Contrast

Contrast

 

Contrast opens on the shadow of a woman putting her daughter to bed while you stand in the corner watching. It’s not as creepy as it sounds, at least the standing in the corner bit, as you find out Dawn - the character you control, is only the manifestation of the daughter’s - Didi, imaginary friend. That clears one of those oddities up, so just that shadow thing then. Shadows are Contrast’s main mechanic; Dawn can turn from 3D character model into a shadow, using other shadows cast by objects to walk on. Didi, also represented in a 3D character model but unable to turn into a shadowy figure, is the plot device, kind of, in a loose term at least. All other characters are shown as black splodges on the walls leading me to believe the core mechanic was born as a result of the companies rendering abilities or lack thereof. Not a problem though, as I feel it adds to Contrast’s charm with its dark, twenties era, vaudevilley little world and all the shadow manipulation works well in this puzzle-platformer.

As you make your way through Contrast, you will come across various cogs, buildings and even a model solar system to illuminate and use the silhouettes to be on your way. Moving a light around a room to find the perfect platform to create offers a decent amount of variety. Granted it all gets you to the same place, but you aren’t forced to find the one and only thing the level designer put in the right position. Exploration is encouraged, to be able to find a box to press down a button or power cell to restart a machine for example. Though this does become trivial towards the end of the game, Contrast isn’t that long and it does what it can with lighting to good effect. 

Back to story town and, as I was saying earlier, this part of the game focuses on Didi. This little girl is constantly running from point to point, showing you the next objective and giving you little pieces of backstory. Through this adventure, you witness Didi talking to her mother and later her father as she tries to bring her family back together. This getting a bit awkward later, when she finds out the deadbeat she was lead to believe was her dad is in fact just an unrelated, regular old deadbeat with mob debt to boot. Maybe I should have spoiler alerted that but it’s not that big of a twist when it happens, I think it was intended to be a bigger plot point but was probably cut down to make room for more shadow puzzles. Didi doesn’t seem so surprised either, shrugging off the estranged father thing one minute and almost throwing a hissy fit because the theme park ride she was on broke down the next. A little inconsistent with the voice actor me thinks, but good for the most part. The story culminates in a nice, possibly slightly weird way. You find your real father, some sort of steampunk wizard, and it turns out he didn’t even want you, another slice of info Didi pretty much waves off while barely paying attention. Your family reunite with one less wizard dad and plus one deadbeat, lessons learned of love and caring and then roll credits. 

Contrast is an interesting idea but I couldn’t shake this feeling of it being a bit rushed. A couple more puzzles in each act and spending a little more time on them would help the game I think. Maybe using this mechanic in another environment, that offers more of a free roam feel, could be very effective. As it stands Contrast is a neat tech demo with a thin story, it’s about three hours all in all but worth a play.

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