Planet of Lana News

Heya friends of Lana and Mui,

Happy Planet of Lana Release Date Announcement Day to all of you! ːsteamhappyː

Since the idea of Planet of Lana grew in my head back in 2017, all of us at Wishfully have been working really hard on realising our idea of a unique, captivating, and appealing cinematic puzzle adventure. Here we are today, and we can wholehartedly tell you that we are unbelievably happy and proud to reveal to you that Planet of Lana will release on May 23rd!

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That's right, from today it's only 20 days until you can set out on your own with Lana and Mui to embark on a rescue mission to save Lana's sister. Hopefully, Planet of Lana will be an unforgetable adventure for you as well - because for us it is already!

There are more issues of "Novo News" coming till the release, telling you more about the language of Novo, Lana's voice actress, the soundtrack, etc. To not miss any further updates please follow Planet of Lana and add it to your wishlist. This would really mean a lot to us! ❤️

We are counting the days until the release, friends!
Adam & the Planet of Lana Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/

Hi friends,

This is Dan, and I’m the Lead Puzzle Designer for Planet of Lana. In this update, I'll shed some light on the creative process behind designing the puzzles for the game, touching on our inspirations, challenges, and design choices. Our goal has been to captivate players' imaginations while challenging their cognitive abilities in order to create a game that combines an immersive story with engaging puzzles.

Environmental storytelling is something that we are really passionate about at Wishfully, and to enrich our game's narrative and atmosphere, we designed puzzles that serve as opportunities to reveal more about the world, characters, and overarching story. To help us with this, we used visual cues, hidden details, and environmental elements to create a sense of discovery and wonder, encouraging players to explore and understand the world in which Lana lives. For the curious player there is so much to dig into here, with everything from strange creatures and plants to the language and culture that have developed on Novo.



To ensure there is a fun evolution of the puzzles, we crafted them around a core set of mechanics that gradually expand and intertwine throughout the journey of Lana. By layering new elements over existing ones, we create a sense of progression and mastery, keeping players engaged and motivated to overcome each new challenge.

I think one of the most exciting aspects of Planet of Lana is the ability to control animals and robots in fun and imaginative ways. We dedicated ourselves to creating unique interactions and mechanics that not only add depth to the puzzles but also infuse the gameplay with delightful surprises. Our focus here was on designing moments that spark joy and excitement, where expectations get turned on their head. Perhaps something that was once a deadly threat all of a sudden can become something useful and crucial to Lana’s progression in the game…



When designing puzzles, striking the right balance between difficulty and pacing is essential to ensure players feel challenged yet not overwhelmed. One could almost say designing puzzles is a puzzle in itself! Just changing the order in which one element or mechanic is introduced to the player can make a huge difference in how difficult a puzzle is to solve. Keeping this in mind, we carefully crafted our puzzles to maintain a steady difficulty curve, building on previous concepts while adding extra complexity. Our puzzles also balance logical problem-solving, reflex-based challenges and stealth sequences, catering to different player preferences and keeping the gameplay varied.

Game design is an iterative process involving constant testing, refining, and retesting. We used playtesting as a crucial tool early in the process. Using a very rough and simplified version of the game with rudimentary graphics early on in the process, we could gather feedback on puzzle design and difficulty before the real game environment was even developed. Since we built the puzzles in this more basic environment, we could also prototype more puzzles in a shorter timeframe and have a quicker turnaround between playtests. And by watching carefully how people were playing and incorporating the feedback during multiple iterations, it allowed us to fine-tune our puzzles to strike the perfect balance between challenge and enjoyment.



For me, seeing how players interact with our game has been one of the most interesting and fun aspects of the puzzle process. Everyone’s mind and experience is truly unique, and this is something I’m constantly reminded of every time I see someone play our game. And as the release for Planet of Lana is coming closer and we are about to share the game with the rest of the world, I’m eager to see even more players experience our epic adventure!

And a tiny spoiler: next weeks "Novo News" will address the language of Novo as well as the voice actor who lends her voice to Lana.

All the best!
Dan

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/

Hi everyone!

Klas here, co-director and writer of Planet of Lana. While you patiently wait to get your hands on our off-earth odyssey, I thought I’d share some details on the story of the game in general, and Lana and Mui’s relationship in particular.

If you’ve been following the Planet of Lana journey so far, you might know that the game kicks off with Lana’s home planet Novo getting invaded by a strange robot army, and in the ensuing commotion Lana narrowly manages to escape capture. Unfortunately, her big sister and fierce protector Elo, along with the rest of her village, are not so lucky. Scared and alone, Lana is left with no choice but to venture into the hostile Novo landscape in search of her sister. This marks the beginning of a perilous journey through lush forests, dingy swamplands, dark caves, pristine archipelagos, and bone-dry deserts full of native predators and alien machines.



Luckily, it doesn’t take long for Lana to enlist some help on her rescue mission. Enter Mui; Our tiny, furry, but mighty resourceful companion. When Lana finds Mui, the robots have put her in a bit of a rough spot as well, capturing her in a cunning trap. Sympathizing with this predicament, Lana decides to risk her own life to rescue Mui and after a very close call the pair narrowly escape and become inseparable from that point on.



