Lovely Planet was a wonderfully colourful, speedrunning first-person shooter/platformer, while its sequel Lovely Planet Arcade ditched the y-axis and focus on platforming, to put more emphasis on the business of shooting stuff. That trend for reinvention continues in the third entry, Super Lovely Planet, which has just released on Steam and the Humble Store.
There's no shooting (at least on your side) in this third Lovely game, and rather than as a person you play as a big bouncing ball. There's a renewed focus on leaping, however, as the order of the day is now "3D precision platforming." You know the sort of thing you get up to in third-person platformers: exploration, jumping challenges, scouring the environment for hidden secrets, chatting to NPCs, etc. Here's the peaceful then not peaceful launch trailer:
It's worth having a read of the 'Random Fun Facts' section on the Steam page, as it preemptively answers many of the questions you might be thinking, and it's pretty funny, and a little exasperated, to boot. Here are a few snippets:
"You don't unlock any skills or abilities. There is only the jump button."
"NPCs don't keep you for too long. They don't beat around the bush or waste your time trying to be funny."
"You don't defeat an 'evil mastermind'. There's no boss fights."
"I have ideas for Lovely Planet 2. I also have a prototype ready."
"Look, I can't really explain why it's not a shooter game. I wanted to make a platformer, so I made a platformer. Okay?"
"You're still reading this? Pro tip - there is in fact a second jump button the game never tells you about."
Super Lovely Planet is out now, with a 25% discount for the next few days.
