$1.19 (−80%)Lovely Planet Cute on the outside, brutal underneath
Blast through a hundred bite-sized levels in a colorful abstract world, one lightning-fast run at a time.
Is Lovely Planet worth it?
Lovely Planet is worth it if…
- you want a shooter that tests reflexes and memory instead of patience behind cover
- you like short levels you can retry instantly until the run is perfect
- you chase times, stars and leaderboard spots long after the credits would roll
- you would rather fail fifty times in a bright, cheerful world than grind a grim one
Screenshots
Jump, shoot, repeat, in ten-second bursts
Every level is a tiny sprint: clear out the red baddies, touch the goal, done. A clean run takes seconds. The trick is that nothing sits still. You wear boots of speed, jump over twice your own height, and fire an endless stream from your semi-automatic, all while purple cubes sail toward you. Standing behind cover gets you nowhere; the game wants you airborne, weaving between bullets and shooting them out of the sky. One hit kills you, but one hit kills them too, and respawning is instant. Later worlds stack on new hazards: apples launched into the air that must be shot down before they land, homing projectiles, fog hiding unseen shooters, teleports. Each level takes seconds to attempt and plenty of attempts to finish.
Three stars, world records and hidden corners
Finishing a level is only the start. Each of the hundred levels holds three stars: one for clearing it, one for beating the par time, and one for finishing with perfect accuracy, every single bullet a hit. That last one is the cruel one, since your bullets travel at running speed and there is no crosshair, so long shots mean leading the target while flying through the air. Every level also has a leaderboard, so once the par time feels easy there is always someone faster to chase. Secrets are tucked away in each world too, and finding them is its own reward. It is a game built for one more run: die, respawn a second later, adjust the route, go again.
What should you know before playing?
How hard is it, really?
Harder than it looks, by a wide margin. The pastel world and bouncy music suggest a breezy afternoon; the game delivers one-hit deaths, apples that end your run if they touch the ground, and later levels that demand near frame-perfect movement. Getting one star is very doable. Three-starring everything, or competing on the leaderboards, takes real practice and a lot of memorized runs. The upside is that restarting is instant, so failure never costs more than a few seconds.
Is there a story?
Not in any conventional sense. The game openly describes its story as so abstract that it is not told at all. You are heading toward a faraway Lovely Planet, five worlds stand in the way, and the strange sights along the route are left for you to interpret. If you play shooters for the plot, this is not that kind of game; if you enjoy a world that is cheerfully unexplained, it fits nicely.
Can you play it with a controller or with friends?
It is a singleplayer game, and the competition happens through per-level leaderboards rather than multiplayer: your times are measured against everyone else's. The controls themselves are simple, keyboard to move and jump, mouse to aim and shoot, which matters because the challenge comes from speed and precision, not from complicated inputs.
What is the soundtrack like?
It is an original score by Calum Bowen, and it does a lot of work. While you are dying repeatedly to falling apples, the music stays bright, bouncy and cheerful, which takes the sting out of failure. It is one of the most consistent things people bring up about the game, and it suits the fast, playful rhythm of the levels well.
