Enjoyable, pleasant atmosphere and puzzles
Tue Feb 09 2021 seven 1First, this game is not sexist like some other reviewer notes before quitting around level fifty. Some people just like to be offended. The main character’s inventions are certainly quirky, but we’re all a bit quirky. Aren’t we allowed to come up with our own ways of tackling our day-to-day chores? Life is more enjoyable when we can appreciate someone’s individual approach to getting something done.
Second, this is a creative game with solvable puzzles. It’s clearly not designed to drive you crazy with puzzles that seem impossible. There is a sense of accomplishment that pulls you through into the next puzzle. The music is truly fantastic; I love it. It’s pleasant and fits the overall atmosphere of the game.
Great job to everyone involved. Make it through to the end of the game, and you’ll be a bit bummed out that right now there’s not another puzzle waiting for you.
Wished it was fun
Sun Nov 12 2023 Zero EhxeAfter burning through chapter 1 of the game (16 stages), I wonder if lumen is like those long RPGs that someone will tell you starts getting really good 20 hours in. I don’t want to sit through a boring season 1 of a show because things become enjoyable in season 2 and beyond. Lumen felt like busy work. I can look at the board and tell almost instantly what path the lights need to take. It takes 7x longer to tap everything to set it up properly than it did to see the solution in my mind. Since the boards aren’t difficult, this is more of a fidget spinner than a brain teaser. The difficulty is an opinion, as is my dislike of the aesthetics of the chosen era. The annoyance of the loud, high-pitched sounds seems like something most people can agree with. I understand the chemical release when the jackpot sound goes off, but this is grating and misses the mark. The form factor, holding the phone in portrait and rapping with one hand, no timers or turns counting down, is absolutely perfect, and thus is the kind of game I would and do play while sitting in a full waiting room. I just wish it became interesting sooner so I had confidence it would become interesting.
Could be good, but…
Sat Apr 16 2022 ScreenAddictThe overall gameplay is pretty good. It’s simplistic in the early stages and satisfyingly more complex as the game progresses. The whole voiceover/inventions thing is just an irritation - it adds nothing to the game, and is just an irritation in my opinion. What’s more frustrating is the UI, which has several buttons whose sole purpose seems to be to go “click” - I still have no idea what they do - nothing happens except for the “click”. Worse still, are the daily challenges, which are supposed to be solved with minimal steps, but involve the sudden appearance of brand new components, with no accompanying explanation of their behavior. Those serve only to add frustration, rather than progressive complexity, which would otherwise be desirable. Many games involve learning through experimentation, rather than explanation. I don’t recall playing one that just introduces new “rules” in the challenge sections of a game, with no ability to learn what these rules are before you are tested on them - bizarre gameplay! I’ll keep playing it, but please at least, make those sections make sense, tell us what the mysterious UI icons mean, and dump the inventor VO baggage…
Disappointing
Sat Feb 06 2021 SteffoxPlayed up to level 22 and so far I am very unimpressed. The graphics are nice and the mechanic is clear, but the puzzles are easy and repetitive. New elements are added seamlessly and without too much tutorial because they’re intuitive. That’s... fine. Least that should be expected from an Arcade game.
The story really misses the marks. You start off exploring this box to find the protected inventions of Olivia. Surely she invented some cool stuff? She made the box, she has some craftsmanship... Nope. It’s all cobbled-together stuff to make cleaning her house easier. I’m actually a little offended by the low stakes of this lady inventor. It’s like the devs don’t take her seriously. Other “mysterious inventor” games have world-ending inventions, time travel, space explorations, invented by their male leads. And here we have roller skates with brushes on the bottom. It’s not even written well enough to be funny or tongue-in-cheek.
My puzzle now is whether to blast through more levels and see if there’s a crazy twist... or play something else.
Edit: Level 50. We went to buy new shoes because she used all of hers in the invention. If there is depth to this story, they need to hint at it sooner. I’m out, this sexist level of female stereotyping is putting me in a bad mood.
pretty good (but with some notes)
Tue Mar 08 2022 bortymcflyi found the premise of this game pretty fun, and the mechanics for simple enough for me to figure out. There's a good amount of levels to play, it kept me entertained pretty consistently for 3-4 months when i was bored.
I was a little apprehensive going in after reading the review abt the game sort of pigeonholing the female protagonist into a homemaker type of role, and I feel to a certain extent that's definitely true! There are many things she could've made just for fun without purpose, instead of this "i wish my chores got done faster!" type of deal. But i don't think having her make some grand world-saving invention makes sense either. I think it's important for people to see that this was a slightly misogynistic view, but not like "cancel" it or anything like that. Just keep it in mind sort of.
