Contrast is a dual-world light-and-shadow platformer

Well, this sure is an oddball thing: Contrast has squished noir together with a vaguely circus-like aesthetic, and it actually kind of works . This good-looking platformer plays on light and shadow in the literal sense—you'll be able to run around normally one moment, and in the next, switch to the world of shadow to reach areas not otherwise within reach.

Are you faced with a shadowed urban chasm otherwise impassable to the normal person? Easy—your shadow-self can handle it. There's a kind of camp, flashy feel to Contrast, echoing the trailer's cabaret show. I imagine Contrast coaxing its players with a jovial "Step riiiiight up!" before plunging them into what looks like a rather gloomy, darkness-swathed plot centering around Dawn, a showy girl who's at once the "most visible and yet most unknown" character in the game.

Compulsion Games have announced a partnership with developer Focus Home Interactive, and now Contrast is scheduled for a spring 2013 launch. There's some serious potential in the darkness.