On the Hot Hawks puzzle, the first hint is "You don't have to use every bird", but that's a RULE, not a hint
Am I the only one who laughed when I heard the monkey sound that plays while the TTG logo is being shown when you launch the game?
Its how the human mind works, you are told to use the birds to carry the gnomes so you think you need to use all the birds (you may be gifted in reading between the lines). I found it easy (like all the other bird puzzles) after that hint.
That was a cool game. I really want to know what's up with the gnomes, though! After the game ended, I just wanted to solve that last mystery, but I'm sure the game won't let you - it's ended... right?
Edit: FUN FACT: I received the book of Grickle in the mail the same day this game was released, in fact, right after I started playing it. Impeccable timing!
That was a cool game. I really want to know what's up with the gnomes, though! After the game ended, I just wanted to solve that last mystery, but I'm sure the game won't let you - it's ended... right?
But half of what actually makes them scary is the mystery behind them. Take away the mystery and they're just your regular garden gnomes... with evil powers... and supernatural abilities... and evil, murderous behaviour.
Very true. Graham has a flair about using what you don't know as a way to drive up tension and suspense. It's kind of cool to see where his influences may have come from.
That's because there is nothing in the game that the "higher quality" settings in Sam & Max/TOMI/W&G use. There's no depth of field, glowing lights, shadows, etc. This game runs at around the equivalent of quality 1-4 on those other game's sliders.
Your best bet to improve performance is to lower your screen resolution in graphics settings!
it must be equivalent to 4 then because in Sam & Max Season 3/TOMI/W&G i can run the games at Graphic Level 3 at 800x600 resolution and it plays fine, but when i put the resolution down to 800x600 for this game it's still too slow. I guess The Devils Playhouse will probably be the end of my Telltale Games experience, games only get MORE graphically advanced and not LESS. It's been fun and i hope you guys continue to succeed. Thank You.
I'm surprised the game runs so slowly for you! The amount of content being drawn on screen at any time is pretty low, compared to even Sam & Max season 2 (which didn't have a "Quality" slider, really, either).
Is it the whole game that is slow, or just in puzzles?
But half of what actually makes them scary is the mystery behind them. Take away the mystery and they're just your regular garden gnomes... with evil powers... and supernatural abilities... and evil, murderous behaviour.
Well, the bigger puzzle is what they're up to, really, kidnapping that other dude. I don't really need to know where they're from, though that short space part does make one wonder...
I'm surprised the game runs so slowly for you! The amount of content being drawn on screen at any time is pretty low, compared to even Sam & Max season 2 (which didn't have a "Quality" slider, really, either).
Is it the whole game that is slow, or just in puzzles?
It is the whole game from start to finish. Every single second of it except for the end credits. I got the worst framerate at the "frozen Lobster" when it was snowing.
the whole game, from menu screen to first puzzle. The sound lags a bit because of this also.
Yep. Same for me. Cutscenes in the game are extremely choppy too (sound effects and bits of music are looping) being able to disable whatever is added on 4 would fix that for me at least (if I compare it to the framerate in W&G // ToMI // S&MS3 works for me).
I still completed it on the 5-10 fps I got. That was the second game I completed even though the framerate was horrible. The other one was Braid. And I loved both.
I liked it, it was nice and quite true to Grickle humor.
I just don't like the ways the puzzles work out, sorry to say it but the scoring for puzzles are whacked out.
I'm fairly positive I found solutions that refused to work (The football players with glass panes, for example) even though they accomplished every goal, and broke no rule.
Also, I found some puzzles to be extremely easy while others to be nearly impossible to solve without at least two hints. The difficulty seems random.
I loved the art style, the setting, the characters, and the story. I will buy the whole series if it is ever produced.
Yep. Same for me. Cutscenes in the game are extremely choppy too (sound effects and bits of music are looping) being able to disable whatever is added on 4 would fix that for me at least (if I compare it to the framerate in W&G // ToMI // S&MS3 works for me).
