I’m not the biggest connoisseur of farm and life sims, but I have sunk over a hundred hours into games such as Stardew Valley and Disney Dreamlight Valley. Luma Island is a farm sim with a charming art style that emphasizes exploration. It released late last year, and recently received a major — and free, update.

The Luma Island: Pirates update adds an impressive amount of content that fits the island theme, but doesn’t change the fundamental issues that keep me from sinking dozens of hours into the farm sim.

No Stamina, No Problem

Luma Island attempts a more relaxing farm sim. There’s no stamina whatsoever. I can farm, harvest, water, and mine as much as I like. There is a day/night cycle, but without stamina I can simply run around 24 hours a day, without worry.

Even more pleasantly shocking: there are no inventory limits. Personal inventory space is often a huge hassle in farm sims. Inventory expansion becomes a priority upgrade, along with storage crafting.

Not so with Luma Island! I can simply lug everything with me. This instantly creates some bad hoarding habits as I constantly hunt for the right items in my ever-expanding bag of holding.

The town is large and fun to explore.

The farm sim also includes Zelda-like dungeon crawling and cave exploration, with very rudimentary puzzles, traps, and enemies. But the player has no health bar and cannot be injured. Instead, enemy attacks cause random items to spill out, which can immediately be picked up again, making the whole thing rather pointless. Traps simply knock me out and put me back in the beginning of the room, as does becoming swallowed by darkness after running out of torches in the caves.

I get creating an element of danger and adventure. Many farm sims include enemies and combat, after all. But without any real consequences, adventuring quickly loses its appeal.

Plus, I was annoyed that the two primary enemy types in the base game early on, ghosts, and giant spiders, are a little spooky for a supposedly cozy farm sim!

But the biggest problem I had with Luma Island lies with its core progression.

Workin’ for a Livin’

Soon after starting the game, I venture into town to purchase a license for a profession. Professions include cook, brewer, fisherman, and treasure hunter.

Unfortunately, as I quickly found out, they’re all basically the same. Instead of crafting interesting new stuff to use, all crafted items are used to sell for money. Crafting an item for the first time, such as a loaf of bread from wheat, unlocks the next possible crafted item, which requires more or different ingredients, and sells for a bit more gold.

I can’t eat baked food to regain energy or receive buffs (no stamina, remember?), and I can’t place or wear any of the cool pirate stuff I’m crafting. It’s all simply sold for cold hard cash.

A major joy for farm and life sims are creating new fun things to wear, use, and decorate with, and Luma Island simply skips all of that. Oof.

Every single profession ultimately operates the same way, with the only difference in how you obtain the ingredients for crafting. Blacksmiths and jewelers will need to explore the depths of the spider-infested caves for minerals, while cooks and brewers simply purchase fruit and vegetable seeds, and nurture the plants on their farm.

At least the treasure hunter gives me a cute dog that finds buried treasure, a useful trait until I start acquiring Lumas.

Gotta Catch a Few

Lumas are magical creatures that act as helpful pets. I was hoping the game was a bit like Palworld or Pokémon, with tons of creatures I could find and utilize. But after about 10 hours I only have two Lumas, a cool beetle with a mustache, and an annoying penguin who squeaks.

My Luma can fetch nearby items while exploring, such as flowers or berries, as well as point out buried treasure.

They’re fine, I guess.

I was annoyed that Luma are just another inventory item that must be equipped. It’s a hassle to switch them out to get as much Luma energy as possible (which they poop out after eating Luma food). Luma energy is used to craft more advanced items that turn a better profit. It looks like I can make a Luma nest to house them, which probably makes getting Luma energy easier, though the game doesn’t explain any of that.

The minimalist approach to progression and interaction is aggravating. The zones are large enough that they’re easy to get lost in, and I found the map lacking (the update apparently improved the map; I shudder to think what it was before). Some NPCs in town have side quests, with zero indicators. And precise aiming, especially when it comes to farming, is egregiously finicky. Weirdly I had more success with a controller than mouse/keyboard.

Pirates of the Cove

On the plus side, the Pirates update adds a crazy amount of stuff. The new Pirate’s Cove area is an entire zone the size of any of the base game zones, and is accessible fairly early right from the farm. The Cove has its own clever progression that connects to the other zones, making it worthwhile to explore throughout your career.

The Cove is well-designed, with lots of secret areas, and pirate skeleton enemies. The little town area is also fun, and seemingly lashed together with various ship pieces. The undead residents host carnival-style minigames, and players can spend their rewards on useful items and materials.

The update also adds the new shipwright profession, which sadly operates the same as the others (focusing on chopping down trees), but at least there’s an end-game mission to fix a big pirate galleon.

luma island pirates

Pirates Cove is a large area with its own town, of sorts.

Luma Island now features three game modes: Cozy, Adventure, and Hero. I played on Adventure and found combat completely pointless, so I’m not sure what Cozy mode would do for anyone. I briefly tested Hero mode, which teases quicker deaths, quickly disappearing loot, more expensive prices, longer crafting times, and rarer resources. Not exactly appealing.

I still love Luma Island’s toy-like art style, and each zone is put together with enough interesting nooks and crannies to make exploration enjoyable. Even the town is fairly large and full of secrets and side quests. Luma Island also supports up to four player co-op. I didn’t get a chance to test the multiplayer, but I can see the appeal of running multiple crafting-factories and professions for maximum profit.

The Pirates Update is an awesome addition for fans, and I appreciate a farm sim that doesn’t worry about inventory or stamina. But the boring progression, simplistic combat, and lack of meaningful NPC interactions keep Luma Island from the top echelon of a crowded genre.


Luma Island is available on Steam. It’s currently 20% off as part of the Steam Summer Sale (ends July 10).


This article was written by

Eric has been writing for over nine years with bylines at Dicebreaker, Pixelkin, Polygon, PC Gamer, Tabletop Gaming magazine, and more covering movies, TV shows, video games, tabletop games, and tech. He reviews and live streams D&D adventures every week on his YouTube channel. He also makes a mean tuna quesadilla.

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