Dispensing with pixels first, Lumino City was almost exclusively built by integrating physical objects into the game. Then again, it’s not a huge surprise that Lumino City is about stuff: That’s all it is. Or, perhaps more aptly, trying to make things work. But Lumino City doesn’t necessitate bringing things with you, it’s about getting things working. Clicking on everything everywhere not bolted down, then the bolts, because you might need them later. They’re just things to ask to do other things.įunnier still, adventure games are always about things. They don’t even ask why you need their help. To wit, the four people you help up above? You need them, literally, only as a brute mass to pull the serpentine lawnmower-style cord on a massive crane. The world is beautiful and important, not its inhabitants. It’s truly gorgeous, but what’s interesting about it is the contrast it marks. Granted, a little girl freaking the fuck out over her missing carekeeper is tonally out of whack with the game’s storybook aesthetic and, anyway: look at this game. You never get to deepen that relationship. It’s curtains down and you never get to to hear the point. A code name: “The handyman.” He gets nabbed in the beginning of the game while telling you a story, and without dispensing spoilers, you find him in the end but you never hear the rest. I’m paraphrasing, but Lumi shrugs this off as no biggie: “He just always wanted me to call him Granddad.” Stranger still, everyone else in Lumino City knows him by another name. The world is beautiful and important, not its inhabitants. They’re just things to ask to do other things. As you progress and meet a handful of other characters she feels comfortable opening up to, there’s a revelation: You don’t even know your own grandfather’s real name. And, of course, there’s your character, Lumi. There’s the lonely ship captain who misses not human companionship but the ocean blue. There’s the man who forgot his wife’s anniversary (and pants), and he needs you to learn their song on guitar to soothe her sour mood. The vast majority of your exchanges in Lumino City are like this -transactional and fractured, but wholly critical. It’s possible, and I thought that too until the above setpiece. “This is no different than any of the other roundabout interactions you have in most point-and-click games. “But wait,” I’m sure you’re likely thinking. It’s that latter thought that Lumino City is indirectly exploring: What is the world like if we don’t communicate with one another? You leave the neighbors behind, presumably never to speak to one another again. Then down you go again, with the can opener. She won’t do it without a guarantee that he won’t lose it. But you can’t even ask, since the shopkeep has problems of his own: His inventory system is all fudged up so would you mind helping him first? Once you get that squared away, you have to help the other neighbors: Tell the lady two ladders down that the guy another ladder down needs to borrow her can opener to eat some food. In true adventure-game fashion, you want them to help you with something to further your own agenda (in this case, to operate a crane), so up you go to tell the baker that his neighbor three ladders down wants a bun as payment for helping build his shop. Rather than intrude upon them with your drama or even comment on the absurdity of their domiciles, up and down you climb to relay messages for people who could lean outside and talk to one another. About a third of the way into Lumino City, you set aside your curiously slowpoked search for your kidnapped grandfather to play messenger for two pairs of neighbors who live in cliffside apartments.
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