Lantern Vale

Lantern Vale is the kind of adventure that trusts you to wander. You explore a quiet valley, solve little environmental puzzles, and slowly piece together why the lanterns matter. There's no timer breathing down your neck.

The art is beautiful without showing off, and the sound design does a lot of quiet work — you hear the wind change before you see the path open up. We found ourselves stopping just to look around.

It's short, maybe six or seven hours, but it lands its ending well. One of the few mobile games we replayed just to catch what we missed.

What we liked

• Calm, unhurried exploration
• Gorgeous hand-drawn world
• Clever environmental puzzles