I still completed it on the 5-10 fps I got. That was the second game I completed even though the framerate was horrible. The other one was Braid. And I loved both.
yes that was a big compliment about the game
Exactly my problem! I'm not a masochist like you though, that framerate is way too slow for me to chug through.;)
This game was awesome! It would be nice if there was some kind of reward if you ace all puzzles, or maybe easter eggs in free play mode. I loved the sense of humor though, and the puzzles were fairly well designed. A couple puzzles made me scratch my head though at what the solution was supposed to be. More puzzles please!
Alright, so Puzzle Agent had good music, graphics, story,and so forth. However, the weak variety of puzzle types and understanding puzzles were what made the game not be so much worth the money (maybe worth, say, $5). The puzzles were mainly just jigsaws, turn tiles, connect things, and move stuff so that someone/something to get to the end. For example, the
snowmobile engine puzzle and the stovepipe puzzle
were pretty much the same, and not too challenging.
It's an okay game, but this pilot episode could've either had a better price or a different variety of puzzles. Some suggestions could be like, Word Searches, Crosswords, Spot the Difference Puzzles, etc.
basically nothing new to add at this point, probably. the music, animation, art, style, and feel of the game was superb. and the mid puzzle jump scares were brilliant. the puzzles also felt like they fit really well with the narrative, rarely feeling tacked on just because it's a puzzle game (unlike layton)
on the other hand, the puzzles were to easy. for example most of the spin the block and make a path puzzles were solveable just by looking for the pipes that looked like they matched at the seams and not even needing to look at the path. or some other puzzles that could be solved by randomly placing items near each other until l thy stuck together. or there puzzles that I have seen before in games such as layton. although I'm not to surprised or disseminated with that part.
however, I would definitely pick up a season's worth just for the story and feel.
I just finished it. I love this game! It was very entertaining. There were hard puzzles to keep the brain challenged but also easy ones to make the whole experience not so daunting. It was a joy to play.
This game also marks the first time I can say I have a favourite Telltale game soundtrack. This game has the best music in any Telltale game thus far (my opinion, of course). It's so moody and yet groovy. Ominous and yet calming.
My two cents, keeping in mind that I'm a constructive criticism type of guy:
Great game overall - I would definitely be interested in a season of this - it's a bit less time-demanding than other Telltale games, since you can pick it up for as little as one puzzle at a time. It's also less graphically demanding (by far, not sure how others are having trouble with it, since my computer has a lot of trouble with S&M3 at lower resolution and settings, but none with this at native resolution), so it's better for battery life if you want to kill half an hour in an airport like I did yesterday.
Good elements to keep or expand on:
- Interesting, if simple, story. Generally well-animated (but see below), -voice-acted, and -paced.
- Puzzles were fun and generally integrated well into the storyline so that they made sense, the snowmobile at the lodge is a good example of this, among others. However, some puzzles seemed to end up unrelated to the actual environment in the end:
the stovepipe - completed pipe in the hotel should have been crooked at least
and
the ice shanty - Nelson goes through the trouble of getting the key so he can jump through the skylight?
are notable examples of this.
Improvements that could be made:
- Harder puzzles or different difficulty settings: it wouldn't be difficult to ramp up some of these puzzles in difficulty or offer multiple difficulty levels for some of them (such as removing the "snap-into-place" of some of the spatial puzzles, or giving the "rotate the pieces" puzzles better consistency, so getting all of the pipe edges flush with one another isn't necessarily enough). As it is, the game is too easy for a puzzle game. This is particularly noticeable in the final set of puzzles involving
getting into and through the factory
, they should be harder to provide a real sense of accomplishment in finishing the game, rather than the, "eh, that's it then," feeling it creates as-is.
-Timed puzzles: there would be at least a couple that really bothered me, but the lack of a sense of urgency makes the relatively easy puzzles even easier. Naturally, not all puzzles would be timed, but some of them make perfect sense as timed puzzles.
- Increased story breadth: the game felt way too linear - some sub-plots would be nice, or possibly just removing the obvious hinting of where we need to be next, so we're encouraged to do some extra exploration (and being rewarded for such with extra puzzles and/or further story elements).
