A Cute Sokoban that Pushes at the Edge of our Patience
I have a theory that a secret animal council decides which animal will be fashionable for the next couple of years. It’s been a capybara for the past two years, so we’re due a new one. Before capybaras we had llamas for a bit, sloths, pandas and penguins. I’ve started to see a lot of red pandas about, so my guess is that they’re next. Invest in red pandas.
Riding the wave is Lantern Push. Yep, the main character is an adorable red panda. Now, I’ve seen red pandas at zoos, and they’re nowhere near as active as the one in this game. This red panda lives to push paper lanterns around mazes. Those lanterns get moved onto Magical Ember Seals – whatever those may be – and the red panda’s job is done.
We’re Just Here for the Panda
Lantern Push, as you might have gleaned from that, is a sokoban. A sokoban is a crate-pushing puzzle game where you nudge boxes – or paper lanterns, as the case may be – around a grid in an effort to reach a goal. That is complicated by the shape of the grid. Often it has dead-ends, tight corridors and other quirks that make the objective more difficult than it sounds.
This is the latest sokoban from Afil Games, who have clearly found their seam and are mining it. They’re producing roughly a sokoban a week, and Lantern Push is the latest. 99% of their sokoban games are near-identical, and Lantern Push is very much in that 99%. It doesn’t do anything new: there’s no mechanic to learn, no complexity to account for.
In some ways, that’s a positive. Lantern Push, like the other sokoban games from the stable, is extremely polished. The presentation is lovely, with a pointy-eared red panda, some jolly music and crisp pixel graphics. The layouts, too, are really quite good. I don’t know who is producing thirty high quality and viable sokoban layouts per week, but they’re good at their job.
Far from Black and White
One note on those layouts before we move on: Lantern Push is very much on the difficult side. Line up all of the Afil sokobans and this would be right at the ‘challenging’ end. Take that red panda fans who are new to sokobans. We were stuck on level 6! That’s a new low for us, particularly as we thought we were getting a hang of sokobans. We should be clear that this doesn’t mean that Lantern Push is impossible, it’s just skewed to challenging.
Lantern Push is objectively a good puzzle game. It aims low, sure, but it delivers a pure execution of what a sokoban should be. If you’re in the market for that experience, Lantern Push won’t disappoint. And you’ll get a bonus red panda for your troubles.
But the lack of ambition does come with its negatives. We’re on our sixth or seventh sokoban this year, and it’s starting to gnaw away at us. We’re desperate for a new mechanic, a system improvement or a new way to play. But no. We’re left to perform the same sokoban dance as we have many times before.
No Room for Maneuver, but Plenty of Room for Improvement
There are also things that clearly could and probably should be improved. A sokoban is a game where you can very much get stuck; so why, then, does the template not account for this and offer a means to skip the puzzles? Or a hint system that offers the player a leg up? These things seem so simple, and are already present in Afil Games path-making games like Hexa Chippy. When you’re making thirty of these games a year, you’d hope that there would be room or time for this kind of improvement.
And we can’t help reaching the summit, after thirty levels, and feeling like a lack of improvement is lazy. These sokoban games are a strong foundation that never gets built on. It’s such a waste.
A Fine Entry in the Sokobaniverse
Nevertheless, Lantern Push is a fine – if surprisingly difficult – entry into the Afil Games sokobaniverse. As is customary, the main character is cute (this time a red panda), the puzzles are taut as a drum, and the new ideas are non-existent. It is a workmanlike sokoban, and a workmanlike sokoban deserves a workmanlike score.
Important Links
Afil Games Returns With Lantern Push – https://www.thexboxhub.com/afil-games-returns-with-lantern-push/
Buy from the Xbox Store, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/lantern-push-xbox-series/9N04679FS457/0010
Buy for Xbox One – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/lantern-push-xbox-one/9NZPW32VKMF9/0010
Buy for Windows PC – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/lantern-push-windows/9PDLPQ7B4NH6/0010
