Contrast

The imaginary friend makes sense as a game avatar: Videogames often offer the promise of a life lived with more vigour and skill, just as make-believe pals do. In Contrast you play Dawn, a glamorous, slinky woman who accompanies the little girl Didi through a troubled city at night. As Didi tries to aid her lounge-singing mother and deadbeat dad, Dawn lends a helping hand. Here's the gimmick: You can become Dawn's shadow and travel on the outline of the shade; walking and jumping on the shadow cast by an umbrella, a person's arm, or even a strong man's hammer. The setting is an attractive, autumnal jazz-age city, with equal parts surrealism and noir tropes. (Characters speak in a heightened manner, with one of them described as a "carousel of broken dreams".) Like Limbo, which seems a huge influence, Contrast is a puzzle/platform game. And while not quite in the former's league, it's a perfectly engaging, and sometimes wistful endeavour. contrastgame.com