Kydos Studio has announced the release of its beautiful puzzle platformer Lumi onto the Xbox Live Indie Games section of the 360′s Live service.

The dev’s third effort on the channel (creators of MyBand and Soul as well) has players jumping into the shoes of a puffball with big eyes trying to restore light to her home planet, which currently is being plagued and consumed by an evil force. The gameplay brings both the familiar and strange as it consists both of collecting fireflies and using a new magnetism-based mechanic that gives players the ability to navigate through levels using different colored hubs. Some fresh new ideas plugged into the platformer equation.

The title runs the 400 MS Points ($5) and, as comes standard on the channel, a trial version is available for free to download and try out. Check out the Lumi launch trailer below.

Soul, the spooky “don’t hit the walls” title from Kydos Studio that Arsen recently reviewed on Xbox Live Indie has just hit the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It’s going rate is $1.99, which is actually a dollar more than what it is on XBLIG, but for a portable game of this caliber, might be well worth the bump. I can’t confirm how it plays on the new platform, but we’ll have to let you know soon.

You can snag the game from the app store over here.

I hate horror games. I really do. Usually the horror is unfounded and almost nothing in the game makes me want to play it. That’s not to say a lot of effort isn’t put into their concepti0n or development, but my specific gripe is that they usually spook me out of playing. I’m not the type of person that enjoys getting scared. Horror movies never worked on me but obviously a surprising image here and there could have me spooked. It’s not about the graphical nature of the content, but rather its presentation and timing.

Soul, the XBOX Live Indie Games effort from Kydos Studio, is a “horror” game that follows through with the aforementioned presentation and timing. The experience starts from a down-in-the-dumps hopeless feeling and eventually uplifts as you make your way to heaven. Chances are though, heaven won’t be that easy to get to as the first time I played the game, it took me about an hour and 9 minutes (dying…over and over again). You should get this game, I’ll tell you that even before I start the review. But here’s what you can expect from Soul:

Gameplay

Soul‘s gameplay isn’t confusing. What you are required to do through each stage is get your soul from point A to point B without being gobbled up by monsters or colliding with your surroundings. In the big picture, you make your way from where you lay all the way to heaven. This task requires an astute mastery of controls on the player’s part, however. You’ll only be using the left analog stick on your 360 controller, but the stages you’ll have to pass through have extremely sensitive surroundings. Once you hit a wall or get eaten by a monster, you must restart from the beginning of the level. Soul certainly proves to be unforgiving and challenging by way of this mechanic, but it also becomes frustrating and annoying. For example, imagine you make your way through the most difficult level yet and just as you’re about to make your final turn, you hit a wall and die. Way to go, jackass, time to start from the beginning of that level and work your way back up (or down) that ladder.

That leads me to my biggest concern with the gameplay: there are no saves or checkpoints. I don’t remember the exact number of stages, but I’d assume Soul had ten (or so) total. Each level is magnificently different than the last, offering new challenges and obstacles to overcome. But it’s extremely bothersome to have to die constantly with no aid. Checkpoints don’t exist even in the longest levels and in case you need to leave in the middle of your game, you can’t save and come back to that specific playthrough later. Each playthrough serves as a different soul so if you don’t finish, the soul automatically goes to hell. This felt like an easy way out of deciding what to do. In certain respects, it’s mechanics like these that add to the intrigue in challenge of a game but can also prove a huge turnoff for those unwilling to cooperate.

Style

Games that look like Soul are the reason I love doing this. The art style is so subtle but powerful. For an indie worth only 80 Microsoft Points ($1), it looks even better than some of those 400 Microsoft Point ($5) titles around. Kydos designed damn near each level with such creative specificity that at times I would take a break and pay attention to every detail in the level. There’s the cheap scare that comes around every now and then but I felt that added to the suspense of the game. It’s what makes Soul a “horror” title in the first place.

Story

The story is basic but quirky enough to accept. Get your little soul up to heaven so as to avoid eternal damnation in hell. Having each playthrough represent a different soul helps keep that fantasy going.

Everything Else

The final detail that makes soul as great as it is: the sounds. Kydos took care in ensuring that the sounds made you understand the suspense and urgency in your actions. They creep you out and make you antsy. At only 80 Microsoft Points ($1), Soul is the first XBLIG must-buy (for me, at least) of 2010.

[DIYgamer.com obtained a free copy of this game for review purposes. This in no way affected the outcome of the review.]

I like to see promising Xbox Live Indie Games, and something about Kydos Studio’s Soul tells me this is going to be good. Maybe it’s the adorable developer logo, or maybe it’s their challenge to gamers: “Are you good enough to avoid ending up in hell?”

Or maybe it’s the way the soul is bursting out the back of a demon unlucky enough to have trapped the soul in its mouth (see below).

Yeah, I think that’s it.

In Souls, you have to guide the soul of a dead man through various levels, avoiding dangers both environmental and predatory. Succeed and the soul ends up in heaven. Fail and he ends up in the bad place below.

The demo is available now on Xbox Live Indie Games, and the full game is just a buck (80 MS points). Watch the trailer below to see the Kydos logo, as well as some of the game.

[via Joystiq]