In terms of things I would love to see added, i wish i could zoom in and interact with her machines once earning the trophy! like tapping and seeing the machinery work? it would be a really cute touch!
Absurdly Easy
Tue Feb 09 2021 cronnebergAesthetic is very nice, with a mildly interesting plot.
Now I will talk about the puzzles. Firstly, they are extremely easy. It’s almost mindless. I have already made it up to level 85, yet I still barely have to use a single brain cell when solving them. More challenge would be welcome, especially since this is a puzzle game. Secondly, the new mechanics are introduced far too slow. Every 10 levels a new mechanic is introduced (e.g. double-sided mirror, beam splitter, blocker). The problem with this is that a mechanic only takes at most 2-3 levels at most to master, so the next 7-8 levels after feel painfully easy and repetitive. Lastly, the stars. In each level, there are 3 stars you can collect. However, they are not a requirement. They should be though, because you literally have to try to not collect them to not get 3 stars.
In conclusion, I would recommend this to a child ages 8 and below. I believe many 8 year olds would be entertained and possibly challenged by this game. But if you are anything older than that, you should give this game a pass. Beating 85 levels of this game for me was about as entertaining as playing 85 slow games of tic-tac-toe.
Great mind exercise, but encountered a few glitches.
Mon Sep 25 2023 LuMPGLet me start by saying that I’m addicted to this game! I’ve played it for years and am now on the leaderboard in the top 1%. But probably the only reason I’m on that high of a rating is because I’ve been playing for so many years! And over the course of those years, I’ve learned that: your local time to start the day’s challenge isn’t necessarily the same time (there evidently are challengers from around the world playing this game) for everyone; that glitches can happen (as did to me) and you can lose many places on the leaderboard and basically those trophies and stars just disappear! If you’re tied on the leaderboard with someone, you can gain a position by solving the puzzle faster than they can, but know that speed often leads to lost stars. And an important factor in the game is knowing that YES, there is a solution to every level and don’t forget to play EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!! Good Luck!
It's pretty fun.
Sat Feb 13 2021 Sense-ayI'm on level 145 and have had to use only 1 hint. I don't know how close I am to finishing it but I know it's more than 10 puzzles away. It definitely gets more difficult around level 100. I think this game is more about quantity but I wouldn't say it gave up quality either. I won't lie I couldn't tell you a single thing about the story though. I play it on mute and didn't know someone speaks at the gold framed levels until about level 50. And honestly I couldn't care less. Sorry devs. I'm taking one star off because while I've 3 starred all levels so far, I like to verify when I come back to play. Checking the levels and stars is just really annoying. Especially when I'm this far into the game. I get it's like a movie reel and you can watch the frames but it takes ages to get through. Don't have a good suggestion to fix this though. Just my opinion to give. Do with that what you will.
It's 161 levels as of right now. FYI.
Solid and Well-Crafted, but Nothing New
Thu Feb 11 2021 BlueDev1101Lumen is beautifully made with excellent music. The levels aren’t particularly challenging, and the entire game can be completed in a couple of hours. The story is cute, though irrelevant and unrelated to the game. The only mechanical complaint I have is that the animations between levels are too long for something purely cosmetic that happens very frequently. It’d be nice to be able to skip that, since it gets annoying after about level 3.
The biggest issue with the game, though, is that it does absolutely nothing new with the genre. There have been light reflecting games forever, and this does nothing to add new elements to the gameplay. In fact, it’s more limited than other games I’ve played in the past.
Perhaps the developers will add new mechanics in future updates—adding more variety would improve the game immensely. That said, it’s high-polish, well-crafted, and a brief but fun diversion.
So disappointed based on description
Sat Feb 06 2021 Tea berry-blueThere is only one type of puzzle in this game: one where you bounce a beam of light off mirrors to hit a lens, over and over. I had expected there to be a number of different styles of puzzles hidden in the box, a la The Room, not just different variations of a puzzle that already exists in almost every other puzzle game on the App Store alongside a variety of other puzzles. PLEASE change the description to make it clear that it’s just the one— it’s not even a new or unique type of gameplay. I guess it might be fun for people who just want to do that same type of puzzle but it was much too repetitive for me and the storytelling was not presented well enough to hold my interest. The graphics were nice but I got very bored very quickly which is a shame because I was really expecting something special from the preview and was eagerly anticipating this game’s release. If the preview had been clearer, I probably would have just passed it by.
