App Army Assemble: LUNA The Shadow Dust - "Should you play this beautiful point-and-click adventure?"

• This week, our App Army community went hands-on with LUNA The Shadow Dust
• The beautiful art style certainly impressed
• Likewise, the story struck a chord with our readers

Catherine recently reviewed The Shadow Dust, praising its animation, soundtrack and adorable pet companion. A known trio of elements for a great game, in our opinion. But does everyone else agree? We handed LUNA over to our App Army to find out.

Here's what they said:

In 2016 a hand-drawn animated film by artist Beidi Guo was turned into a wordless sequential locked room puzzle, now on mobile. There's too much game to be a good movie, and too much movie to be a good game. It's really interactive art. You enter a room and find the exit door locked, so look for clues in the environment to open it, shape those into a coherent plan and implement it. A companion eventually makes it more challenging, doubling your problems and solutions. Repeat for 18 levels. Sounds boring but it can be relaxing and peaceful.

It features beautiful, detailed hand-drawn animations paired with a nice soundtrack but repetitive design gets in its own way at times. There's no puzzle reset/undo, meaning you need to start the level over if you get stuck or fail, which gets tedious. On top of that, there's no hint system, only a menu hotspot indicator.

Really beautiful hand-drawn puzzle/escape room game. For me, the best feature of this is the art. It’s simply gorgeous (some rooms better than others) and I looked forward to each successive room. I liked the cleverness. That’s what an escape room should be like. My issue is that at times there didn’t seem to be any inherent consistent logic.

The solutions seemed kind of randomized so that at times it was more a matter of ‘keep trying’ than ‘figure it out’. And the lack of a hint system that could help you get past tough, frustrating levels really took away from my enjoyment. You shouldn’t have to look for YouTube videos to get through the early levels of games. So really I think this is a gorgeous game whose main issue could be fixed with an update. I recommend it to fans of the genre, but unless you like them tough, you’re going to run into some frustration.

LUNA The Shadow Dust is a point-and-click adventure. The protagonist is saved from a fatal fall by a mysterious force that later reveals a massive tower that must be climbed to escape. Each room is a puzzle that must be solved before you can continue. Later you pick up a friend that becomes part of the solution to the puzzles.

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Graphically it’s very pretty but the animation is (perhaps deliberately) stilted. As you would expect the puzzles get more involved as you progress and I was stumped pretty early on with the moon wall puzzle that held me up for a long time. There is a hint system but it’s a bit vague. It is not a long game but’s competently done and well worth a purchase.

This is a point-and-click escape room game. You start the game by endlessly falling until you are caught in a kind of bubble which helps you land safely. From there you enter a tower and each level is a conundrum that has to be solved in order to progress. Oh, and you find a dog-like creature which enables you to swap characters to solve problems.

The music I found monotonous and switched off, however, the animation was novel and easy on the eye. The puzzles were unpredictable, sometimes obvious and other times a bit of a head-scratcher, which made gameplay enjoyable and perfect for the seasoned puzzler.

LUNA The Shadow Dust is a point-and-click puzzle game. Lately, I’ve been playing puzzlers more and more and for me, LUNA did not disappoint. Graphics in this genre, maybe more so than others, need at least their own hook that draws the attention of the viewer and LUNA does so fantastically. When a story is told with no words, beautifully rendered, hand-drawn animations, along with an excellent, ambient musical score can bring everything to life. 

The gameplay is comprised of various stages that you and your newly discovered friend must venture through as you make your way up an ancient tower. Some visually awesome, mural-like paintings in essentially escape-style rooms must be solved before you can progress. Each piece adds to the greater narrative you discover along the way. While there’s definitely a real challenge here, with a little relief coming from some minimally highlighted notable items upon your request, I had to keep going because I wanted to see what happened next. LUNA is a real gem and it gets my highest recommendation.

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LUNA The Shadow Dust