Luna: The Shadow Dust Is A Cult Classic In the Making

Luna: The Shadow Dust was my favourite game at Rezzed 2019 by a country mile. Application Systems’ tiny little booth tucked away downstairs was decorated with quirky picture frames, beautiful art and candle holders. The stand looked wonderful, but luckily the game is too.

Luna is a point and click puzzle game, very much in the vein of Machinarium. the irst thing that strikes you is Luna’s art style. Created using traditional, hand-drawn cel animation, The Shadow Dust has some amazing animation and sprites and the backgrounds are delicately drawn and beautifully detailed — Luna is most definitely a feast for the eyes.

Its art style falls somewhere between Adventure Time and Tintin, mixed with strange, Egyptian-like architecture. After wandering through an abstract desert, you come across a weird and fantastic tower, and this is where much of the portion of the game I played took place.

You are not alone in your journey, as early on you make friends with a small creature who will help you out during your ascent. Making your way up this giant structure, you discover various rooms, from corridors, to offices, to boiler rooms and many more abstract and strange places.

Each room acts as a small puzzle which needs to be overcome before you can continue up the tower. You can swap between characters, allowing you to take control of your new little creature friend and in turn both characters are needed to make your way through the rooms, and solve the puzzles therein.

Luna: The Shadow Dust was easily the prettiest game at Rezzed 2019, but it’s also insanely well designed, with an enchanting soundtrack, puzzle design and wordless story. Luna: The Shadow Dust is the game I’m looking forward to the most out of everything else I’ve seen this year.

Luna: The Shadow Dust is due for release on PC this summer.

Check out the rest of our Rezzed 2019 coverage here.

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