Hollow Lantern

Hollow Lantern is the kind of adventure game that trusts you to be patient. You explore a fog-wrapped town, tap around scenes to find objects, and slowly piece together what happened to the people who used to live there. The atmosphere is thick, and the muted art style really sells the loneliness.

Puzzles are woven into the story rather than dropped in as filler. Most of them come down to noticing details and connecting them, and I rarely felt stuck for long. When I did, the hint system nudged me without spoiling the solution outright.

It's a short game — I finished the main path in an evening — but it stuck with me longer than that. If you want something quiet and story-driven to play with headphones in a dark room, few mobile titles nail the mood this well.

What we liked

• Rich, melancholy atmosphere
• Story-integrated puzzles that respect you
• A gentle hint system when you're stuck