Sometimes just a few seconds of footage from a game is enough to cast a spell over potential players. The Magician's Hand is an upcoming title that looks like it could be a 2D animated movie of the kind people often complain there aren't enough of these days.
That's probably a lot to do with the fact that its developers are former animators. Laser Rabbit is a new four-person indie team based in Stockholm. What little they've revealed of their first game so far bodes well for their promise of a strong focus on storytelling.
The Magician's Hand is a hand-drawn and mixed-media animated 2.5D puzzle-platformer. It's set in an imaginary Victorian London, where you play as the severed left hand of a legendary magician called Fabrizio.
The character is immediately reminding people of Interactive Studios's cult 1998 platformer Glover, but Laser Rabbit's game is very different in tone. It has an eerie visual style full of shadows, which seems to fit the game's mysterious premise.
As well as losing his hand, poor Fabrizio gets abducted by demons. The task for the player is to "leverage the arcane arts" as they search for his kidnapped body to reunite the hand with the rest of the magician.
The developer says that each chapter will shift in play-style and mechanics, from cinematic platforming to mini-game-inspired encounters and perspective changes, making the game feel like a constantly evolving journey.
You can see more footage in the posts below.
Laser Rabbit's team includes Animation Director Niklas Rissler, who studied 2D animation in Japan and has worked as a director and animator for over 25 years at the studio againstallodds, where he worked alongside the game's Narrative Director Derek Picken.
Gameplay Director & Lead Programmer Kalle Hammarberg is a former animation and film producer who has worked with key art and trailers for titles like Battlefield, It Takes Two and Need for Speed, while the game's composer Filip Ahlberg has created music for Swedish films and score layouts and arrangements for artists such as Thåström and Malmö Symfoniorkester.
You can wishlist The Magician's Hand on Steam.
For more animation inspiration, check out Canva's stopmotion ads. Also see our 007 First Light review.
