. You don't need to repair everything in town. If you aren't concerned about the good ending, you don't even need to hatch any pets. You'll need to at the bare minimum build the main bridge to reach the forest, repair the gondola to head up into the mountains, and repair the lighthouse to learn the secret location of the jungle. You don't have to open every chest you see. However, that would make the game pretty boring. In each region, there are a number of books you can collect through hidden areas and at the end of each temple. These books simply provide you a way to craft more decorations for your farm. Items like moss, clay, nails, and glue are all designed to help build houses and expand things for your farm. While not specifically mentioned, the items you collect that don't seem to have any purpose can help you open doors in the temples or build the unique structures at endgame. These include meteorites for Stonehenge and ectoplasm for the Obelisk. Things obtained from spiders or the limited necklaces you receive through the temple don't seem to serve any purpose other than currency fodder.
Character: Setting up who you are in the beginning of the game is very important. You will not be able to change your name or outfit. Though, they are working on a feature. Each house has a bed you can sleep in that will speed up time towards the next day. Sleeping is not required. There will also be portals in the basements of each home you craft that takes you directly to the region(s). Any kind of vehicle you build will provide you an option to teleport directly to town. You can sit in chairs and benches. If you have Arachnophobia, you can turn spiders into ghosts with the option in menu. There are a number of emotes you can express on the screen. Every single item has an animated preview window to show you how to properly use the equipment, where things can be found, and what might be required to make a product. Multiplayer can get a little technical with how they will need a fresh character but overall a nice aspect to have when you can up to four players together on the island. There is no split screen and the host must be online for others to play in the world. You can build a chest to share resources with each other or throw materials at each other if you want to have a little bit of fun. Everyone utilizes the same house but have their own individual inventory of resources and cash. Crops can be harvested all players. Stations can be used by everyone that has the associated profession.
Lumas: As the title of the game states, this island is full of lumas. You just need to find them first. These cute and cuddly creatures will be found in eggs. In order to hatch them, you must convert energy you collect from doing various activities in an incubator. One can be found in each temple and collecting most of the gem tokens in a specific region. Once you repair the pet shop, you can buy and hatch more of the same type you've already discovered in the wild. Place one into the slot to the right of your inventory to have them wander around next to you. They will function as a pet that will have their own sound effects and animations. They will sometimes run off temporarily and point out in their own special way when there's buried treasure nearby. For example, cats will roll on their back and the little mushroom will shake his head. Although you can buy various cats and dogs, along with one you obtain from choosing the treasure hunting profession, only the ones that hatch will provide you Luma Energy. These are necessary to craft every new recipe. One can be earned from petting them each day and another earned from feeding them Luna Food (looks like a bowl of berries). If necessary, a third one can be obtained by feeding them Super Luna Food that's bartered from the mushroom merchant. You can manually feed them by throwing the food nearby or placing them inside a trough. Lumas can be placed in crafted homes and roam around your farm. If you wish to withdraw one, use your butterfly net to "catch" a Luma into your inventory. For the good ending, you'll want at least one of every luma.
Farming
Cooking requires maintenance and brewery requires patience. Although you can potentially do all of the work exclusively on your farm without exploring any regions, there is quite a bit of networking involved when it comes to growing your crops. When you use your hoe to break open ground, there is a good chance that weeds will encroach your beloved garden. You can either pull them yourself or get yourself some rabbits (by buying them from the farmer and the rabbit home recipe from the librarian). Rabbits love running around eating those pesky weeds that prevent your crops to grow! There will come a point where you will want to supplement them with pigs that will dig up ginger and fertilizer when eating through the weeds. Your first and primary ingredient available from the farmer will be wheat. You'll need to convert quite a bit into flour. As you progress, there will be more crops that will need to be converted from their own machine (like sunflowers into oil). Every time you cook a new meal, the farmer will have another crop in stock for the next recipe. While there are less ingredients involved with the brewery profession, the time to ferment a bottle takes about a full day.