In designing the narrative of Planet of Lana we wanted to tell a simple, but multi-layered story to which players can pay as much or little attention as they please. We didn’t want to spell things out, but rather let the player explore the planet and draw their own conclusions about some key questions that arise during Lana and Mui’s journey; Like who are these strange alien machines that fell from the sky? What do they want? What kind of a place is Novo? How did humans end up in this colorful world?

With this minimalist mindset as our guiding star, we decided early on to not use any intelligible dialogue, but rather invent our own simple language for the inhabitants of Novo, presented without subtitles. Meaning is instead inferred from context, action, and tone of voice, while observant players might slowly learn some key phrases through Lana and Mui’s interactions to fill in the gaps as the game unfolds (much more on this in a future blog post, so stay tuned for that!).



One of the key aspects where narrative and game design intersected early on in production was in building the relationship between Lana and Mui. From a game design perspective, lots of time and energy was spent on building a give and take relationship between them where one feels like the natural extension of the other. While both characters have their own limitations and strengths, together they complete each other.

On a narrative level, Lana and Mui coming together is a turning point where Lana starts her journey from helpless victim to active participant and protector. An important aspect of establishing this relationship of course is their communication. Since Lana controls Mui by issuing verbal commands (essentially bossing her around), lots of care was taken in the voice over recording process to make sure that Lana’s tone towards her companion remained loving and respectful, while at the same time ensuring we built a dynamic system that allows for their communication to adjust based on their current predicaments; Trying to sneak past a cunning robot or human-hungry dragon pig? Better whisper! Getting chased by a giant machine marauder? Time to yell at the top of your lungs to make sure Mui knows what to do!



While there is so much more that could be said for the work that we put in to bring Lana and Mui’s journey to life, I’m a firm believer in the “Leave-them-wanting-more-philosophy”, so instead of blabbering on further let me finish by saying how extremely excited we are to share the final result with you very soon!

I’ll check back soon with another post where we deep dive into the language of Novo and introduce the talented young voice actress who helped us bring Lana to life.

Stay tuned!
Klas


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/

Heya friends of Lana and Mui,

It's Adam again! A lot has been going on since our latest update in February, and I have some good news for you today: We'll be using the coming weeks to tell you more about our heartfelt project with some update postings on various aspects of Planet of Lana. And hopefully tickle your curiosity for our game even more.

So, lets dive into our very first "Novo News" and let me take you with me to the early days of the game. The whole idea for Planet of Lana started with this image that I drew in Photoshop back in 2017:



I wanted to create the game of my dreams; a cinematic puzzle adventure about a young girl and her cat-like companion that are forced out on this epic adventure on the distant planet of Novo. With a hand-painted sci-fi world with lot’s of lush colors and a compelling narrative.

Based on the reaction of family and friends as they saw the image I realized I was on to something special. I became dead-set on the idea and decided for myself that I would finish the game, even if I would have to learn programming and all the other things and do it all by myself.

Luckily several creative and extremely talented friends decided to join in on the project and ultimately we started Wishfully Studios in 2019.



Over the years a lot of people have added their talent, creativity and brilliant ideas to form the game to what it is today. I’m very proud to have planted the seed to Planet of Lana but it's the fantastic team at Wishfully who have watered the seed, made it evolve and grow by adding all their passion and creativity and craftsmanship.

The art style of the game has evolved over the years while still having that first image as our guiding star. The whole game started as a flat 2D game, much more retro inspired by old games like Another World and Prince of Persia. But we realized that with the vision of creating this immersive cinematic experience that didn’t work.



So then began the process of finding the in-game look of our game. We experimented a lot and landed a pretty good 2.5D look for the game. But it was really when the talented artist Jimmy Chan came on-board, as well as our Lead Level Designer Rikard Carlsson, that the visuals of the game was elevated to the next level.

Together with our brilliant Technical 3D Artist, Vargdis Åslund, we were able to find our visual style together. We have a depth to the world, mixing 3D with hand-painted light and shadows, flat 2D sprites and dynamic lighting on top, while still staying true to the original hand-painted look.

Looking back at all these years since I drew that first image, all the obstacles, difficulties, ups and downs and hard work, it’s such a privilege to be able to work side by side with all the lovely people that has been involved. It’s been a very long road, and soon we will release our work of passion to you all.

And that's it for our first "Novo News" - I really hope you like it. There is more to come of course, next weeks "Novo News" will deal Lana, Mui and the story of Planet of Lana.

Talk to you next week, friends! ❤️

Adam Stjärnljus
Creative Director & Co-Founder


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/

Hey folks,

It's Adam again! Since yesterday the Steam Next Fest: February is over and it was a pure blast! So many of you peeps spent your time with Lana and Mui in our first ever PC demo of Planet of Lana. So, from the bottom of all of our hearts over here at Wishfully: thank you all so so much! ːsteamhappyː

We received a lot of feedback over the last 7 days, and that is incredibly valuable for us. It won't be too much longer before you can set off on your great adventure with Lana and Mui, but until then we want to make Planet of Lana the best possible gaming experience for you!

Therefore, if you have played the demo, please give us feedback HERE on how you liked the short excerpt from the game.

Oh, and a quick announcement, as we have received a lot of messages: we have decided not to deactivate the demo after Steam Next Fest. We want you all to continue to have the chance to try out Planet of Lana and see if you like it. And in case you do try the demo, please let us know what you think.

Talk to you real soon, friends!
Adam & the Planet of Lana Team


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608230/Planet_of_Lana/