Planet of Lana

Last month, I played through Planet of Lana.

This one was essentially a side-scroller puzzler with a story. Humans are living semi-modern and semi-primitive, when robots show up and kidnap everyone. Your hero, a girl named Lana, then begins her journey to save her sister, puzzling her way through situations and avoiding robots.

I generally enjoyed most of the puzzles, and all the visual storytelling about how the people got to such a strange world. For 80% of the game, I found it absolutely charming.

Part of the charm is your companion, a black little void creature, like a cat. You rescue it along the way, and it becomes your companion, working with you to solve the puzzles.

The un-charming part were the robot puzzles. If you got them wrong, they shot you and. you died. I don't know what the game was thinking by making you die. I hated, possibly even despised, all puzzles involving robots.

In all, I did the whole thing in a week. It wasn't very long, but it was just enough to be tasty.