- Improved consistency of animation: There are points when lower frame rates in the animation increase the tension, but at other points, such as the beginning when Nelson is entering Scoggins on the snowmobile, they just distract and, at least to me, feel unpolished. The higher frame rates that show more nuances to the motion felt more natural to me.
The worst were where the rate was low enough to ignore smaller motions but high enough that they weren't always showing a significant frame. If there are relatively few frames in an animation, every one of them should count - some of the low-frame animation sequences in this game didn't seem to work that way (while others did very well, particularly the scream animations).
A further expansion of this is when a course of sequential events is set forth in a puzzle, such as the log puzzles or the football team puzzles - I feel that the results of this kind of puzzle should always be animated as a reward to the player. I was disappointed when, instead of the fluid motion of the snowmobile (or even the tracks coming from it), I was given a jerky tile-by-tile reveal of the snowmobile's tracks. Even worse was lining up the perfect series of passes and not seeing them thrown. It's a simple little reward, but an important one for keeping the player satisfied.
Puzzles not always totally clear: I'm adding this more because other people noticed it than because I did. Generally, the puzzles are pretty straightforward, but I did notice a couple times when either the wording or another element of the puzzle was unclear. For me, the biggest one was probably
the snowmobile exhaust - the starting point - the gas tank - was clearly marked, but there was another tile that looked more like a gas tank, so I was a bit confused by it. The exhaust, on the other hand, was poorly marked thanks to its lack of an indicator such as an arrow and the muted colors of the telltale fumes.
I give these suggestions as exactly that - suggestions. I recognize that some of the omissions were probably the result of scrambling to get the game out by the end of June, and others the result of this being a pilot game and thus having a lot of room for tweaking. Overall, I really liked the game, and I would probably buy a full season of it even without these changes. However, what I would like much more than a season of Puzzle Agent would be an increased focus on the pilot program so that Telltale can continue to develop bigger, better, newer things. Your historical game plan might continue to be the money maker for some time, but Telltale's place as a great developer will be cemented by the advances and OIP's that will come from the pilot program.
Wow, guys. Just had to stop by and say, without a shadow of a doubt Nelson Tethers is, in my opinion, by far THE best game you've ever put out.
From the quality of the voice acting, to the music, to the plot, to the art (oh, that Mr. Annable! AMAZING!), to the puzzles, to the tone of the game and all over again... and again... and again. Outstanding! Superb!
Really, I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed this game on every single level! Just, wow!
Graham Annable’s The Hidden People - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt5lB-RoAi4 - is a brilliant cartoon short. It made me want to experience this game to get more of Annable's great storytelling and animation. Sadly, the dialogue in the game completely ruins the atmosphere, such as in these examples:
You jiggle a door's handle, unable to open it: "The door's still locked."
You see a basket with freshly-caught fish with bite marks on them: "Looks like something has started eating them before they've been cooked."
After a narrow escape from a person who's pointed a gun at you: [He's] as crooked as they come!
These sort of comments are a staple of point-and-click adventure games, and it's amazing how thoroughly they destroy the atmosphere and tension. Then there are the flubbed lines, like a very flatly-delivered "Do I seem crazy to you?", and the needless verbosity in Nelson Tethers's lines, which also suffer from the typical video game dialogue lack of emotion and not-quite-there inflection. I kept thinking how nice it would be if 90% of the dialogue was cut. An especially tense and horrific scene was made almost ridiculous because of the dialogue between the characters.
The game pales in comparison to the animated short, mostly because of redundant and poorly-delivered dialogue.
A remark/suggestion I didn't want to make a new thread for: I love the taxpayer dollars spent rating, but $75k per attempt goes much too far even for something that's supposed to go much too far. I think something in the neighborhood of one or two thousand or maybe up to ten thousand per attempt would work better.
Just finished playing it, and was pretty disappointed. Best compared to Professor layton, since the gameplay is pretty much a carbon copy. Unfortunately the "adventure" part of the game is very linear, even more so than in Professor Layton, as after every area is completed Nelson will pull out his tape recorder and tell me exactly where to go next - why even have a map?
