Lumi Review and Kydos Studio XBLIG Giveaway
It’s always refreshing when a developer take a tried-and-true gaming genre and infuses a new gameplay mechanic that’s so creative and fun, you kind of wonder why no one had really done it before.
Enter Lumi, the 2010 DreamBuildPlay award-winning Xbox Live Indie Game from Kydos Studio (Soul, MyBand).
Taking a look at Lumi’s trailer or screenshots reveals one of the best looking XBLIG titles yet available. The world’s varied settings are quite vibrant, and the tiny yellow protagonist is immediately likable. The game’s narrative, while a bit bare-bones, sets up Lumi’s basic story quite well: A mysterious dark force is consuming Lumi’s homeworld. Lumi, a golden puffball with the power to harness light and magnetism, must restore light to each of the game’s nine worlds.
Had the game just been a straight-up platformer, Lumi’s colorful and cartoony art-style would still deserve praise. Fireflies must be collected so that special plants in each of the game’s nine levels can be restored, thereby illuminating the surrounding areas. Various creatures will try to thwart your efforts, including a giant beetle who serves as a recurring “boss” of sorts. Lumi is much more than just a pretty face, however, and despite its sugary visual cuteness, can be quite challenging.
The true genius of Lumi lies in its magnetism-based gameplay mechanics. Sure, Lumi can run and jump like so many other platform-heroes, but he can also attach to various red and blue magnetic hubs, each with different polarity. The controls for the magnetism have been smartly mapped to the left and right controller triggers. Holding down the right trigger will make Lumi stick to red nodes, and holding the left trigger allows him to attach to blue nodes. Using the opposing trigger reverses Lumi’s polarity, allowing him to propel himself further away from a given node (very handy for longer jumps). The trigger-based mechanic is easy to use, though the level design exploits it to create some truly challenging scenarios, with other devices like Lumi-cannons and magnetic slides add even more variety.
The levels are designed in such a way that Lumi will often need to spend long stretches hopping from hub to hub, without ever touching the ground. One missed jump often results in having to redo a sequence, or, in some cases, death and a restart. Lumi is vulnerable to water and the game’s various enemies, though some can be dispatched by jumping on them or using Lumi’s polarity to reflect their own projectiles back at them.
Don’t be fooled by Lumi’s diminutive cuteness. The game’s difficulty is a bit surprising in certain areas. Despite the inclusion of mid-level checkpoints, a few of the levels include long series of jumping through a series of slides and hubs of differing polarity. Sometimes, you’re even being chased. What makes Lumi difficult is the the precision required to complete these sections. You’ll vault from a spinning magnetic hub by reversing Lumi’s polarity, only to reverse it again in time to hit a magnetic slide, and then again to attach to next hub. You’ll likely die a lot as you figure out the rapid-fire succession of jumps and polarity-reversal required to move on. Like me, you may even die a bit even when you’ve figured out exactly the series of jumps you need to make, due to lapses in reflex. With the exception of maybe one or two isolated instances though, the level design never seems unfair – just a bit devious.
At 400 Microsoft points ($5), Lumi is well worth experiencing due to its visual appeal and smart gameplay. Give the demo a try if you’re unsure (though you won’t really get a sense of how difficult it gets).
Be sure to check out our interview with Kydos Studio’s Christophe Panattoni as well. He was also gracious enough to provide us with codes for three of Kydos Studio’s XBLIG titles (1 for Lumi, 3 for Soul, and 3 for MyBand) to give away. To get your hands on one of these bad boys, just leave a comment about Lumi (or our review) below. This Monday, August 2 at 12 PM (PST), we’ll randomly select the seven winners and notify them via email.
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