"Take the role of Hana the Tanuki and jump and fight through her dreams!"
— The Steam description for the game.
Lunistice (originally known as Eversleep: Lunistice Gaiden) is a 3D Platform Game developed by German developer Dennis "DEKE64" Kröner, also known as AGrumpyFox, and published by Deck13 Spotlight for PC and Nintendo Switch. The game stars Hana the Tanuki as she embarks on an adventure through her dreams, with her final destination being none other than The Moon, all the while trying to uncover the secrets behind something known as "The Lunistice".
The game was originally made as a self-imposed challenge by Dennis to make a commercially viable game in 30 days, though as time went on, the game grew beyond those ambitions and the 30-day challenge was abandoned. The game is designed to be very fast-paced with a focus on flow, mostly linear levels, a speedrun-friendly design, and visuals inspired by fifth generation consoles.
While the game was initially planned to be released on September 2, 2022, the game ended up having to be delayed to November 10, 2022 in order to polish the game further and avoid conflicting with the release dates of other major titles.
A Dreamcast-inspired sequel to the game, simply titled Lunistice 2, was announced on December 4, 2022
. An update for the original game, Accel Coda, which stars said game's protagonist, is also in development.
Lunistice contains examples of:
- Airplane Arms: Hana runs in this manner to illustrate her speed.
- Amusement Park: The world "PARK|FAMILY" takes place in one of these, with plenty of water slides that Hana can use as grind rails and ferris wheels visible in the distance.
- Apocalyptic Log: Most of the notes the player can obtain detail a group of scientists trying to avert an apocalyptic event called "The Moonfall" that was about to end the world in a years time (after having already been happening for years up until that point) through something known as The Lunistice Project, while the government at large did nothing about it.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Hana gets a sparkling gold version of her outfit upon achieving 100% Completion.
- Double Jump: Hana can jump again mid-air. In addition, her Spin Attack also doubles as an additional jump.
- Everything Dances: In Stage 4, food items such as strawberries, dangos and candy canes move to the beat of the music.
- Fungus Humongous: Mushrooms in Stage 5 are much larger than Hana.
- Gelatinous Trampoline: Stage 4 features jelly that bounces the player when jumped on.
- Grind Boots: Certain stages feature grind rails that the player can ride on, though balancing on the rails by staying in the green zone makes them go faster.
- Golden Ending: Getting the true ending for Hana's campaign requires the player to get all six notes from the six previous stages before stage 7. Doing so unlocks the seventh and final note and one last stage, 7-X: SYSTEM|OVERRIDE. Beating this stage unlocks the true ending, where Hana is now absent from her usual resting place seen in the intro and normal ending and is now standing in front of a large door that opens with a bright light shining out of it, signifying that she's now about to leave the simulation and break the cycle that has been placed on her.
- Guest Fighter: In addition to Hana, the game features two guest characters from other indie games, as well as bonus levels based on their home games to compensate for the fact that they are unable to access Hana's final stage. These include:
- Toree from Toree 3D. Much like in their home games, they are very fast, but they can't attack and die in one hit.
- Toukie from Holomento. She can't jump as high as Hana, but can flap her wings by pressing the jump button up to three times for extra air time, she has a much faster attack, albeit with shorter range, and has two HP as opposed to Hana's three.
- I Am Not Weasel: In the game's character select screen, unlocked after beating the game once, the third bullet point in Hana's description reads "Not a fox", implying that she is often confused for one.
- Interface Screw: During the entirety of SYSTEM|OVERRIDE, the numbers on the HUD glitch out, cycling between random numbers and letters.
- Level Ate: The level "FOOD|COMFORT" takes place in a location where majority of things are made out of food.
- The Lost Woods: The level "FOREST|MELANCHOLY" takes place in a sprawling autumn forest with large trees, mushrooms, and vines to rail grind on.
- Never Say "Die": In earlier builds of the game, the counter that keeps track of how many times you died in a level was originally plainly labeled as "Deaths". Later builds changed the name of this value to "Resets" instead, which makes more sense with the game taking place in a dream-based simulation.
- Obvious Rule Patch: Because Toree is unable to attack, they simply automatically run over any enemy they run into while riding on grind rails. In addition, any stage element that needs to be attacked to activate (like the grind vines in FOREST|MELANCHOLY) simply activates automatically when they get close.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: When entering secret areas (which are unlocked after obtaining all four letters in an act as Hana), the picture will become noticeably more distorted and glitchy. This effect even persists in the results screen after collecting the key/file in these secret areas, where the usual music is also replaced with an ominous droning noise.
- Palmtree Panic: The stage "BEACH|SUMMER", as the name suggests, takes place on a beach decorated with palm trees, umbrellas, and even beach balls to bounce off of.
- Retraux: The game's low-poly visuals are heavily inspired by fifth generation console games, particularly the PlayStation 1 and Sega Saturn. The game is even intentionally rendered at a low internal resolution to better sell the effect.
- Shown Their Work: A lunistice or lunar standstill refers to when the moon has appears to have reached its furthest point northward or southward across the sky.
- Spelling Bonus: Each act of each stage has the four letters of Hana's name scattered around it for her to collect. Collecting all four unlocks a secret bonus area near the goal, where the player can collect a key in the first act and a file in the second. This, of course, does not apply to guest characters and their bonus stages.
- Spell My Name with a Blank: In the unlockable text logs, some names are redacted with number signs. One example being Hana saying "Say hi to ######## for me!" near the end of the first text log, possibly referring to a relative or friend of hers.
- Spikes of Doom: World 4 has spikes that emerge and retract to the beat of the music.
- Spin Attack: This is how Hana deals with enemies. She can also use it to pick up nearby cranes or even to provide extra air time midjump, a la Super Mario Galaxy.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: Beach balls and balloons act as things that launch the player up when jumped on.
- Springy Spores: Mushrooms marked with a paw symbol bounce Hana up when jumped on.
- Story Breadcrumbs: Outside of the opening and ending cutscenes, much of the game's story is delivered through text logs, one for each stage, that are unlocked after obtaining all four letters in both acts as Hana and then entering the secret area that appears near the goal.
- Tanuki: This is what Hana is. While she doesn't seem to exhibit many of the abilities associated with Tanuki in traditional Japanese mythology (like transformation), she has a leaf symbol on her bandanna and leaves trail behind her as she runs and surround her in the game's key art.
- Wutai: The level "SHRINE|HOME" is very distinctly themed after traditional Japanese architecture. The fact that the stage has "HOME" in its name suggests that Hana may have come from this world's equivalent to Japan. There are other bits of Japanese architecture strewn about the other stages as well, and the checkpoints are all represented by torii gates.
- Variable Mix: World 5-2 uses this in a rather ingenious way to illustrate the player's progress through the level. In order to proceed to the last section of the level, Hana has to break three tear-shaped crystals ensnared by vines. When the level starts out, there is no music, just ambient forest noises, but as she breaks the three crystals, the music starts to return layer by layer.
- Yōkai: One of the kinds of enemies that Hana runs into over the course of the game is a kasa-obake.
