It's official. Focus are far and above my new favourite developer since the death of THQ. Mars: War Logs, the upcoming Magrunner and, now, a 2D/3D puzzle platformer set in the 1920's, being co-developed by Focus and the Indie studio Compulsion, called Contrast.

"In CONTRAST, experience and explore a surreal 1920's dreamscape, set in a vaudevillian-inspired, film-noir styled backdrop. In a world full of performance, magic, intrigue and deception, the player takes on the role of Dawn, the imaginary friend of a little girl, Didi. Every kid's imaginary friend is special, and Dawn is no exception. She has the power to shift from the reality of the vibrant game stage into the shadowy parallel world. Gamers will be challenged to unravel the drama by leveraging light sources and manipulating real-world objects to affect the shadows placement, depth, height and overall weighting to solve mind-bending puzzles."

That is all kinds of awesome right there. With an incredibly striking art style which immediately put me in mind of The City of Lost Children, something I highly doubt is coincidental. The video (above) shows some iffy animations, granted, but it will take no effort at all to look past that to the infinite charm only a scratch beneath the surface.