Thief, Dishonored and Philip Marlowe combine in Noirmancer, a stealth sim that lets you wipe minds with a snap of your fingers

Oh heck, colleagues, we got one: a promising videogame. Noirmancer is a first-person single-player stealth sim, heavily inspired by the original Thief, in which you are hard-boiled sleuth with supernatural abilities. You are Humphrey Bogart, if Humphrey Bogart were a Dishonored character. Here are some things you can do: swim in midair, transform into vapour, stun alerted guards with pew-pew gestures, and chuck down telekinetic mats to serve as (usefully sound-absorbing) platforms.

It might sound like a jumble, like one of those Marvel comicbook movesets they have to prune severely for the sake of a coherent film adaptation, but the whimsical stage magician hand animations and midnight jazz SFX absolutely sell the package. Instead of swinging a blackjack (a noirjack?), you'll put mooks to sleep with a snap of your gloved fingers and a rattle of cymbals. Forget Bogart - this is Penn or Teller, whichever of them has springier knees.

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