Lumo is a charming puzzle and platforming indie game developed by Triple Eh?, where you play as a wizard and explore a maze-like dungeon full of puzzles, obstacles, and traps. One of its most prominent features is that it has an isometric, angular camera view that was used in many video games in the 80’s and 90’s.
The game can be appreciated by both younger and older audiences, with its modern take on a classic genre and its cute graphic style. There are also plenty of nostalgic references throughout the game that are sure to keep older players entertained.
It starts out strong…
I enjoyed the first few hours of Lumo, finding it to be an engaging game, at least for the first levels of the game.
I found it fascinating how the game had minimal instructions, but was still able to be relatively intuitive with each new puzzle and mechanic that was introduced.
But after a while, the game’s difficulty spikes substantially…
…throwing in frustrating and seemingly impossible puzzles. The ice levels are particularly frustrating, with ice physics that will cause the character to slip off platforms or into death traps.
One ice puzzle in particular required moving ice blocks so that you can climb on top and reach a door. However, thanks to the horrific physics of the ice floor, you can slip and push an ice block into the wall and cause it to shatter, wasting your efforts. There were times that I was almost done setting up the ice blocks, only to slide out of the room, causing the puzzle to reset.
The angled camera view will give a false sense of depth perception, as well. And this only compounds this issues with difficult puzzles. I’ve missed many jumps because it was so difficult to tell how far platforms were, leaving me to plummet to my death.
While the camera isn’t impeding through most levels, there are some puzzles where it becomes bothersome.
For example, this puzzle requires you to avoid falling into the lasers. However, due to the game’s isometric view, it was difficult to determine my relative location to the lasers, causing me to die multiple times.
The depth perception problem could be remedied with the ability to change camera angles. While the game does allow some movement of the camera, it only shifts the camera slightly.
Overall
Lumo is a surprisingly challenging puzzle and platforming game. It starts off sweet, but sort of turns sour from some of its difficult puzzles. Yet despite that, it still is a neat little indie game full of nostalgia and surprises.
