Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's my fourth round of covering a game made by the indie dev known as PD_GCT (or D. Piskorowski on social media).
Once again, like SomnaBuster and Disaster Arms before this, I was permitted to play this game earlier before its full release for coverage on what it's about. I had also previously covered a demo of this.
PD_GCT continues a streak of platformers that are inspired by the classics. To me, SomnaBuster is mostly SEGA-coded, Disaster Arms is mostly Treasure-coded.
But here, *LURRUNA - The Island of Towering Automatons,* is mostly Capcom/Konami coded. In particular, its deliberate use of strict jump arcs that both Capcom and Konami had also previously used in their oldest horror-themed platformers.
----------
So here's the story of this quirky game:
Verlegrove, Florida, one of the hottest cities, ever, was suddenly hit by an intense blizzard. Meteorologists suggested that a mighty heat source above the Bermuda Triangle may somehow be related to this bizarre phenomenon.
So then, a brave and plucky pilot girl name Dafne decided to take her plane to investigate this at the island of Lurruna... but when you commence the game, her plane gets shot at and she crash lands...
Dafne will now have to travel on foot to the heat source and use her infinite supply of bombs to blast her way through the strange & hostile creatures that lurk on this island. And she seems pretty excited and eager to do that!
----------
First, I go through the Tutorial.
Dafne throws her bombs almost like how a knight would toss his lance, but she moves more like a vampire hunter that wants to end Dracula's Rondo of Blood. You can aim these bombs left or right, or straight up, or straight downwards if you're in the air.
Remember, your jumps in this game are strict and limited! You can only jump in place (with minor extra leverage to move left or right if needed), or jump in fixed arcs. However, besides that, you can either backflip for a quick dodge, or even aim that upwards for a high backwards double jump.
Dafne can also go for a leaping roll across gaps with low ceilings. Feels like it'll be a good speedrun move to consider.
----
Collect Batteries from pink crates, and then you can use them to charge up Dafne's next bomb up to three levels!
- Level 1 turns her next bomb into a sideways shockwave! (Costs 1 Battery)
- Level 2 turns her next bomb into a more powerful and more diagonal claymore blast!! (Cost 2 Batteries)
- Level 3 turns her next bomb into a destructive X-shaped smart bomb!!! (Costs *5* Batteries)
Make use of all of these at your leisure!
----------
When you're ready, time to play the game for real. Ironically, for now, this will be covering Practice difficulty.
Sodium Shore will be your first stage. Use what you learned in the tutorial to make your way through here.
The prizes you get from pink crates and green pots seem modular depending on how many Batteries and how much health you have left. Having more of either often seems to mean that you get less of either from these containers. I wouldn't want more health if I'm already full, after all.
----
Every stage in this game takes place in two Acts. At the end of Act 1, you fight a midboss and then move on to Act 2.
Sodium Shore's midboss likes to hop around and shoot lasers from his eyes. Sometimes he might do a full body tackle at you, which you could dodge with a high backflip.
----------
Trekking through more of the tropics in Act 2, you may encounter flying turtles and falling boulders. If those turtles get too annoying, that's a good opportunity to battery boost your bombs against them.
----
Sodium Shore's main boss is some kind of crab tank. Act 2 bosses will actually have a health bar for you to monitor, but there are two layers of this that you have to drain from them before they're defeated.
And when this one is defeated, you have to hit it one last time as it runs around naked and helpless. Put him out of his misery!
----------
In Practice Mode only, you can replay any level you've already completed, and your continues will basically be unlimited (unless you have the time to eat through 9999 of them).
In Professional Mode, you have to play this game from start to finish with only 5 continues. Run out of all of those or quit out beforehand? Start from the very beginning.
For this Practice playthrough, I just ended up going through the whole game in one go, anyway, but even at that, don't underestimate the ways this game may hand your own butt at you!
Related to that, if you decide NOT to use your Batteries to power up your bombs, then whatever many you have left will instead be put into Danfe's coin purse after beating each stage. Get 20 Batteries in there to get a 1-UP.
If you died during a stage, your current Battery count will be halved. In other words, if you're really good at not dying and also not charging your bombs a lot, you can potentially get more than one 1-UP in one go!
