Lumo very much wears its retro inspirations on its sleeve. Essentially a modernisation of the isometric puzzle platformer of the 80s, with a more polished and perhaps creative presentation and design. As a result, Lumo manages to be a very charming, and I’m sure to some, nostalgic offering. But just like many retro-fitted modern titles like it, Lumo also conjures up many frustrations.
The game is barebones on the whole story front, but essentially we play as a boy or girl who is literally sucked into a video game. One day our character strolls into some sort of gaming club, approaches a computer in the corner, then finds themselves transported to a dank dungeon/castle looking environment, transformed into a tiny wizard.
From there you basically need to explore and try to figure out what to do. There’s no tutorial as such, though after a few confusing moments the gameplay mechanics become apparent. The game world is made up of hundreds of little rooms, some containing nothing at all, others with puzzles, others with collectables, and so on (you even need to find area maps if you want to make use of those). It is our job to found our way through these rooms, unlocking the next area by completing a puzzle or finding a key, and ultimately being rewarded with one of four cartridges, or bit of tech, in the end being able to escape from this game world.
The first thing that strikes about Lumo is its style. It’s quite an unusual title – an atmospheric soundtrack and sound effects, and an aesthetic that’s both dark and cutesy – and it’s pretty charming as a result. I can’t say much about the nostalgic effects, considering I wasn’t even born when the games it’s inspired by first formed, but I get the impression that this era and ‘lost’ genre is something the developers are passionate about, and that really comes through in some of the game’s more subtle aspects. Humour plays a role in Lumo, and there are a few references and the odd quirky secret to enjoy – running away from a boulder, sliding under a closing wall and snatching your hat at the last moment ala Indiana Jones was quite funny. There’s no mistake that this is principally a successful modernisation of a retro theme.
The main meat of the game comes with its blend of platforming and puzzling, however. This is initially rather slow and simplistic, but of course ramps up in difficulty as the game progresses. Generally they will be based around jumping on boxes, jumping over to platforms, walking along beams, and avoiding traps and hazards. There is the odd creative puzzle, such as shooting a canon at a target to open a door, and those elements are certainly highlights, but mostly the challenge comes from more physical puzzling.
This is the area of the game for which I have mixed feelings. Fundamentally, the platforming is pretty solid. It doesn’t feel floaty or clunky, it provides a scaling challenge throughout, and there are some really creative areas to get through. Platforms move around, spin through the air, there are bubbles you will need to bounce on in some areas, there’s slippery floors, and so on – platforming is at no point at risk of becoming tedious. However, there’s one crucial aspect of the game that fuels untold frustration: the viewpoint.
Lumo is an isometric styled game, but with a 3D presentation, and therein lies the problems. It’s actually very difficult to work out where your character is going to land when you take a jump. It sounds a little innocuous, but it’s actually a significant problem. Platforming becomes more and more complex as you progress, meaning acute attention and skill is required to get through some rooms…the last thing you want in that instance is to fall to your death, because you’d angled your character at slightly the wrong direction for a jump – the angle of the camera deceiving your eyes.
Thankfully the developer included a choice of difficulty option. This doesn’t affect gameplay – platforming and puzzling remains the same – however on easy mode you’re given unlimited lives. ‘Old-school’ difficulty gives you limited lives and prevents you from using the map. It doesn’t stop some of those clunky deaths from being frustrating, but it does mean you can attempt them on easy as much as you’d like – I can’t bear to think how I’d have managed on old-school difficulty.
But it’s a challenge, right? Retro games were always more difficult than the ones we have nowadays. Well, yes, but could you described most of those titles as fair? This is what goes through my mind thinking about the spikes in difficulty that Lumo provides. The platforming becomes increasingly difficult, as you would expect, but much of the time my failure felt as though it was as a result of a design oversight – this object looks closer than it actually is, and the angle of the camera put me off.
It’s such a fundamental problem that it impacts on most other aspects of the game. Which is a shame, because as I’ve already mentioned, there’s some creative design in Lumo, and most of the areas are interesting and enjoyable to experience. There’s a good variety of traps/hazards, and they are well incorporated alongside the platforming – spike traps mean you need to jump over or go around patches on the floor, sometimes you’re chased by flames, there are flying discs that try to bounce you off balance, and there are even some enemies that harass you with projectiles (or need to be dispersed by light, which is an ability you get later in the game). There are even a few sections that spring new gameplay dynamics at you. A section where you need to guide your character along a mine-cart track, jump between lanes, over drops; and parts where you need to run on top of a big ball and guide it to your destination – these variations really help to keep the game interesting.
I also really enjoyed the hunt for collectables for the most part. Some areas look devoid of anything interesting, but then you notice a shelf in the corner and find that jumping on it allows you to reach over a wall where you’ll find a cassette tape. The most prolific collectable seems to be rubber ducks, which you will find sitting in deadly water. You need to jump on top of them in order to collect, but also bounce straight back to solid ground else you die. In order to register the ducks as collected you have to go through a door – it can be a little annoying, but it makes sense, so you need to cleanly acquire the duck (no catching it and dying immediately). Coins reveal themselves later on in the game, and these can actually be used to unlock optional areas with new challenges. Complete all the challenges and you are rewarded with letters spelling out a word. Honestly, these were pretty crushing in terms of difficulty. They’re timed sections, and annoyingly even on easy, once you fail, the game prevents you from trying again until you get another 10 coins and reach the ‘special door’ that leads to these challenges.
The game has bags of charm, as I’ve already expressed, and I’m actually quite impressed with the overall presentation and the variety of puzzles and platforming challenges, but it’s very hard to forgive for those clunky, inaccurate moments. The game became less enjoyable the more I played it, and the knowledge of that destroys any enthusiasm I might have had for playing it again, despite the fact there are plenty of un-gathered collectables remaining. It seems like such an unnecessary oversight, considering you can ever so slightly change the view of your camera – it’s too small of a change to really do anything though – which suggests the problem could have been entirely solved by just allowing the player to flick to a different view temporarily. But as it stands, if you fancy giving Lumo a shot, prepare for some irritating falls. If you have a good tolerance for that kind of stuff though, Lumo is a very charming game with some nice puzzle designs. Its nostalgic kick, references and curious setting and aesthetic may intrigue you to its conclusion.