Play-makers: Studio creates video game that explores a hand-made city

London – Game designers and developers from studio State of Play have created Lumino City, a puzzle adventure game that brings a hand-made world to life.

The game, available for PC and Mac, has been made entirely from paper, wood, miniature lights and electric motors.

Players can discover and explore a sprawling cityscape with floating gardens, towers marooned on an immense waterwheel and houses dug precariously into cliffs, completing a series of ingenious puzzles to help Lumi, the main character, track down her grandfather after his mysterious disappearance.

State of Play enlisted the help of an architect, model-makers and fine artists to create the city and its inhabitants.

‘Making things by hand gives an incredible sense of warmth and character to an environment, and that’s invaluable when telling a story or making people feel like they’re part of their environment,’ Luke Whittaker, creative director at State of Play, tells LS:N Global.

For more on the rise of games as a high-brow artistic medium, read our Game Imitates Art microtrend. For an insight into creating an emotional connection through crafts, read the opinion piece by Yelena Baturina.