Hollow Lantern

Hollow Lantern is a mood before it's a game. You play a lamplighter wandering a hushed, abandoned town, lighting lamps to push back the dark and slowly piecing together what happened here. It's light on combat and heavy on atmosphere, and the hand-drawn art carries a lot of the emotion.

The puzzles are gentle — mostly about observation and timing your light — so it never becomes frustrating. Exploration is the real draw, and the game trusts you to notice things rather than pointing arrows everywhere. I finished it in a couple of relaxed evenings and thought about it afterward.

If you want challenge, this isn't it. If you want a short, beautiful story you can play with headphones on, it's one of the best things we've reviewed.

What we liked

• Gorgeous hand-drawn art
• Gentle observation puzzles
• A short, memorable story