How Planet of Lana became a hit through dogged determination after being rejected "hundreds" of times

Planet of Lana’s path to release was unusually rough: Wishfully Studios pitched the game hundreds of times, got rejected just as often, and spent years building it without salaries before the project found real traction. The studio’s first demo was little more than Lana walking back and forth, and the team admits the production plan was far too optimistic for a first-time developer.

The game began as a single Photoshop image and a big creative leap from founders Adam Stjärnljus and Klas Martin Eriksson, both with film and advertising backgrounds. Inspired by Another World, Limbo, Inside, Oddworld, and Studio Ghibli, they pushed ahead anyway, eventually investing about €20,000 of their own savings to bring in a freelance animator and part-time programmer. Sweden’s social safety net and a local accelerator helped them keep pitching while they worked.

The turning point came when Wishfully spent a year building a proper vertical slice, finishing it in early 2020. Xbox signed an exclusivity deal, which gave the studio enough money to hire more people and opened the door to further publisher conversations. Around eight months later, Thunderful came on board, and the game shipped a little over two years after that.

For developers, the story is a reminder that strong art direction and a clear emotional hook can matter, but only once the pitch proves the production is real. Planet of Lana succeeded not because the team followed the usual advice, but because they kept iterating until the vision and the plan finally matched.