So real does Lumino City’s paper crafted world appear that it actually takes a while before you realise that you can actually interact with most of the people and objects in your path. Lumino City is the product of cardboard cut outs, photographed from multiple angles and then pieced together to create an environment that, on an iPad’s Retina display, looks as if it was actually laid out on the table in front of you.
Rather than simply animating the city’s 3D world in standard fashion, developer State of Play took the bold (and no doubt time consuming) decision to use real, physical objects in its world. It’s not superficial to suggest that all this plays second fiddle to just how Lumino City looks, however. It’s then that you set out on a quest through Lumino City in order to find him, turning to his manual at almost every turn in order to open up the path ahead. Said manual is actually a guide written by your Grandfather, who mysteriously disappears at the start of the game after revealing he has something of utmost importance to tell you.
Most puzzle games don’t come with a step-by-step manual telling you how to solve almost every physical quandary that blocks your path, but Lumino City – the product of a small studio, State of Play Games, based in London – not only gives you the answers to a large portion of all of the questions it poses, but it does so in an especially elegant way.