With the adventure part of the game pretty much just a movie with lots of clicking, that leaves the puzzles to stand up as the "meat" of the game. Unfortunately the puzzles don't really stand up all that well. I do have to admit I'm not really that much of a puzzle fan (anything that resembles a question I would have been asked during a maths test doesn't really feel that fun to me), but I don't think the puzzles matched up to those in Layton.
The biggest issue with the puzzles seemed to be that the "rules" were limited to only one page, and for some of the more complicated puzzles they really didn't explain what I was dealing with at all. Quite a few puzzles seemed to be missing one or two vital bits of information to understand how they worked. I still have absolutely no idea what was going on with the fish swimming downstream one.
The jigsaw-style puzzles didn't really work at all, since you're getting immediate feedback whenever two pieces "snap" into place, they're all solvable with a few minutes of mindless clicking. The last three puzzles in the factory were a particular let down - I'm used to the "boss fight" in games being an extra challenge, but these three were way easier than the lodge puzzles that came before.
The ending was also majorly disappointing. The story has lots of mysteries that present themselves, but it's completely missing the big reveal at the end. Maybe that's something scheduled for a later episode, but the story doesn't explicitly say that either. If I were looking a buying another episode now, I'd be concerned that the formula is exactly the same - another town with eccentric characters and a bunch of loose threads that never come together.
That's not to say the story wasn't good however - many of the characters were interesting, and the graphics style was gorgeous. From what I've seen so far however, I think the concept might work a lot better as an animated TV series than a game.
Why does everyone knock linearity like it's a very bad thing to be avoided. I love linearity.
The only puzzle I thought wasn't explained enough was the lift puzzle. I had no idea they all moved at once and I didn't know they only moved once. With the line that said something like "an obstruction will cause a lift to stop" I thought that meant a lift would keep going after a command until it hit an obstacle. I figured it out after a single wrong answer, but that's not a good thing. That's all I ran into that was a problem for me, though.
Actually, I think it's pretty good there was no Big reveal at the end. This was clearly a pilot episode of something that has intentions of being a series. In that case, it's important that the most important questions (eg. Concerning the hidden folks) be left unanswered. I believe the series would be about them and thus further episodes, concerning them, would be ruined if there was a big reveal. The nerve-wracking mystery behind them, should maintain suspense, if their story should continue.
Professor Layton, on the other hand, was a pre-planned series, and one meant to not be episodic in nature. Sure some characters carry over, but there is no carry-over mystery. Any one subject of mystery is completely started, and done and over with each game release. Technically, you could play Layton completely out of order. In here, this is clearly an episode with one aspect of it being self-contained, but a mystery that's supposed to last the entire series. It's kind of like the New Monkey Island series, in that fashion.
I also agree with MusicallyInclined about the lift puzzle. If an important piece of a puzzle is to make people figure out how it works, then there should be a clue in the actual rules for such a thing. Otherwise, it's practically a forced point deduction. In this case, the rules themselves actually throw the puzzler off because the wording suggested a different method.
One might argue that, but the way it was done was also quite X-files like. I've seen Agent Mulder in very much the same position, at the end of an episode, with a very similar fashion to the way it ended.
Unfortunately the "adventure" part of the game is very linear, even more so than in Professor Layton, as after every area is completed Nelson will pull out his tape recorder and tell me exactly where to go next - why even have a map?
I dont see how this is any different from the layton games that whenever you complete a section, tell you on the top screen where to go.
Ok guys i don't know if it's just me but i found the 3 fps movie approach most of the time annoying and only sometimes useful to increase or create tension; the game is good; which maybe seen as a disappointment for those who met Telltale with Sam & Max (1&2), Wallace & Gromit or Monkey Island as that are pretty marvelous; nevertheless the storyline is intriguing the graphical approach good and the control system fitting. The main lack for me is the puzzle-side (i know this is a puzzle game and it's a pretty important aspect) but not for the puzzles themselves but for the difficult distribution of them, let me explain at the end there are easier puzzles then back at the start; also some puzzles may have multiple solutions but only one is accepted (as in the path-finding one), and sometimes it lacks the instructions; anyway many of them are just fun, only a little of them has this problems (maybe for the "release rush hour").
