Daniel Walters and Ceri Williams, the duo behind Micro Macro Games’ gorgeous and unfortunately overlooked Morphopolis (Free), are working on a stealth-slash-heist game due for the App Store later this year.
Calvino Noir includes the hoary chestnut verbs of stealth: sneak, hide, distract, escape, explore. It also includes more outlandish mechanics, like time-bending: “The unique time-physics mechanic allows you to cooperate with yourself," the website explains. “Control multiple characters to enact your strategy."
The game’s stealth ambitions seem matched by its setting, a 1930’s period piece full of abandoned chapels, dank sewers, empty factories, and general urban unease, embellished with chiaroscuro lighting and misty fog. And yet, despite everything being doused in gloom and murk, Calvino Noir‘s screenshots remain detailed and vibrant: the manors are decked in floral wallpapers, and the trellises are overrun with ivy.
And anybody with enough money to still own a trellis in inter-war Europe can surely afford to share some of it with Calvino Noir‘s silhouetted ne’er-do-well protagonist — this is a heist game, after all.
The game’s development blog outlines a representative encounter with a security guard: you could just shoot him, or you can hide in the background until he goes away. This is pretty basic stuff — later levels will surely require more brain power — but I like the way Calvino Noir‘s lighting and layouts give you the visual information you need to get past the hapless rube. This, I suppose, is the game’s self-described “sandbox" in action.
I reckon we’ll learn more soon enough, however: Calvino Noir is slated for iOS, Windows, and OS X later this year.
