It's 2023. You are a cinematic platformer. But do you pop or do you limbo? Your poppers, those Persian princes, are more like big puzzle boxes. Poke around the level, do some manual dexterity stuff, figure out what happens when you flip that switch. But if you limbo, you're about the vibe. Discrete puzzles in contained locations, musical cues, dramatic setpieces.

Planet of Lana likes to limbo, no doubt. The puzzles are chill and the tone is everything. Everyone speaks a false, albeit consistent, language, the world is rendered in painterly strokes, the music is lush and the animations and voice acting are brimming with personality. The puzzles are almost always one-screen affairs with no real way to softlock yourself. Not too hard, either. Maybe harder if you've not been around the block? Enough to cause a moment of thought for a veteran, maybe a bit of experimentation and head-scratching for a newcomer.

It's also quite short. Doesn't take up much of your time, tells its story through the environment. Has some flaws, but none too glaring. There's a touch much of cycle-waiting for stealth, which can easily lead to more deaths as you try and hurry things along. The camera fades briefly to black on occasion, presumably to load the next stretch, which is a pity because this sort of game thrives on being as close to a one-shot camera as possible. There are some QTEs out of nowhere toward the end, and at least one major puzzle feels like it was meant to be something significantly more complex before being cut back to match the difficulty curve. And that curve itself is a bit uneven, some basic stealth punctuating the final scenes versus the slightly more involved sneaking found earlier.

Still: it's fun, it's evocative. A great stream/couch game with a devastating conlang sucker punch at the end for those paying attention. Worth the time it takes, even if I ultimately want something more.