It's not giving enough credit but it was kind of a proof of concept for this bigger city we always wanted to make," says Bidwell.Įarly on, the team brought in architect Catrina Stewart to collaborate on the designs of the city. "We launched Lume to make sure we were able to sell this game and it was something people wanted – that we could even physically do it. It's the sequel to State of Play's previous game, Lume – a similar but smaller scale endeavour. Lumino City is a point and click puzzle adventure which tells the story of Lumi, a little girl seeking her kidnapped grandad. "So it was a natural thing to try and make games in a different way." "We're not natural 3D programmers," she says. The game isn't out until later in November but Bidwell is guiding me round the exhibition, explaining more about the models on display and the challenges involved in their creation. "With Lume we took that in a suitcase to Tokyo Game Show and people thought it was a marketing prop – nope, it's our game!" "We've had people say 'what engine did you use to get that lighting effect?' and it's like, well, we had a lamp…" laughs Bidwell. Lumino City was created as a sprawling fantastical architectural model in real life before being painstakingly converted into a digital gamespace. If you're not familiar with Lumino City you could be forgiven for thinking all of this card and wiring is entirely a marketing concept, bringing a digital creation into our physical world. Katherine Bidwell, co-director of studio State of Play, is taking me round the GameCity exhibition of their Lumino City game models. "All our games so far have had some element of handmade-ness to them but Lumino City has gone to the nth degree." In my opinion, this is exactly how a puzzle game should be like.These are all photos I took at the exhibition - if you want to see the larger version just click on them. While the game is linear in its core, the player has to be curious, play with the given appliances and ultimately find the path for himself. Just trying something out is fun and Lumino City conveys this message pretty well. Why not hide puzzle solutions in a book several hundred pages book? Why not grow potatoes on the top of your roof? Why not combine a lighthouse with a windmill? Why not attach small houses to the side of a cliff?
With Lumino City, State of Play delivered a game of “Why not?”. Finding things out for yourself is the most delightful part of this game - And I can assure you, every puzzle in this game can be solved by logical reasoning and only little trial-and-error. I don’t want to go into more puzzle examples here.
#LUMINO CITY POTATOES HOW TO#
Of course, no one tells you how the Handymanual is used you are told how to open it, no more. The solution of an equation is the page number, where the puzzles solution is noted. The needed parameters can be found in the surrounding area or the puzzle itself. On the second page is an index of equations, corresponding to the games puzzles. I don’t need a pop-up telling me what to do, if I take longer than ten seconds to solve a puzzle and I don’t need someone telling me exactly, where to click or which button to press, at any given moment.Īnd in case you really don’t get the puzzle, there is a pretty clever way to give you a hint.Īt the start of the game, Lumi acquires the Handymanual, a book filled with hundreds of pages of strange gadgets sketches. Parts like these make me feel like I’m taking seriously. If you make a mistake, the old man will repeat the part you flunked, but you have to play through the entire piece at once, without any guidelines, if you want to proceed. The player has to memorize the notes and play them from memory afterwards. There is another section where an old man teaches Lumi a guitar song. I just got the circuit diagram and some lemons and had to find out for myself what was to be done. In this puzzle, every + pin has to be connected to a – pin, using a lemon.
You are rarely told what you have to do and sometimes information, crucial to the understanding of the puzzle, is hidden somewhere else. The game is a point-and-click, featuring only a little bit of, mostly environmental, storytelling, but makes up for that with a lot of puzzles. The player controls Lumi, a little girl trying to find her grandpa, who got abducted to Lumino City. Lumino City is a game about playfulness and curiosity, which is most apparent in its stunning visuals - the game world was built in papercraft and photographed, akin to pre-rendered backgrounds in the Playstation era, - but the gameplay underlines it just as well.
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