Growth: Crops do not grow during the night. Consider that your respite after a full day of maintenance. Most crops can only be harvested once. However, some crops and all trees can be harvested multiple times if you apply the appropriate fertilizer that matches their tier. To make things easier, you can load up sprinklers with fertilizer that will automatically disperse to any crop that needs them. Any crop that can only be harvested once will have an ever seed version available from the Mushroom Man in exchange for some regional tokens (according to their tier). The first few crops you plant should be fine with only some rabbits nearby eating the weeds, but eventually you'll discover that beetles will be stunting the development of your garden. There are a number of things you can do from stomping on them with your foot, using an extended hoe to break them, catch them with a butterfly net to use for any tier of fishing, or get yourself some chickens. Like rabbits, they will run around like crazy pecking off these pesky bugs. Plant a trough nearby with some hay and these chickens will lay eggs. Unfortunately, you'll then need to worry about a red fox that appears each day that scares them back into the coop. You can shoo the red fox away every morning at 8am, keep him away by building a fence around the enclosure (as long as the coop isn't too close to the barrier), or get yourself some goats. These mighty guardians will make sure the fox doesn't disturb your animals and provide you some goat milk in the process. At the higher tiers, you'll need to construct a beehive (as shown in the preview screen of the crop) with its own queen in the center of your crops for them to pollinate and grow. These hives will also drop honey. At the highest tier, you'll need to have some cows eat hay from a trough to give some cow milk.
Water: Did I forget to mention that crops need water? I thought that was implied. There's a reason why your watering can doesn't upgrade. The game does something a bit different when it comes to advancing your tech. Your first upgrade will be constructing a well anywhere you want to withdraw water. Next, you'll be able to construct an extendable hose that sprays an endless supply of water onto your crops. That should suffice for quite some time. Eventually, a couple different sized sprinklers can be built to automate the process. Or you can always hope for some rain to cover all your needs. You will not need to worry about your crops withering or requiring a certain kind of season.
Landscape
Puzzles: Each region is littered with chests to collect, but it wouldn't be a game without some fun activities. If you find a mysterious pot with a small plant, water it each day until it drops a chest. Find a spire with a mysterious blue ice block on top? Throw something to break it. Eventually a door will open if you shatter all of them in a region. A temple might require you to turn around these weird figures that shoot lasers out of their nose. Occasionally you will find a prism that will shine a pattern of red, green, and blue lights. Play Simon Says and touch the platforms accordingly. Return each day for an added note and a chance for another chest. Although the sequence can get rather long, the game is rather fair by never repeating the same color twice, will replay the sequence if you interact with it again (even if you already touched some platforms), and always give you another chance if you step on the wrong one. Make an offering to any shrine you find for a chest. If one of those shrines starts talking, pay close attention. There will be a three-question multiple choice quiz at the end. Don't fret if you answer wrong and see him unhappy. You can repeat the game as many times as you want. Chasing a bird across multiple nests will reward you with a chest. Don't forget that some activities are better or only happen at night. Play hide-and-seek with some mystical green pixies as they move around each time you touch them. Pull some yellow fireflies towards the blue ones until they drop a chest. Sometimes there will be a number of glowing spots under trees or rocks that all need to be pressed within a set time.
Regions: Each region has the same format. Mr Truffles the Mushroom Man has a little register standing by that offers you a list of goods in exchange for regional tokens. This can be extremely beneficial in buying gems, ever seeds, and other shortcuts to items like fish. There will be ladders that you can pull down for shortcuts and caves that cut your walking time. Flowers, herbs, and berries can be gathered for a number of uses. Tree sap can be used to make torches to counter the darkness in mines. Farm is the only region you can build in. You cannot break down anything in town, but you are able to fish and dig up treasure. Each region has a special building blueprint in a red chest at the end of a treacherous journey. There will be a number of temples you'll need to traverse and a mine filled with spiders. Obstacles can include a number of enemies that will slow you down or attack you, mud that acts like quicksand, and bitter cold crystals that turn you into an icicle.
