While Monument Valley has been hailed as the ultimate architecture video game, it has always seemed a little heavy on the Beautiful Architecture part and light on the Being A Cool Video Game. Calvino Noir, on the other hand, a new point-and-click adventure game from former architect Dan Walters looks like your standard film noir-inspired video game, except for one thing: it is very beautiful, and very architecturally realistic. Walters and designer Ceri Williams (also an architect) drew the game's settings from the work of 18th-century architect Charles de Wailly, including his famous Théâtre de l'Odéon for the Comédie-Française in Paris. Wired explains:
The many buildings, rooms, towers, and even stairwells are stunning in their complexity and mysterious in their exposition. Each level begins in darkness, but is illuminated room by room as you play through the story and make your way through buildings that have seemingly been cut down the middle to afford you a shifting diagrammatic perspective. So, if you enjoy architecture, and also virtually stealing things and fighting people, that sounds pretty good.
· This Stunning Adventure Game Plays Like Art in Motion [Wired, via NYO]
· Calvino Noir [official]