12 frames per second, 3 layers per frame. Over 250 animations and 20 minutes of cinematics. A nostalgic and time-consuming process - but really worth the challenge for a small indie team of four.
Single player mode with dual character control
Solve puzzles from different perspectives. Discover a story of true courage with two playable characters drawn together through an inseparable bond.
Think outside of the box
Spark your imagination and solve a wide variety of puzzles, presented in gorgeous hand-drawn environments. Puzzles work standalone, requiring no 'hidden items' or player backtracking.
LESS reading, MORE cinematics
We replaced a dialogue system with a series of beautifully hand-animated cinematics telling a mysterious story.
Engaging Original Soundtrack
Our composer created an original soundtrack, designed to immerse the player in the emotional highs and lows of the story, kindling goose-bumps along the journey.
Hope you will like it! And please share this news to your friends! So that more people would know our game! And thanks very much!!!
LUNA The Shadow Dust is OUT!
Hello, lovely LUNA The Shadow Dust supporters!
We made it!! LUNA The Shadow Dust is OUT!
After a long four-year journey, exceeding our wildest expectations and imaginations, we're finally here!
Delivering the game is the final step along this amazing journey, but that journey itself has been truly unbelievable. During these last four years, we have learned so much more than any other project could have taught us, accomplishing the things we thought only the professionals knew how. Many of the members of our communities have become our dear friends along the way. We know we say thank-you a lot, but truly, without you guys, none of this could have happened!
Now we have just a few final favours to ask:
It would really mean a lot to us if you can write a review or rate the game. Your critiques can help other players to find LUNA among the vast sea of games!
Please keep spreading the word for us! What a cool thing to tell people that you’re part of the force that made this game possible!!?
We’ve uploaded a lot of behind-the-scenes development interviews on our YouTube channel too!
And in case you haven't seen our launch trailer, check it out here: [previewyoutube="pQ5L280ACHc;full"]
This will certainly not be the last update, we’ll still have a lot of work to do after the launch! We will keep everyone posted as there will be more exciting news coming along like our merchandise and other fun stuff! But for now, please celebrate and enjoy this wonderful moment with us together.
We made it!!! Yeahhhhh!! o(*≧▽≦)ツ
With all the love from our heart Beidi, Qian, Guan and Fox
Launch Date Announcement
Hello, lovely LUNA The Shadow Dust supporters!
Happy New Year, everyone! 🎉 Here we come, at last, to 2020. The year we finally get to launch LUNA The Shadow Dust!
Today, we have the most exciting announcement to make:
The launch date is confirmed!
LUNA The Shadow Dust will be out on Steam on February the 13th!
We’ve got a brand new trailer for you, too, with never-before-seen footage! Check it out!
[previewyoutube="6tyOFIlyqY4;full"]
The following month will be the most challenging for us, aside from our testing period.
We sincerely ask for your help in spreading the word.
If you know of any streamers or YouTubers who dig puzzle adventure games, please tell them about us! If you, or someone you know, is working in the press, please get in touch for preview keys or interviews with our team.🙆♀️🙆♂️📢🌙🎮
Email is the most direct way of contacting us: info@lantern-studio.com
You can find our presskit on our website: https://www.lantern-studio.com/presskit
Also you can reach us through all these platform: Facebook：https://www.facebook.com/lanternstudiogames Twitter： https://twitter.com/LanternStudio_ Youtube： https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8NEGsIu4XPotERaZflef8A Instagram： https://www.instagram.com/lanternstudiogames/ Discord ： https://discordapp.com/invite/y3k58JE Reddit：https://www.reddit.com/user/LanternStudioGames/
We’ve worked so hard until now and it's finally our chance to unveil LUNA The Shadow Dust to the world! We sincerely hope our game can be played and shared across the world, bring a smile to someone's face.
