Pierre the Maze Detective is a series of children’s books that feature the phenomenal illustrations of Japanese art studio IC4DESIGN that paint elaborate sceneries where kids (or adults) try to help the titular Pierre through a number of twisting mazes, observing clues and solving additional mysteries along the way. It’s sort of like a marriage of Where’s Waldo/Wally? and the Professor Layton series. Well, developer Darjeeling are big fans of the Pierre the Maze Detective series, and so they’ve partnered up with publisher Pixmain to bring the series to life in video game form in an upcoming game titled Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective. Today the developers have officially announced that the game will be launching on Steam on June 22nd, with Nintendo Switch and mobile versions to follow shortly afterwards. Check out this charming as heck trailer.

Labyrinth City has been in the works for a while, and has garnered quite a bit of attention and acclaim in that time for bringing IC4DESIGN’s incredible illustrations to life in such a wonderful way. I definitely get a pretty heavy Hidden Folks vibe from the trailer, in addition to the previously mentioned Where’s Waldo? and Professor Layton series. You also might recognize the name Darjeeling because they are the ones who brought Fritz Kahn’s legendary medical infographics to life in the game Homo Machina which launched on mobile back in 2018. In fact there seems to be quite a bit in common between these two projects as you’re essentially giving life and movement to previously still works of art, and based on how cool Homo Machina was I have full confidence they’ll pull off something special with Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective. If you’re interested in the PC version feel free to wishlist it on Steam and once we have a more concrete release window for the Switch and mobile versions we’ll let you know.