When the lights mysteriously go out in the colorful paper and cardboard world of Lume, it is up to protagonist Lumi (if you find that name cute, you'll like the game, it's a pretty cute also) to solve a series of puzzles her mysteriously missing grandfather has left for her. Solving puzzles grants access to a series of locked rooms, essential items and other goodies that will help Lumi in her quest.
You control little Lumi as she explores her grandfather's house and backyard. You are stuck at the house for the entire game essentially even though you have knowledge of the town over yonder. The setting may be geographically limited to about five to six rooms sans the puzzle screens, but that's not a bad thing (especially if you like escape from the room games).
In a neat touch, the game world of Lume appears to be made out of paper and cardboard. I especially liked the tiny string of colored lights outside of Grandpa's house that show how small the dollshouse like stage is. I really appreciated the creativity and detail that went into Lume's design by the small team at State of Play Games.
As point and click games go, Lume can be on the tough side, throwing at you a whole range of tricky seek-and-find, maths-based and classic point and click conundrums. One of the puzzles is extremely hard, or at least was for me. But the difficulty should not put you off. You can always take a break from puzzle solving to just admire the lush environments, indulge in random point and clicking to find items of interest or read about the history of the town of Lume, and Lumi and her family.
And, anyway, even when it is being hard, the game remains fun and one can't help but be drawn in by all the mystery and intrigue of the game's plot. Add to that smooth and simple controls and a captivating visual style, and you have as relaxing and appealing a point-and-click game as you could hope.
The soothing experience is reinforced by a soundtrack that you could meditate to. The music is so lovely indeed that after playing the game, I left it on in the background while browsing the web, just to keep on listening to it. The appeal of the music has not been missed by State of Play who have made it available for download here.
The only major disappointment I had with this game was how short it was. I was expecting an epic adventure, something I'd have to settle in and devote some serious time to, but the game only took me about two hours to beat. Then I found out that what I had just played was only the first episode of a series of games that are planned for release over the next couple of years. Goodbye disappointment, hello anticipation!
Download a copy of Lume here.