Here's my fourth round of covering a game made by the indie dev known as PD_GCT (or D. Piskorowski on social media).
Once again, like SomnaBuster and Disaster Arms before this, I was permitted to play this game earlier before its full release for coverage on what it's about. I had also previously covered a demo of this.
PD_GCT continues a streak of platformers that are inspired by the classics. To me, SomnaBuster is mostly SEGA-coded, Disaster Arms is mostly Treasure-coded.
But here, *LURRUNA - The Island of Towering Automatons,* is mostly Capcom/Konami coded. In particular, its deliberate use of strict jump arcs that both Capcom and Konami had also previously used in their oldest horror-themed platformers.
----------
So here's the story of this quirky game:
Verlegrove, Florida, one of the hottest cities, ever, was suddenly hit by an intense blizzard. Meteorologists suggested that a mighty heat source above the Bermuda Triangle may somehow be related to this bizarre phenomenon.
So then, a brave and plucky pilot girl name Dafne decided to take her plane to investigate this at the island of Lurruna... but when you commence the game, her plane gets shot at and she crash lands...
Dafne will now have to travel on foot to the heat source and use her infinite supply of bombs to blast her way through the strange & hostile creatures that lurk on this island. And she seems pretty excited and eager to do that!
----------
First, I go through the Tutorial.
Dafne throws her bombs almost like how a knight would toss his lance, but she moves more like a vampire hunter that wants to end Dracula's Rondo of Blood. You can aim these bombs left or right, or straight up, or straight downwards if you're in the air.
Remember, your jumps in this game are strict and limited! You can only jump in place (with minor extra leverage to move left or right if needed), or jump in fixed arcs. However, besides that, you can either backflip for a quick dodge, or even aim that upwards for a high backwards double jump.
Dafne can also go for a leaping roll across gaps with low ceilings. Feels like it'll be a good speedrun move to consider.
----
Collect Batteries from pink crates, and then you can use them to charge up Dafne's next bomb up to three levels!
- Level 1 turns her next bomb into a sideways shockwave! (Costs 1 Battery)
- Level 2 turns her next bomb into a more powerful and more diagonal claymore blast!! (Cost 2 Batteries)
- Level 3 turns her next bomb into a destructive X-shaped smart bomb!!! (Costs *5* Batteries)
Make use of all of these at your leisure!
----------
When you're ready, time to play the game for real. Ironically, for now, this will be covering Practice difficulty.
Sodium Shore will be your first stage. Use what you learned in the tutorial to make your way through here.
The prizes you get from pink crates and green pots seem modular depending on how many Batteries and how much health you have left. Having more of either often seems to mean that you get less of either from these containers. I wouldn't want more health if I'm already full, after all.
----
Every stage in this game takes place in two Acts. At the end of Act 1, you fight a midboss and then move on to Act 2.
Sodium Shore's midboss likes to hop around and shoot lasers from his eyes. Sometimes he might do a full body tackle at you, which you could dodge with a high backflip.
----------
Trekking through more of the tropics in Act 2, you may encounter flying turtles and falling boulders. If those turtles get too annoying, that's a good opportunity to battery boost your bombs against them.
----
Sodium Shore's main boss is some kind of crab tank. Act 2 bosses will actually have a health bar for you to monitor, but there are two layers of this that you have to drain from them before they're defeated.
And when this one is defeated, you have to hit it one last time as it runs around naked and helpless. Put him out of his misery!
----------
In Practice Mode only, you can replay any level you've already completed, and your continues will basically be unlimited (unless you have the time to eat through 9999 of them).
In Professional Mode, you have to play this game from start to finish with only 5 continues. Run out of all of those or quit out beforehand? Start from the very beginning.
For this Practice playthrough, I just ended up going through the whole game in one go, anyway, but even at that, don't underestimate the ways this game may hand your own butt at you!
Related to that, if you decide NOT to use your Batteries to power up your bombs, then whatever many you have left will instead be put into Danfe's coin purse after beating each stage. Get 20 Batteries in there to get a 1-UP.
If you died during a stage, your current Battery count will be halved. In other words, if you're really good at not dying and also not charging your bombs a lot, you can potentially get more than one 1-UP in one go!
