Leonardo Da Vinci must be smiling wherever his spirit rests and thanking the stars that Dan Brown picked up a pencil that fateful day. Oh, Da Vinci was certainly a celebrity in his heyday, but he is practically a movie star nowadays. Along comes The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript, a point and click adventure game that looks to continue the tradition of exploring this fascinating man in a compelling way.

The story of The Secrets of Da Vinci is that your teacher – Da Vinci himself – has recently died and you find yourself holding the secrets to his lost manuscript. Of course, you want to reveal your master teacher's last written words, but a host of enemies want to stop you from reaching your goal of revealing the secret that will change the face of the world. Set at the last house that Leonardo Da Vinci owned – the Le Chateau Du Clos Luce – you'll wander about, interacting with several NPC characters (four or five I'm told) as you solve puzzle after puzzle, working your way ever closer to revealing that manuscript's final secrets. Will Da Vinci's last words ever be known?

Much like the attention Gearbox Software has put into their recent Brothers in Arms franchise - where every single level is faithfully rendered as it was when the war was actually going on - the same level of care has gone into recreating Da Vinci's Le Chateau Du Close Luce so that it looks exactly like it did when he last lived there. The developers spent months walking through the house, taking snapshots of every room and the house itself, all so that they could design the locations to match that of the original. Well, how am I supposed to know if that is only smoke being blown up my "you know what" or not, because I've never been to Da Vinci's house. How am I supposed to know if they are telling a fib or not? I didn't have to question the game for very long, because up came game renders of the house and various rooms, and then actual photos of the estate were promptly placed side by side, and the graphics are so thoughtfully designed I sometimes couldn't discern the original from the game version; when they say lovingly recreated they absolutely mean that, because they were basically reflections of each other. Not only was the attention to detail focused squarely on the environment, because the developers worked hand in hand with the Da Vinci museum in France to make sure that every little detail and puzzle they did in the game was authentically real as possible.

The story of The Secrets of Da Vinci is focused exclusively at his house and the surrounding nearby areas, so there will be no globe spanning adventures, but there is a quaint charm about that fact that makes the whole game seem more epic in its limited scope. The Secrets of Da Vinci is all about the choices the player makes, as the game will feature four different endings depending on how the game is played. The closed actions all lean towards the good and evil variety, but there are chances to, as Johnny Cash would say, "walk the line" between them. I love my puns. For instance, the game may task the player to work their way into a specific room, and there are several different ways to accomplish the feat with different risks and rewards depending on the choice that is chosen. If the player chooses to use a ladder to climb up to that room's window, it could be the easiest choice to initially begin with, but one of the NPCs could find that ladder as the player left it, start questioning people about it, and then you're suddenly in a pickle.

As the player makes their way towards receiving one of the various endings, they'll be treated to some nicely done cutscenes with exceptional voice work, typically showing flashbacks of your character's time with Da Vinci it appeared.

But what is a point and click adventure game without puzzles? Am I right or am I right? Given Da Vinci's ties to the game's story, it is only natural that Da Vinci's life and work would lend itself to the brain teasing puzzles. One of Da Vinci's inventions was a movable bridge, which people could swing over the river when need be and then swing it back when it wasn't, and one puzzle in the game will find the player having to find a way to move the bridge so that they can cross to the next section. Given Da Vinci's love for writing backwards, one puzzle will have the player getting a rubbing of some writing, grabbing a mirror they find in the environment, and then using that to finally read the backwards writing. And though there will be a bit of that "search every corner of a room to find that hotspot I can interact with" mentality of other point and click adventure games, a changing icon to show interactable objects should help alleviate some frustrations.

Finally, I want to say a few words about the graphics. I've already mentioned the attention to detail that has gone into recreating the world of Da Vinci's estate, but beyond that the game is simply gorgeous. Each room and location has its own feel, so it never appeared to suffer from any lack of creativity. Each screen is beautifully rendered and contains some truly excellent lighting, as shadows will spring to life in a completely realistic fashion whenever the sun comes over the horizon and enters into an open window. The game also features a bit of background animation so the screens don't feel like static pictures all the time, as the player will see water moving and other effects like smoke billowing.

The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript looks to continue the recent tradition Dan Brown has established with his novel, but don't let that mean that it is simply a cash-in product. By setting the game during Da Vinci's actual time and focusing so much time and energy on making sure the game is as real as possible, The Secrets of Da Vinci is a completely unique and different adventure from that of Dan Brown's story, so if you are interested in continuing your love for all things Da Vinci, be sure to reward the developers of the game when it is released.