LunarLux may be on its way steal gamers' hearts next year, but it had rather humble beginnings. CosmicNobab, the creator of LunarLux, had always been attached to two things throughout their life: games, and love for things like SpaceX. With this passion at the forefront and plenty of dedication, the game they desired to play when they were a child is becoming a reality.
Game Rant spoke with CosmicNobab about the history behind the indie game coming to Steam, as well as its inspirations and what players can expect from it. LunarLux has been in development for roughly five years, going from one person using RPG Maker to a small dedicated team using GameMaker Studio 2. Despite everything that's happened in the last five years, the core of LunarLux remains the same, according to CosmicNobab. "LunarLux is like I took all of my favorite games and blended them together into a game that I would absolutely love to play myself."
LunarLux is Made With Love for Classic Turn-Based RPGs
When it comes to games CosmicNobab took inspiration from, there's a fond love for Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man Star Force, and the Mario & Luigi RPG series that shape the overall feeling of the game. Where Battle Network and Star Force helped shape LunarLux's exploration, the Mario & Luigi series is what led the indie title to have interactive and easy quick-time events as part of its combat. CosmicNobab hopes these parts of the combat help players "get that encouragement to interact with the game more," even though the simple gameplay loop of turn-based combat.
However, among the games that played a part in making LunarLux, they also said that Undertale and a bit of Pokemon helped influence the team's decisions. Undertale in particular can be seen with the game's humor, as LunarLux features an interactive moment that encourages players to pet a dog as fast as possible, along with the chance for gamers to swindle a stranger out of their money while letting out an evil laugh. Humor isn't the only thing LunarLux takes from Toby Fox's Undertale; CosmicNobab sees the head developer of the smash-hit indie game as personal inspiration, as well.
"I feel like Toby Fox's Undertale is one of the factors that pushed me to achieve my own dream of getting a game out there. He was a solo developer, too, and he did almost all the game by himself with some help."
LunarLux's Aim to be The Gateway Into Turn-Based Games
The team at CosmicNobab Games is aware that turn-based RPGs aren't for everyone. Many players have issues with how these games tend to deal with random encounters, and some feel like turn-based games are too "slow." LunarLux aims to use its mechanics to its advantage, becoming a game that can interest people who have even put down turn-based games before.
While the team has put a fair deal of effort into the turn-based combat, CosmicNobab has said they want people to experience the story above everything else. How LunarLux makes that clear is that all encounters are up to the player, and "random encounters" need to be initiated by walking into designated objects. This benefits even hardcore fans of the genre, as CosmicNobab promises that players "can be at the lowest level possible and still beat the game without getting hit a single time" as a hidden challenge.
These mechanics play such a role for one big purpose: CosmicNobab simply wishes to share turn-based RPGs with more people. Not only do turn-based games tend to be seen as "the same" by detractors, but more franchises like Final Fantasy are switching to real-time combat, shying away from the traditional genre conventions. In the face of this, LunarLux seeks to not only welcome those who wish to see the genre thrive, but also make things comfortable for gamers who have said these titles aren't for them in the past.
"There's a person on the LunarLux Discord who said that he did not like turn-based RPGs at all, and somehow LunarLux was able to inspire him to try out more turn-based RPGs. And it was with the RPG Maker version which isn't as polished as the version we have now. Knowing that I inspired someone to give these games another shot was like the best feeling in the world."
For those curious about the game, LunarLux recently released a new, free demo version of chapter one for players to download on Steam. This appears to be the entirety of the first part of the game, and CosmicNobab has said that players can use it to see "all the quality-of-life improvements and story improvements" from the game's first RPG Maker-based demo. This newer version is what players can expect when it comes to the full game scheduled to release next year.
It's clear to see that everything going into LunarLux makes it a game developed with pure love for RPGs, as well as the medium of gaming as a whole. This makes LunarLux a strong recommendation for those both acquainted with and completely new to these types of role-playing games. With the fact that the entire first chapter is available for free, anyone who might be interested should give the game a try to see if it's the adventure they might not have known they needed.
LunarLux is scheduled to release in late 2023 for PC, with a demo available now on Steam.