The game is basically good, and i'd like to play a couple of episodes more; even if they not solve the mysteries of the first and only gets more complicated (as X-Files)
Puzzle Agent as good as Professor Layton? No
(if you say you can't or shouldn't compare them, stop lying to yourself.)
Did I like Puzzle Agent and would I buy more of it? Of course.
Things I think could be improved upon:
-Clarity of puzzles, it would be better for the puzzles to be clear about the goals and rules than to be completely "realistic." (The curved table discussion in another thread is a good example of this.)
-Tighten up the voice acting a bit, the accents are nice, but some (particularly the sheriff) were too slow and awkward. It took me out of the story a few times.
-It would be nice if getting more stars and medals actually meant something (or if it were more clear what they are good for.)
-Also, not as important, but some side quests would be really cool
EDIT: Just of note to other reviewers, my computer isn't exactly a screamer (thin and light notebook), and I have no mouse lag, and the animations are supposed to be jerky, it is based on a series of graphic novels and comic books by the creative director of TTG. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Annable
Neat game. I have no particular interest in Grickle, comic-book graphics or creepy tales, but I enjoyed the art and story and music as it all tied together really well as a package. Except for the ending that left too many questions unanswered. A local law enforcement officer commits assault with a deadly weapon against an FBI agent, and the FBI drops the case as long as erasers are back in production? While that's fine in a goofy comedy game, it doesn't seem quite right elsewhere.
Gameplay is always most important for me anyway. I was expecting lots of slider puzzles (which I don't mind), so I was pleasantly surprised with the variety here and the inclusion of logic brainteaser puzzles that aren't all that common in computer games. I'm not familiar with the Layton games (don't have a DS) but I've been playing puzzle games on computer long before Layton was invented and PA is a fine contribution to the genre, regardless of how similar it is to Layton. Yes, there were a few series of same-type puzzles that increased in difficulty, but I can't quite figure out where the folks who describe the puzzles as repetitive are coming from. Are there really that many computer puzzle games with nearly 40 absolutely unique puzzles? Most of the ones I've played repeat puzzle types more than PA does.
I agree that some of the puzzle descriptions and rules are somewhat ambiguous; this is especially problematic because the game uses the "submit" format. I have to say I'm not real fond of that -- I'm used to, and much prefer, seeing a "solved" screen as soon as a puzzle is solved. It allows you to try different things so you know exactly what is expected and aren't penalized for misinterpreting the rules. For instance, you should be able to do trial runs with the snowmobile and when it reaches its goal you're done. The complete-the-circuit puzzles should indicate how the furnace smoke or the fuel is going to flow while you're rotating the tiles so there's no ambiguity in what the target endpoint is. Confusion I've seen reported with the three lifts puzzle and the dinner plates puzzle could have been eliminated. Of course multiple choice questions aren't viable with that format, but could be adapted by making them more difficult. This would also partially obviate the need for some kind of drawing on the game screen.
I would be likely to buy any future Puzzle Agent episodes/games if they were made, but hope that the developers pay attention to some of the issues that have been raised in this and other threads.
It's a bit sad that I can't really recommend this game to non-gamer friends of mine - I was thinking about asking them to get this game for their iPhone, but it's probably best that I wait and see if there are future episodes that right many of the problems of the pilot and then recommend that version as the first try for this series.
Comments
Edit: FUN FACT: I received the book of Grickle in the mail the same day this game was released, in fact, right after I started playing it. Impeccable timing!
But half of what actually makes them scary is the mystery behind them. Take away the mystery and they're just your regular garden gnomes... with evil powers... and supernatural abilities... and evil, murderous behaviour.
it must be equivalent to 4 then because in Sam & Max Season 3/TOMI/W&G i can run the games at Graphic Level 3 at 800x600 resolution and it plays fine, but when i put the resolution down to 800x600 for this game it's still too slow. I guess The Devils Playhouse will probably be the end of my Telltale Games experience, games only get MORE graphically advanced and not LESS. It's been fun and i hope you guys continue to succeed. Thank You.