See you all on February the 13th! ━━━━━━━━=≡Σ((( つ•̀ω•́)つ
with Love X Lantern Studio Team
December Update 2019 & Seasonal Greetings
Hello, Lovely LUNA The Shadow Dust Supporters!
Less than 3 months to go until the release! Isn’t it exciting!? We promised we would be updating more frequently now, so here’s our Holiday Season update!
Merchandise
We’d love to hear your thoughts on what merchandise we should consider! We have already begun working on some of them, for example; the postcard set, designs for emblem pins and the hardcover art book! Despite this, please vote with your heart. What would you like to see?
Here’s the questionnaire link, please tell us what you think and what other merchandise you’d like to have? ヽ(●´∀`●)ﾉ
During the past few weeks, while continuing to work on polishing the final game build, we have also been finalizing some additional content which will complement the game. In February, not only we will release LUNA itself, but also a Deluxe Version including the game, the digital version of the artbook, and the original soundtrack album. You can also purchase them separately.
The Digital Art Book
A massive 124-page PDF, the digital artbook includes both the full-color HD original game artwork and the artist’s hand-drawn sketches. It is like going ‘backstage’ with the game and serves as a visual record of our journey from the very beginning towards release. We hope leafing through the design notes, concept art and drawings within the book will bring you more delight and understanding about the world of LUNA.
We will also produce a limited physical hardcover art book to grace your coffee tables, which is included in some KS reward tiers. The physical artbook contains an additional 32 high-grade printed pages of exclusive content over the digital version and features some of our most secret game production content, unavailable anywhere else! We will make this available for sale separately at a later date.
Original Game Soundtrack
Without any dialogue, the music in LUNA plays a crucial role in the game’s storytelling. Designed to immerse the player in the emotional highs and lows of the adventure, the LUNA OST kindles goose-bumps along the journey. Inspired by the music from games like Journey and Ori and the Blind Forest, this album features 34 tracks with over 80 minutes of original music by composer, Wang Qian.
Kickstarters Exclusive Contribution Page
We have completed a special page dedicated to everyone who helped us throughout this journey. Your names will forever be shining on our website (as long as the internet exists)! You helped a small team achieve their ambitious dream with the most important first push. We can’t thank you enough!
Last but not least, Beidi made a short Holiday greeting video, we wish you all a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! 2020 is gonna be AMAZING!! [previewyoutube="OB_aKdZs7r4;full"]
With lots of love, Lantern Studio Team
November Update 2019 & Exciting Announcement
Hello, Lovely LUNA The Shadow Dust Supporters!
It’s update time! So much has been going on over the past few months, we really appreciate everyone's incredible patience (all these years). Thanks for sticking with us! Now that the dust has finally settled, we’ve got some very exciting news we’d like to share with y’all.
February is a Real Month
February is real. Yes it is. February is a real solid month on the 2020 calendar which is less than 4 months away from now.
And most importantly - it’s the month we can finally confirm for the release of LUNA The Shadow Dust!! ╰(*°▽°*)╯
We were really disappointed to miss our previous release forecast (this Winter), and firstly, it’s important to apologise for the delay here. We know you are eager to play LUNA! Sorry! We wanted to share the full story behind the delay, and the real struggles that faced our small indie team in the wide world of game development. Hopefully, our supporters can understand the difficult situations detailed below. Thankfully, it’s now coming to an end and we can finally feel a bit more relaxed, free to share these stories with you.
Challenge One: The Unexpected
We never thought this would become a serious issue, but it did. During September, the collaboration with our previous sound FX co-worker suddenly ended. We’re not going to go into the details, but the fact that we were now suddenly lacking 50% of the required cutscene sounds at the very end of development, put us in a sticky situation.
Do we have the time and money to try and find someone to create that 50%? we asked ourselves, Or should we try free SFX libraries so at least there will be something in those scenes??
Either seemed like a grim solution. It would be a shame to compromise on the quality of the sound FX, so we decided to find a new sound professional instead of using free resources.
