You are a gust of wind gently caressing bamboo chimes. You are a moving entity, sharing happiness in a gray dimension. You are a lantern, bringing colors to the world. You are probably tripping so hard right now.
“Once upon a time, there was a very sad princess. She felt so unloved and unhappy, that everything around her became gray and lifeless and the entire land was deprived of its color and joy. Our fable begins when a single, lonely lantern was lit in a faraway village…” – Lantern
Lantern is a VR experience developed by Storm in a Teacup, and is available for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and OSVR. In this experience, you are a lantern, traveling through the world. Wherever you go, you spread colors around, turning the gray world into a colorful paradise.
There’s not a lot to be said about this VR experience, besides the fact that this is –indeed- an experience rather than a game. Even though the Steam page tries to convince the inner hippie in all of us (“Bring the powerful message of everlasting love to four Asian-inspired worlds”), this is actually a relaxing pastime, or as the developers like to describe it “a virtual coloring book”.
In Lantern, you get a third-person perspective of a lantern (pretty weird for a VR game), which you control by either using a mouse and keyboard, or a controller. For some reason, the mouse + keyboard combination is very clunky, and the developers themselves recommend using a controller to play Lantern. I played through this experience for quite some time, and even though I did not have a VR system to test it out, it still offers what the description promises: some nice peace and quiet, a digital coloring book, but sadly nothing more.
The experience (nope, still not calling it a ‘game’) consists of 4 worlds, with 4 ‘unique’ styles. Your task is to fill the majority of that world with color, which you simply do by moving around. Sometimes there are pick-ups to be found that enable you to instantly ‘colour’ a bigger area of the world. It’s a shame you can’t choose which colors you would like to add to that gray world. Every building, tree, or landmark has its own fixed color pattern. A bit boring for people who like to be creative: I want blue trees and red rivers!
There’s not a lot to be added to this review of Lantern. It’s a nice way to pass some time and to relax, but don’t expect a gripping VR experience or mesmerizing gameplay. It’s simply a little bit of color in an otherwise dull world. Although, when you think about it, using the same colors all the time can be a bit boring too.
| The Good: | The bad: |
| + Colouring, yay! | – Clunky mouse + keyboard |
| + More colouring, yay! | – Gets boring really quickly |
| + I’m totally zen right now |
Final Score as a game: 1/5
Final Score as an experience: 3/5