Is it the whole game that is slow, or just in puzzles?
Well, the bigger puzzle is what they're up to, really, kidnapping that other dude. I don't really need to know where they're from, though that short space part does make one wonder...
It is the whole game from start to finish. Every single second of it except for the end credits. I got the worst framerate at the "frozen Lobster" when it was snowing.
Yep. Same for me. Cutscenes in the game are extremely choppy too (sound effects and bits of music are looping) being able to disable whatever is added on 4 would fix that for me at least (if I compare it to the framerate in W&G // ToMI // S&MS3 works for me).
I still completed it on the 5-10 fps I got. That was the second game I completed even though the framerate was horrible. The other one was Braid. And I loved both.
I just don't like the ways the puzzles work out, sorry to say it but the scoring for puzzles are whacked out.
The puzzles I found badly chosen, repetitive, insufficiently explained, and generally unfun.
Sorry. Decubate.
Also, I found some puzzles to be extremely easy while others to be nearly impossible to solve without at least two hints. The difficulty seems random.
I loved the art style, the setting, the characters, and the story. I will buy the whole series if it is ever produced.
Exactly my problem! I'm not a masochist like you though, that framerate is way too slow for me to chug through.;)
It's an okay game, but this pilot episode could've either had a better price or a different variety of puzzles. Some suggestions could be like, Word Searches, Crosswords, Spot the Difference Puzzles, etc.
on the other hand, the puzzles were to easy. for example most of the spin the block and make a path puzzles were solveable just by looking for the pipes that looked like they matched at the seams and not even needing to look at the path. or some other puzzles that could be solved by randomly placing items near each other until l thy stuck together. or there puzzles that I have seen before in games such as layton. although I'm not to surprised or disseminated with that part.
however, I would definitely pick up a season's worth just for the story and feel.
This game also marks the first time I can say I have a favourite Telltale game soundtrack. This game has the best music in any Telltale game thus far (my opinion, of course). It's so moody and yet groovy. Ominous and yet calming.
You guys need to make more of these.
Great game overall - I would definitely be interested in a season of this - it's a bit less time-demanding than other Telltale games, since you can pick it up for as little as one puzzle at a time. It's also less graphically demanding (by far, not sure how others are having trouble with it, since my computer has a lot of trouble with S&M3 at lower resolution and settings, but none with this at native resolution), so it's better for battery life if you want to kill half an hour in an airport like I did yesterday.
Good elements to keep or expand on:
- Interesting, if simple, story. Generally well-animated (but see below), -voice-acted, and -paced.
- Puzzles were fun and generally integrated well into the storyline so that they made sense, the snowmobile at the lodge is a good example of this, among others. However, some puzzles seemed to end up unrelated to the actual environment in the end:
Improvements that could be made:
- Harder puzzles or different difficulty settings: it wouldn't be difficult to ramp up some of these puzzles in difficulty or offer multiple difficulty levels for some of them (such as removing the "snap-into-place" of some of the spatial puzzles, or giving the "rotate the pieces" puzzles better consistency, so getting all of the pipe edges flush with one another isn't necessarily enough). As it is, the game is too easy for a puzzle game. This is particularly noticeable in the final set of puzzles involving
-Timed puzzles: there would be at least a couple that really bothered me, but the lack of a sense of urgency makes the relatively easy puzzles even easier. Naturally, not all puzzles would be timed, but some of them make perfect sense as timed puzzles.
- Increased story breadth: the game felt way too linear - some sub-plots would be nice, or possibly just removing the obvious hinting of where we need to be next, so we're encouraged to do some extra exploration (and being rewarded for such with extra puzzles and/or further story elements).
- Improved consistency of animation: There are points when lower frame rates in the animation increase the tension, but at other points, such as the beginning when Nelson is entering Scoggins on the snowmobile, they just distract and, at least to me, feel unpolished. The higher frame rates that show more nuances to the motion felt more natural to me.
The worst were where the rate was low enough to ignore smaller motions but high enough that they weren't always showing a significant frame. If there are relatively few frames in an animation, every one of them should count - some of the low-frame animation sequences in this game didn't seem to work that way (while others did very well, particularly the scream animations).