FatBard, a two-man audio team from St.Louis, Missouri, came to the rescue. We’re so thankful for Zach and Partick's quick production speed and professional work which really helped us against the clock, with no time to spare! We’re also super thankful to Fred, our composer Susie's husband, who helped us financially when the SFX budget was next to nothing. With the determination and the hard work of everyone on the team, we managed to produce a full set of SFX created for LUNA by October, with no compromise in quality.
Challenge Two: The Narrow Release Window
When a game developer or publisher looks at the calendar, debating the best time to release their game, there are usually only a few months to consider - especially if you’re an indie team.
One of the key survival (not even ‘big sell’) rules for an indie launch is simply, “do not clash with AAAs titles”. Secondly, landing in a key sales season would also be a bad option, and there are many! From Winter sales to Summer sales, the calendar is dotted with distracting discounts for every public holiday and festival. Thirdly, as a small team, we really need word of mouth. From the media, press and our fans, it’s vital that the news spreads as far as it can, given our limited resources. This means we also need to consider launching the game when people are not on holiday.
If you’re still with me, then you’ll notice the window of opportunity has been getting narrower and narrower. Lastly, and most importantly, we have to consider the quality of the latest build. We cannot and will not rush out a game that may still have bugs. We are determined to deliver the best experience to people. As a result, if we miss one release window, we will have to wait until the next one.
Challenge Three: The Global Release
As you may know, Lantern Studio is an all-Chinese dev team, with members scattered across three continents. Since our initial Kickstarter campaign, our global support has been matched with high expectations and support from our Chinese fans. Throughout this whole process, we’ve been really keen to bring LUNA to both the Western audience and our Chinese fans at the same time.
During recent years, however, publishing games in China has become increasingly challenging due to drastic rules surrounding game development. All game studios need to apply for official licenses. Considering the sheer number of game companies/studios across China (and the world), the queue is enormously long.
Trying to get ahead of the curve, we started the relevant procedures almost a year ago, with the help of our Chinese publisher, Coconut Island. It took us a lot of time to prepare the game for review while simultaneously managing development. Nearly eight months later, with a number of modifications and a lot of back-and-forth, we finally have the document that allows us to publish LUNA in China!
All this time, we’ve been facing one of the toughest decisions of the project: Should we wait - with no update on the licence’s progress and no more budget left to burn - or should we release LUNA globally, with China to follow at a later date?
It killed us to think that as a Chinese team, we couldn’t release LUNA in China at the same time as the rest of the world. There was a point at which we felt so hopeless about the situation, the spirit of the team dropped to an all-time low. Now with the biggest unknown out of the way, we can’t help but feel the enormous relief that we no longer need to make this tough decision.
Combining all of these challenges together, we’ve been able to mark a clear time for launch. Unfortunately, this has pushed us into 2020. February will be the earliest available window. We sincerely apologize for the long wait, but it is now over - for us as well. For the exact launch day, we will announce once we are 100% ready, and it will come very soon. ;)
How’s The Game Going BTW? xD
All milestones for development have been met!!!
Heading towards the release, we’re continually testing and fine-tuning tiny details. Most players might miss these, but we believe some eagle-eyed players will spot them. So for those gamers, we will not let you down!
With some black magic, we also managed to shrink down the game build size from 1GB to 500MB without losing quality. Meanwhile, we’re working on making sure all PC/Mac/Linux and DRM-free builds are compatible with the platforms.
Marketing materials, a brand new trailer, and merchandise have now become our next priorities. Hopefully, we can have some of these goodies ready when LUNA launches!
Last but not least, we would sincerely like to ask everyone a big favor...
Please help us spread the word - tell your friends, family and the neighbor’s pet that LUNA is gonna be out in February 2020. We’ve put everything we have into this game and we’d really like it to reach gamers who will enjoy playing it! This is something we can’t do just by ourselves, but with your help, we can.
We can’t thank you guys enough. That’s all for now, we will be back with a new update very soon, before the end of the year!
