Lumino City
A papercraft point-and-clicker that’s lacking in depth
£9.99 Developer State of Play Games, luminocitygame.com
Requires OS X 10.6, 2GHz processor, 2GB RAM, see website for graphics cards
Three years in the making, Lumino City is a visually ambitious adventure, a series of logic puzzles peppered about an unusual vertical city. In search of your kidnapped grandfather, you must methodically work through each scene to unlock the next.
Filmed on real sets, it has a tactile quality few games can match, and its whimsical nature with an undertone of snarky humour brings to mind the best in animated movies or TV shows. At its finest, Lumino City provides captivating, enthralling moments: a sweet scene learning a song on a guitar; a brain-bender involving a house that literally spins around. But all too often the puzzles are tedious.
We were particularly incensed by a hugely irritating Morse code set-piece that would have been charming had the controls not been so awkward. And the many plug/ switch puzzles became old long before the end. The paper-thin story struggles to be more than a veneer over a beautiful location, and hot-
Indisputably beautiful and charming, Lumino City is dragged down by some iffy gameplay
spots for finding items or movement points can lack prominence.
Despite the linearity, the potential here is palpable. When it clicks, Lumino City is a marvellous experience. Just don’t be surprised if you seek out a walkthrough for the mundane bits. Craig Grannell
Fantastic visuals
Some fabulous moments
Extremely linear progression
Quite a few dull puzzles