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Contrast brings smart shadow play to Nvidia’s Shield Android TV

The latest game launching on Android exclusively for the Nvidia Shield Android TV is a strange and dreamlike adventure set in 1920s Paris. Blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination, Contrast, created by Canadian developers Compulsion Games, focuses on Didi, a lonely little girl whose single mother leaves her at home every night when she goes out to sing in nightclubs, and casts you in the role of Dawn, Didi’s imaginary friend – or is she?

As imaginary friends go, Dawn is pretty special, as you quickly find out. It seems that Didi is the only person that can see her, and conversely, Didi is the only person that Dawn can see; while she can hear what other people say, she can only see their shadows, and it’s shadows that make up a key part of Contrast.

Because Dawn is capable of shifting from the normal 3D world into a 2D shadow plane, and that’s where the fun begins. She becomes a living shadow, and in the 2D world she can treat other shadows as solid objects that she can stand on and use as platforms. It’s an incredibly useful way of reaching high-up balconies and rooftops that she’d otherwise be unable to get to, and much of Contrast centers around shifting in and out of the shadow world.

To make things more challenging, Dawn often has to create her own shadow platforms; many levels feature light sources and objects that can be moved around and whose shadows naturally change depending on where they’re placed. An early puzzle sees her needing to get up to a cinema balcony, and the only way to do it is by moving a set of three life-sized cardboard cut-outs around so that she can create a set of steps leading upwards; remember, the closer an object is to a light source, the larger the shadow it casts.

Along the way Dawn needs to collect Luminaries, glowing orbs that she can use to power up light sources in order to create those essential shadows, and she also picks up other items that give clues to the story of Didi and her family. It’s a troubled tale, with an estranged father whose dodgy deals have got him in trouble not only with the law, but with violent gangsters to whom he owes money.

In Contrast’s film noir-inspired story he’s trying to turn over a new leaf by setting up a money-spinning circus, but all’s not well and it falls to Didi and Dawn to help recruit the star attraction: The Amazing Vincenzo, a magician with uncanny abilities and a massive ego. With three other attractions not ready for the grand opening, it’s also up to Didi and Dawn to get them up and running, and save Dawn’s father from mob retribution.

There’s plenty to do and thankfully Dawn has other tricks up her sleeve to help put everything right. She has a useful dash move that she can use not only to smash through breakable barriers in the real word and zip through thin shadows in the 2D plane, but also to change direction in mid-air; essential for reaching places that she wouldn’t normally be able to jump to. She can also pick up objects and shift them into the 2D world; handy for giving herself a bit of extra height for a particular jump, and also for transporting objects to high-up places.

The Shield version of Contrast retains the full PC experience of the game including high-definition textures, advanced lighting, effects, filtering, and multi-sampled anti-aliasing to keep the PC version’s detailed high-fidelity imagery, but for your Android TV. Contrast is available now via Google Play for $14.99.

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