━━━━=≡Σ((( つ•̀ω•́)つ
with Love X Lantern Studio Team
August Update 2019
The heat wave has finally passed in the UK; are you feeling cool or still boiling?! Put on your sunglasses and dive into the pool! Here comes our August dev update!
First of all, LUNA is going to Gamescom and PAX West!
Thanks to our convenient remote team structure, we’re able to attend both of these super-big game conventions this month! Beidi, our Art Director will be going to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom and Susie, our composer, will bring LUNA with her to PAX West in Seattle. Come and say hello if you are attending any of the events; we’d love to chat with you and share the latest news and our inside story!╰(*°▽°*)╯
How’s the game going?
We can now confidently say that we are 99.99999% of the way to reaching our biggest milestone yet!
All sound FX for the gameplay have been completed and the cinematic sound effects will also be finished within the month. The game is almost ready. Hurrah!! No more extra graphics nor gameplay changes are needed and we are starting to push towards the testing stage.
This month, we’re going to start a full-length internal test and debug round, firstly within the team. With the help of our publishers, we will then invite professional QA to help us with the formal bug reporting. Once we have the full build ready, we will need to test the SDK the game platform to make sure our players can download a playable build with all the achievement features.
What else are we working on at the moment?
We’re working on the design of the hardcover copy of the upcoming official artbook. Some of our Kickstater backers will receive it as part of their chosen reward level and it will later be available for everyone to purchase as well. The hardcover book will be jam-packed with visuals and more on the background story of how the game was conceived and developed. Although we may release a digital version of the book at a later time, the physical book will showcase a tonne of exclusive content ONLY in the hardcover version!
This little bundle of fluff has almost become LUNA's unofficial mascot. We're definitely looking into the possibility of making merchandise of them as well. We will keep everyone updated! Go on, give us your own nickname for this furball?
Health issue
After almost three years of high-intensity workload and pressure, from early in the year it was clear that some of our team members’ health issues had started to become a cause for concern. A healthy body and mental state are always the foundation behind any work and unfortunately, we are no longer at the prime age to recover from a few sleepless nights and still be able to work at full strength.
We knew from the beginning that health issues can be quite common among indie developers. Without health benefits, regular exercise and a very tight budget, health issues are easily ignored. Once health problems like constant tiredness or back pain begin to show, it is hard to recover.
As a result, after doctor’s advice, we gave some of our team members a one month (July) break from game development and went for necessary treatment and rest.
Now in August, we have resumed our normal workload but have consciously decided to take things a bit slower than before. In order to avoid a delay, we’re also trying to optimize our workload more efficiently than before, so we can deliver LUNA on schedule. (oﾟvﾟ)ノ
Last but not least, check out our brand new interview series on our YouTube Channel!
It’s really our pleasure to share this ‘behind the scenes’ development story with you. We’re getting closer and closer to the final goal and we really couldn't achieve this much without you guys! Thank you all for supporting us all the time!
Until next time, peace out!
Become a LUNA Moon Guardian!
What's a Moon Guardian? Part human, part spirit, the Moon Guardians are charged with maintaining the balance of energy across the World. As civilization enters a new era, a new Moon Guardian takes on the role they were born to fill.
Become a Moon Guardian and gain inside information into the development of LUNA The Shadow Dust and help shape its development, in exchange for helping us grow the community and spread the word about the game!
What do you get?
Inside information into the development of the game (requires signed NDA).
Help us polish the final elements of the game - get access to the latest build for free, and help us fine-tune any final elements.
Included in the game's credits - for your hard work, we will immortalise you in the credits of LUNA The Shadow Dust.
What do you have to do? There are only EIGHT spaces available for LUNA Moon Guardians. Once they are filled, that's all. This is a very important position and we expect you to treat it with the utmost care. You will be expected to help us with the following:
Help us moderate the online community for LUNA.
