"We launched Lume to make sure we were able to sell this game and it was something people wanted – that we could even physically do it. It's the sequel to State of Play's previous game, Lume – a similar but smaller scale endeavour. Lumino City is a point and click puzzle adventure which tells the story of Lumi, a little girl seeking her kidnapped grandad. "So it was a natural thing to try and make games in a different way." "We're not natural 3D programmers," she says. The game isn't out until later in November but Bidwell is guiding me round the exhibition, explaining more about the models on display and the challenges involved in their creation. "With Lume we took that in a suitcase to Tokyo Game Show and people thought it was a marketing prop – nope, it's our game!" "We've had people say 'what engine did you use to get that lighting effect?' and it's like, well, we had a lamp…" laughs Bidwell. Lumino City was created as a sprawling fantastical architectural model in real life before being painstakingly converted into a digital gamespace. If you're not familiar with Lumino City you could be forgiven for thinking all of this card and wiring is entirely a marketing concept, bringing a digital creation into our physical world.
![the bad side of lumino city the bad side of lumino city](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QCcnE5QDXFw/maxresdefault.jpg)
Katherine Bidwell, co-director of studio State of Play, is taking me round the GameCity exhibition of their Lumino City game models.
![the bad side of lumino city the bad side of lumino city](http://www.renegadetribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/maxresdefault-10.jpg)
"All our games so far have had some element of handmade-ness to them but Lumino City has gone to the nth degree."
![the bad side of lumino city the bad side of lumino city](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105140449-GettyImages-2020236.jpg)
These are all photos I took at the exhibition - if you want to see the larger version just click on them.