Resources: You have seven tools at your disposal. The butterfly net allows you to catch bugs for fishing or animals on your farm. The watering can is self-explanatory. The other five tools can be upgraded at the anvil in town in exchange for some goods. The axe allows you to collect wood from trees or logs, fiber for coal, sap for torches, and hay from grass. Bait can be switched directly from the fishing pole while on land and prompt a cast when next to water. The hoe digs up some dirt from the ground for crops, break apart deterrents, and harvesting. The pickaxe is used for stone, ore, and gemstones. The whip is your primary weapon against harmful foes. If you equip a tool like an axe, you can break down any crafted item down to their primary resources.
Interiors
Mines: In each region is a deep mine full of stone, coal, and ore. Occasionally, you'll find a spare crate or an explosive vein. If you remain in the darkness too long, you will be "kicked out" back to the surface. To combat this, you'll need to craft some torches. One colored torch is no different than another but will diversify the paths you take underground. Flares can be sent into the air to light up a large area for a few seconds. There will be a few things that can be seen at a distance. These include the "exit" where you can find a book, gemstones, very rarely a chest, and devices that will reset the cave in each of the corners. Blacksmithing will require endurance since you'll be needing a lot of bars for a number of things in the game. Jewelry requires perseverance since there are so few in a given mine. Barter for some from the Mushroom Man to obtain material quicker. While gems will keep the darkness away, make sure to put down a torch after you break it with your pickaxe. Torches will fade after some time and will need to be ignited again by simply touching it with your character. Hitting a gemstone will call forth the monsters. So it would be a good idea to upgrade your pickaxe and whip to limit the amount of time before getting too deep into a mine.
Temples: The main aspect of the game will require you to traverse through a number of temples to retrieve four ancient keys to unlock the final chamber in town. The length of these temples can be increasingly long which is why you should grab the associated profession beforehand. Archaeologist requires determination since it opens up a room at the start of each temple with two items required to craft anything for this profession. These broken artifacts can only be retrieved if you complete the entire temple without expending all the life bars in a single room. Thankfully, the temples give you plenty of chances. There is a ladder in every room if you wish to leave, but you will have to start over from the beginning if you return. There are small reward rooms that will require a number of products from other professions or from the region. They can only be obtained once and will not reset upon further excavations. Enemies like bats and ghosts will function normally and only knock a few items from your inventory upon touching you. Obstacles such as spikes, falling boulders, and saws will knock you out and reset you to the beginning of the room. There are arrows on the bottom of the stones shooting out fire that show you which direction they will spin.
Professions
Fishing requires persistence. Almost every time you bump into some water, there is going to be places where you can use your fishing pole. There are several kinds of fish available with different levels for each region. You will need to use your butterfly net to gather the bugs in each region - or beetles from your crops - to get the right kind of bait to catch the fish. The bobber needs to land relatively close to the fish for it to "bite" into the hook. Now, the game doesn't have you struggling to pull the fish in. Instead, you will need to follow the fish with your cursor until you land enough hits to complete the mini-game. Each region will add difficulty by including rocks that will bounce your bobber away, seaweed that slows down your movement, and whirlpools that such your line in. If a certain layout is too hard, you can always change to another location with the same kind of fish. Or you can always barter for fish each day directly from Mr. Truffles. One thing that needs to be mentioned is that you can fish anywhere in the water. In fact, certain kinds of fish can only be retrieved in this manner.
Treasure Hunting requires exploration. When you first converse with the treasure hunter, you will immediately receive a pet dog. Any animal that you slot will then show you where you need to dig (without using an actual tool) for a treasure chest. The trinkets you loot won't be the only material you need to craft pirate goods. You'll need bars to craft yourself some weights. Similar to fishing, there are a number of spots where you will find bubbles pouring to the surface of the water. Unlike that profession, there is no big mini-game. Simply cast and reel in. Cotton needs to be obtained from plants for the vast majority of items.
Unlock: Perhaps what might have been the most unexpected course of action in the game was staggering the number of professions you can use in the beginning. The wording is a bit confusing in the tutorial since it says you can "swap" professions, but what they really mean is each additional profession requires an increasing amount of currency to learn. You will only have a chance to get one or two from the start of the game. The cost shoots up incredibly high with the final profession costing 500,000 gold. Choosing which professions is going to be difficult depending on what you want to do first. As mentioned in parts of this review, a lot of professions are either supplemental, not connected to the main part of the game, or can be done at any time. Archaeologist is perhaps the only one you might need before you explore a part of the game.
