Hollow Lantern

Hollow Lantern is quiet and a little bit sad, in the best way. You wander a series of hand-drawn ruins with almost no text, piecing together what happened here from the environment and a few scattered objects. It reminded me why I love adventure games that don't hold your hand.

The puzzles are environmental and fair, and the game never blocks you with an obvious wall of frustration. You swipe to move and tap to interact, and that's really all you need. The soundtrack does a huge amount of the emotional lifting.

It's short, maybe three or four hours, but I didn't want it padded. It's the kind of game you finish in a couple of sittings and think about for a while after.

What we liked

• Beautiful hand-drawn world
• Environmental storytelling done right
• Fair puzzles that respect your intelligence