Platforms: PC (Steam)
Players: 1-4
Release: 20 November 2024
Publisher/Developer: E-Line Media
Price: TBD (Expected £/$/€19.99)
https://www.lumaisland.com
Wishlist/Buy on steam
What to expect from Luma island
I picked up the Luma island demo as part of Steam’s Next fest, expecting a Stardew Valley style farming game with perhaps a little more adventure. That’s exactly what I got.
Luma island is an exciting, cozy adventure game with a focus on professions that offers a great experience to casual, regular or first-time gamers alike.
It did a wonderful job of introducing all of the different aspects of the game without it feeling too much like the all too common, quite unenjoyable game tutorial.
Become a master of your profession
Luma Island is built around seven professions: Farmer, Fisher, Cook, Brewer, Treasure Hunter, Blacksmith, and Jewelrycrafter. Lucky for you, you pick up additional professions after your first for a small, in-game fee.
The different professions each have difficulty ratings, starting with Cook at one star, all the way up to Archaeologist, which is just marked with three skulls! Each profession comes with its own quests to explore that help you learn the profession and set you up for success.
During the demo, I picked up the fishing profession and had an absolute blast. Fishing is a two-star profession and had me running around the town finding the trainer, who then sent me off to gather and catch all the materials to make some lovely fish stew to sell back for a tasty profit. The fishing itself felt really fun. It involved chasing fish around with my float once I’d had a bite and then carefully reeling them in. I had to forage for caterpillar bait in the forest first and then went wading into the shallows to gather seaweed and mussels to complete the recipe.
During fishing, I was able to turn a profit with the recipes, and it had me upgrading my tools and building stations to help me progress through the craft. Something I’m sure is mirrored across the other six professions, and I’m very excited to try them.
Exploring the island
The visuals of Luma Island are absolutely stunning. Not in your 4K, Unreal 5 levels of vista stunning, but a really well-crafted feeling—simple and quaint, whilst also detailed and rich.
The character models reminded me of my first gaming experiences in Final Fantasy 7 with their sharp polygons and chunky aesthetic, but the world is made up of beautifully animated pixel art.
It’s not all farming and chasing butterflies
If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, Luma Island also offers you its fair share of PG-rated Tomb Raider experiences. Temples and caves come with a challenging and interesting set of dangerous puzzles, but reward meaningful items to match. Caves require you to craft and bring along some torches to light the way, and temples are set up with traps designed to catch you off guard.
Dying whilst on an exploration in one of these does cause you to lose some of the resources you collected on the way! But they offer you up plenty of ways to escape the cave easily if it all gets a bit too risky!
When is Luma island available to play?
Luma Island will be available on steam on the 20th November 2024 and I personally will be forking out some of my pocket money for a copy. I’ll also be trying to convince friends to pick it up too so we can try out some of the co-op features.
Luma island is a charming, feature rich cozy explorer with heaps of promise. The development team at Feel Free Games have done an amazing job with what I played in the demo. It’s not been officially marked as compatible with the Steam Deck, but it’s definitely the sort of game you’d enjoy sat on the sofa playing given the chance.
