At a strange time like this, we hope all of you are well. Much the same as everyone across the world, all the members of Lantern Studio are more or less forced to work from home under each country’s individual quarantine regulations. It is a hard time for all of us, so many things have been unexpectedly affected but we're still trying our best to keep up our spirits - to work, relax and take care of our family members as best we can. There hasn't been a time in memory in which ALL of us are in such a crisis together, and the only way to get through it is to both help each other and look after ourselves. It is an extremely difficult time for any small studio like us, so we sincerely thank everyone who has purchased our game (and other indie games) or supported us (and other indie teams) in any way!
Despite all the doom and gloom, there are still some bright spots in our life.
Let’s share some of the news about the LUNA tasks we’ve been working on over these recent days in quarantine!
Switch version
It occurs to us sometimes that when we first started working on LUNA, back in 2015, the Nintendo Switch didn't even exist. Since then, it has become one of the most popular gaming platforms across the globe - how fast the world changes! We are now working very hard on porting LUNA to the Switch, designing some new mechanisms that allow for a mouse-based point and click game to run smoothly and intuitively on both a touch and controller-based gaming device. Not all of us have the dev kit for the Switch yet, so testing out the game on our PS and Xbox controllers has sometimes been a bit challenging too. There are occasional visual clues and tutorial animations that will require a redesign, but we’re ultimately excited to see our little game getting shaped up for Switch in the near future!
Merchandise
After factories across the world went silent, we had some doubts about the timescale within which we could bring LUNA merch to the table. Now that some factories are back open, we have been able to receive the very first of our LUNA merchandise prototypes! Based on everyone’s feedback (thank-you!), the pin set, postcards and the poster are the first batches of items we will put into production. More will come in the future! This week, we’re really excited to be finally able to show off these lovely items for the first time! ✧*｡٩(ˊωˋ*)و✧*｡
Due to the global quarantine situation, the postage and delivery services are however still unfortunately also highly affected and we don’t know exactly when we will be receiving these items, but we’re still excited to share some of the pictures with you all. Once the restrictions are let off a bit, we will be able to sell these products to everyone worldwide. We promise we will update everyone about this!
Everyone’s feedback is important to us
We read everyone’s feedback and we can’t express how much we appreciate it, regardless of whether the comments are long or short, positive or negative. The game has connected us with people all over the world in an unexpected way. We have watched people discussing the lore in all kinds of languages we don’t even speak, parents playing LUNA with their kids and couples trying to solve puzzles together. Through it all, people have both shed tears and laughed out loud at the points where we expected the story might impact them. We have received detailed articles, review videos, podcast interview invitations and amazing fan art! Thank you for sharing these with us. We might not be able to reply to every post or comment but we can tell you we read them all and cherish them deeply.
We’re also really touched by the criticism. Sometimes it can seem a bit harsh in the beginning but it really reminds us that there are so many things to learn in game design. While doing our normal debugging, we’re still trying to optimize some of the key shortages in LUNA that some players have pointed out, like character movement speed, some repetitive puzzles that were not challenging enough and those over-complicated game design elements which might have left some players feeling frustrated or that the challenge was unfair.
If you have played our game but haven’t left us any comments, we would really appreciate it if you were to do so, it not only helps us polish the game but also helps other players discover LUNA on Steam and other various platforms. You can write a review on Steam, or send us your feedback on Twitter or Discord.
Last but not least, we want everyone to stay safe, keep up the spirit and carry on!
Take care and with love,
Lantern Studio Team