Decorations
Setting: You start initially with a trailer that cannot be broken down or moved. You can build a cabin, house, and castle once you receive the blueprint from their respective regions. Certain flowers can only be bought from any of the flower shops in town. These include roses, dandelions, tulips, and irises. Resources that you pick up in other zones like berries can also be replanted on the farm. The template for changing the ground gets a bit more technical. You have four options: use your hoe to dig for dirt, plant hay for grass, grind up stone for gravel, or lay down sand. Hay and gravel are not retrievable once used. Sand is infinitely retrievable with your pickaxe. Each tile can hold two of these elements for a mixture of layouts. If you want the ground to be completely grass, for example, you will need to place hay down twice. The system will prevent you from selecting the tile again with the same item once this happens. You can change the ground under objects as long as the interactable prompt or the size of the decoration doesn't get in the way. The original layout of the farm region will determine if vegetation reappears. If you leave some grass where there were originally some trees, new trees will grow if nothing is occupying that space. One of the early things you can place down on the ground are fences. While you can continuously place fences down in a line, you will have to manually remove any that you might have put down by mistake. You can interconnect different kinds of fences too like stone and wood. Gates can be placed over fences and automatically swing open when you touch them.
Books: There are a number of books to collect that unlock types of decorations. Some of the earliest ones will include crates, rocks, shrubs, and trees. These will not function as your typical landscape. They require special material such as moss or clay, do not break down to natural resources, and can return those materials like your standard decoration. Any type of light will automatically shine during the night. You can interact with lights to change their color. There doesn't seem to be a way to put flowers into the decorative pots. There was one book I had to look up since it requires you to find a half-sunken ladder in the mud and purposely sink down into a hidden room. The final book of the series (not the last one you find) will give you blueprints to some endgame decorations. These can be excruciating difficult to craft as they require a large surplus of items.
Miscellaneous
Conveniences: There are a number of things the developers have added that are rather interesting to take note. In addition to adding a preview window to practically everything, the value of each craft is also shown. You do not have to manually select the item in your inventory when selecting a craft at a station. A visual indicator of the items will be shown above when completed. You can prompt more of a single craft while the station is running. When you receive an item, a total number of that item in your inventory will show on the screen. There is no stamina or energy bar. While you do need to upgrade your tools' strength, there is no durability that requires you to repair them occasionally. The world will take a couple seconds to automatically transition to the next day at 8am no matter where you are and won't throw you back on your farm. Storage is infinite.
Observations: There are a number of people and tourists who wander around town that will converse with you. It is safe to sell all your profession crafts other than the initial tutorial and final one of each tier you need to give to your mentor. The objective in the quest will change immediately upon creating one that needs to be turned in. Make sure you pick it up from the station before you venture into town. Enemies that touch you will knock a few items out of your inventory. Like anything that you might throw or pops out as loot, you will need to pick them up again. Loot that touches water or endless pits are lost for good. The only enemies that spawn in the farm zone are the ghosts by the temple entrance which can be blocked by a fence. Farm animals can come in different colors depending on when you purchase them. There is a very rare pirate pig achievement. You can feed the cows in town for milk. Going through a the doorway in the final room will get you to the secret balcony area with the graffiti "Bud was Here" to collect the chest. The game does make backups of the previous 5 days if anything goes wrong. There are campsites in front of mines if you wish to craft and sleep during your dig.
Review
Summary: For what might be classified as a small game from its price, there is certainly a lot of heart and soul poured into this game. There are a lot of fun mechanics and places to explore. You can decorate an entire region and build some interesting landscape. Playing with up to four players is a nice bonus. There are a ton of conveniences like having a small video play showing what to do with every item, infinite storage, no need to sleep, a variety of things to do during the day and night, multiple ways to obtain resources, and optional routes of progression. While there were a few drawbacks and some complexity to learning the logistics of the game, I most certainly recommend this game for those who like a good cozy adventure game.