Loóna: Bedtime & Sleep Stories 4+

Pros and cons (updated review)

Beautiful graphics, design, user experience, animation, audio etc. Really enjoy the immersive storytelling experience. Overall, Loona helps calm me before bed, especially when I’m experiencing overwhelm or anxiety.

The issue I have isn’t the cost - I think it’s worth it when you consider the labour involved in making it, esp with them releasing new monthly sleepscapes. It’s the colonial gaze inherent within: the ‘age of discovery’ sleepscape romanticises cook’s “discovery” of Australia and Aoteroa, even waving the flag of colombus and glorifying the dispossession of numerous lands and people under spanish colonialism. A few sleepscapes also engage with East Asia as a monolith, mixing up traditions and beliefs in a mishmash of Orientalist fantasies. Even the ‘in the wilderness’ sleepscape feels a bit off, with the voiceover characterised as a tourist from the global north capitalising off the ‘generosity’ of its fictionalised locals - when it would have been so much more interesting to hear it from a true local experience. This type of positioning in some sleepscapes has the complete opposite effect of calming me. I MUCH prefer sleepscapes which steer clearer of this. To clarify, it’s nice to see representations of various cultures - and yes, the graphics are nice, but would be good if they were being presented from more informed, nuanced perspectives.

Love it! But have a couple suggestions

I loved Loóna when I first downloaded the app. My favourite part about it was the story-telling that would continue over the first bunch of sleepscapes (I believe the chapter was called ‘in to the dreamworld’ or something similar). I was disappointed to find out that the story didn’t continue as I expected, and that each night from then on would be a standalone episode. I find it harder to engage with it (and not find myself distracted) when there’s a more significant story threading through the nights.

The other thing I haven’t loved is some of the voices. I find there is the main male voice that I find calming, and the female voice that is the second-most used is good as well. But every once and a while there is a different voice and it really throws me off. I think this is because I imagine the one voice being the person telling me personal stories and when it’s someone else then it doesn’t put me in the same mindset.

The concept of Loóna is great, I love the little loóna characters and the dreamy/magical style of everything. I only write the rest because I think they could be easy enough fixes and would make it way better.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the feedback 💜 We have transferred your thoughts to our product team in order to make sure they will be heard and implemented in our future updates. We do appreciate any thoughts from our users that can help us grow 🌙