Help spread the word about LUNA - an existing strong social media presence is a huge bonus!
Help us create content with which to promote the game!
Toot Toot! Here comes our June dev update! (ˊ•͈ ꇴ •͈ˋ)
We hope you guys have enjoyed our new demo, we’ve had such positive feedback from all. Thank you to everyone who helped us share the news through social media. Based on all the data we collected in our survey, we can pinpoint some specific issues and try to refine them before the official release!
Now let's see what we have been working on recently:
Game System Feature Optimization
Now that the overall game design has been completed, we’ve been working on optimizing communication for system related functions: saving, loading, skipping cutscenes etc. They might not seem to be important elements, but as LUNA The Shadow Dust won’t contain any text, including menus, we really need to make sure players can understand how to use these UI features.
Testing resolution/full-screen display will also require us to try multiple OS systems and different kinds of computers. Depending on each hardware variation, diagnosing problems could be tricky too.
We’ve also designed a feature for players to be able to rewatch all the cutscenes from the menu page. If some of them remain locked when you finish the whole game, what could it mean? A second storyline? A hidden location? Okay, I've already said too much….
Sound Design
We’ve had great progress on the sound design! Some of the cinematic sound Fx is still under mixing but we’ve more-or-less completed all the sound design tasks for the game! We'll continue to optimize the sound experience, like introducing 3d sound mixing so the sound source will appear near or far, depending on how you control the characters.
Meanwhile, we’ve already started on sound debugging! What? Sound fx has its own bugs? Sadly the answer is: yes. Sound effects can be triggered in different ways and are all programmed closely to various game actions and events. We don’t want our players to hear a high pitched honk from another level when they are enjoying a quiet moment during, do we? That’s one corner we also will not cut!
Steam Language
Although LUNA as a game does not require localization, the marketing materials indeed have to be translated in order to reach as many potential players as possible. We’ve now localized our Steam page into 27 different languages (Which is every language on Steam!) It feels really great to start to see game broadcasters from all over the world introduce LUNA in different languages. Knowing more and more people are discovering LUNA gives us a very warm feeling.
Last but not least, join our Discord server!
Lantern Studio now has its own Discord server! If, aside from these dev updates, you’re still eager to know more the game and our team behind the scenes, the development story, or looking to hang out with folks who also love puzzle adventure games - our new Discord channel is the new place to be! Each Friday we will post a new micro-update on the server in the #announcements channel, just showcasing what’s been happening every week!
From next month we will be finishing off our game development and go full-on hardcore with testing and debugging. We will also work on the digital/hard copy art book of LUNA The Shadow Dust and continue composing the original soundtrack album. We’ve still got plenty of work to do but the finish line is almost within reach! :)
Until next time, peace out! ━━━━=≡Σ((( つ•̀ω•́)つ
Best,
Lantern Studio Team
LUNA The Shadow Dust - New Demo Announcement
Here comes the news you’ve been waiting for! We’re super-thrilled to announce that our new demo for LUNA The Shadow Dust is now available on our Steam Page from 6th May, for PC and Mac.
The new demo includes a bunch more puzzles, polished animations and new sections from the original soundtrack, with about 15-30m of gameplay.
Feel free to share screenshots or GIFs online and spread the word! (Please don’t spoil the puzzles for other players of course! ) We sincerely hope that you enjoy the demo and thank-you again for the support!
It’s really valuable having your feedback on the game; your comments, support and love ♥ have helped us shape LUNA into the game we will be proud to release, later this Summer.
At the end of the demo is a short survey (ten questions). If you have an additional 5 minutes, we would love to hear what you think.
If you miss it, please click here! Or you can buzz us on social media :)
April Update ( New Demo Coming Soon! )
Here comes the development update that you’ve been waiting for. We know it has been a while since we posted anything here, we do apologize for the delay! We’re full speed working on the game and the upcoming brand new demo, so let’s start the update with this exciting news!
New Demo coming soon!
