With a charming (but sometimes mysterious) setting, the ability to craft your dream homestead, fishing, mining, cooking, and co-op support, it’s difficult not to compare Luma Island to the likes of Stardew Valley. While there are lots of fresh cozy co-op life sims and survival-lite games dropping at the moment, Luma Island appears to be making a much bigger splash than many of its fellow newcomers.
In with a real shout at becoming one of the best games like Stardew Valley, Luma Island takes the iconic game’s formula and gives it some new spins. The first thing you’ll notice is the visuals – while fairly low res, there is a definite charm about them. Exploration and completing fiddly tasks should also benefit from that 360-degree rotating camera – there are no fixed perspectives here.
Speaking of exploration, it seems to hold just as much weight in Luma Island as farming, crafting, and resource gathering. There’s a very wide variety of biomes, from the main village, to green hillsides, to snowy mountain passes, and they all hold secrets to uncover as well as new resources. You can find shortcuts, activate hidden switches to make loot appear, and much more. There are also a series of caves scattered throughout the island for mining and temples which contain puzzles, combat encounters, and more.
The game also gets its name from the Lumas, which are animal companions that you can gradually collect throughout your playthrough. By exploring new places you may come across Luma eggs, and after incubating them, you’ll hatch a new beastie for your collection.
Aside from all that though, this has really strong Stardew energy. The ability to expand your homestead from a small vegetable patch next to a trailer to a huge area of farmland with the house of your dreams in the middle is of course a massive draw. Cooking, mining, fishing, harvesting, crafting, and selling your wares for some coin are all here and present. There are also set professions that you can specialize in, although they are a bit more varied and expansive than Stardew’s five skills of farming, mining, fishing, foraging, and combat.
At the beginning of the game you’ll pick one profession, and over time partner it with other professions. Each one has a different difficulty rating, so it’s wise to start with easier ones. You can choose to be a Cook, a Brewer, a Treasure Hunter, a Fisherman, a Blacksmith, a Jewlerycrafter, or an Archaeologist.
Despite having a lot of competition and flying fairly under the radar up until launch, Luma Island has had a very successful debut on Steam for indie developer and self-publisher Feel Free Games. Its opening day player count peaked at just shy of 15,000 players, and thanks to its early flurry of user reviews, it sits at an 83% ‘very positive’ Steam rating.
Luma Island is out right now on Steam. As mentioned, you can enjoy all of this alongside up to three other friends through online co-op. It shares a similarly affordable price point to Stardew Valley as well – especially if you pick it up before Wednesday, December 4, when its 20% introductory discount ends. You can pick it up for yourself or learn more about it here.
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