Since the release of the Kickstarter backer early bird alpha test, we’ve received a lot of very positive and valuable feedback. We were then able to improve our build based on this valuable insight.
In order to reveal a little more about the world of LUNA, we've decided that before the official launch, we will present a brand new demo, featuring two new levels with four new locations. We hope this will give our players a good peek into the LUNA world. Also, this time, you will be able to fully experience our dual character control feature!
So stay in touch and sign up to our NEWSLETTER HEREto be among the first to click the link and gain access!
Also... New Trailer coming soon!
With more new footage to play around with, we’re now not only able to update our full-length trailer but also to make a different one focusing on gameplay! It is also high-time for us to work on the marketing side. With the professional help of both our Publisher and Marketing Consultant, we'd like to come up with the best phrase for LUNA to stand out from the crowd.
What's your favourite element in LUNA and what will be the part that most excites you? Leave a comment below and let us know!
Game production progress
Now, let’s see what has been achieved on the remaining game production work.
During the past few months, we finally reached our 3rd milestone!
Now ALL the cinematic animations are completed with music!
Along with the progression of the story, players will be presented with 6 visually stunning wordless cinematics, adding up to a total of 20+ min long 2D hand-drawn animations to experience! This is something we truly believe to be special about LUNA, it is not easy to complete such a quantity of cinematics with just one artist and one music composer, but we did it! Moreover, the team had been working on this game for a long time, even though when we first watched the full animation, we all still can’t help but felt deeply touched by the stories of these two beloved characters in LUNA. We sincerely hope that we can share this warm feeling with you in the final game.
Final polish and auxiliary system optimization
Now, as we are reaching the end of the production, it’s time to focus on the final touches within the limited time available to reach as closely to the to the perfect standard we hope to achieve.
We’ve been also working on stuff like level load times, progress saving, menu and interface etc., improving the recognition level of all the interface button/icons. We’ve been testing all these system-related features, hoping these basic functions do not interfere with, but aid players’ in-game experience.
Meanwhile, sound design is still in process. It's halfway through and goes hand-in-hand with music optimization. We want to make sure that all the animation, SFX and music work in a harmonious way. Therefore we strongly suggest playing the demo (and the final game) with your best audio system or headphones!
Last but not least, we‘ve started the most crucial step before the game’s release: debugging! The progress is painful but necessary. Sometimes we do find some amazing and funny bugs, but even though we love them very much, we’ll make sure you'll never bump into these bad boys!
Some bug collections. The Tai-Chi Boy and Teleport beast!
When the build comes to a stable stage, we will most likely to have a limited number of keys for the public beta testing. If you’d like to be part of this, we will send out the beta sign up via our NEWSLETTER, please subscribe!
Game Exhibitions
After last month’s trip back from GDC in San Francisco, we will be at the London EGX Rezzed 2019 at the Tobacco Dock from 4th- 6th in April! Come and see us, chat with the devs and play the LUNA EGX exclusive Demo! You can also purchase LUNA posters/postcards directly on that day and maybe ask Betty to draw you something :)
In the near future we are also going to Fusion G -Core exhibition in China on May 2019, and Gamescom in Germany later in the year!
We know we’ve said this countless times, but still now when the game is so, so close to being delivered, we look back on our first post. It really feels like an incredible journey. We are aiming to complete the sound FX and major debugging within the 2nd quarter, preparing the soundtrack and artbook material we promised our backers and complete the Steam page related jobs (achievement design etc). We should be able to update more frequently at this point, as the heaviest production work will be close to the end. We will be more actively involved in our Steam community discussion, social media events and much more!
Thank you all for being so patient and supportive, it's getting very exciting! Let us know us your crazy ideas to tell more people about LUNA; shouting "LUNA" in the neighbourhood 10 times a day? Hiring a celebrity cat on Instagram to hold our advertisement? Contacting NASA to spread the word in the skies? We’d love to be inspired!