A further expansion of this is when a course of sequential events is set forth in a puzzle, such as the log puzzles or the football team puzzles - I feel that the results of this kind of puzzle should always be animated as a reward to the player. I was disappointed when, instead of the fluid motion of the snowmobile (or even the tracks coming from it), I was given a jerky tile-by-tile reveal of the snowmobile's tracks. Even worse was lining up the perfect series of passes and not seeing them thrown. It's a simple little reward, but an important one for keeping the player satisfied.
Puzzles not always totally clear: I'm adding this more because other people noticed it than because I did. Generally, the puzzles are pretty straightforward, but I did notice a couple times when either the wording or another element of the puzzle was unclear. For me, the biggest one was probably
I give these suggestions as exactly that - suggestions. I recognize that some of the omissions were probably the result of scrambling to get the game out by the end of June, and others the result of this being a pilot game and thus having a lot of room for tweaking. Overall, I really liked the game, and I would probably buy a full season of it even without these changes. However, what I would like much more than a season of Puzzle Agent would be an increased focus on the pilot program so that Telltale can continue to develop bigger, better, newer things. Your historical game plan might continue to be the money maker for some time, but Telltale's place as a great developer will be cemented by the advances and OIP's that will come from the pilot program.
From the quality of the voice acting, to the music, to the plot, to the art (oh, that Mr. Annable! AMAZING!), to the puzzles, to the tone of the game and all over again... and again... and again. Outstanding! Superb!
Really, I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed this game on every single level! Just, wow!
Can't wait for more!
You jiggle a door's handle, unable to open it: "The door's still locked."
You see a basket with freshly-caught fish with bite marks on them: "Looks like something has started eating them before they've been cooked."
After a narrow escape from a person who's pointed a gun at you: [He's] as crooked as they come!
These sort of comments are a staple of point-and-click adventure games, and it's amazing how thoroughly they destroy the atmosphere and tension. Then there are the flubbed lines, like a very flatly-delivered "Do I seem crazy to you?", and the needless verbosity in Nelson Tethers's lines, which also suffer from the typical video game dialogue lack of emotion and not-quite-there inflection. I kept thinking how nice it would be if 90% of the dialogue was cut. An especially tense and horrific scene was made almost ridiculous because of the dialogue between the characters.
The game pales in comparison to the animated short, mostly because of redundant and poorly-delivered dialogue.
PS
"Isaac" is misspelled in the end credits!
With the adventure part of the game pretty much just a movie with lots of clicking, that leaves the puzzles to stand up as the "meat" of the game. Unfortunately the puzzles don't really stand up all that well. I do have to admit I'm not really that much of a puzzle fan (anything that resembles a question I would have been asked during a maths test doesn't really feel that fun to me), but I don't think the puzzles matched up to those in Layton.
The biggest issue with the puzzles seemed to be that the "rules" were limited to only one page, and for some of the more complicated puzzles they really didn't explain what I was dealing with at all. Quite a few puzzles seemed to be missing one or two vital bits of information to understand how they worked. I still have absolutely no idea what was going on with the fish swimming downstream one.
The jigsaw-style puzzles didn't really work at all, since you're getting immediate feedback whenever two pieces "snap" into place, they're all solvable with a few minutes of mindless clicking. The last three puzzles in the factory were a particular let down - I'm used to the "boss fight" in games being an extra challenge, but these three were way easier than the lodge puzzles that came before.
The ending was also majorly disappointing. The story has lots of mysteries that present themselves, but it's completely missing the big reveal at the end. Maybe that's something scheduled for a later episode, but the story doesn't explicitly say that either. If I were looking a buying another episode now, I'd be concerned that the formula is exactly the same - another town with eccentric characters and a bunch of loose threads that never come together.
That's not to say the story wasn't good however - many of the characters were interesting, and the graphics style was gorgeous. From what I've seen so far however, I think the concept might work a lot better as an animated TV series than a game.
The only puzzle I thought wasn't explained enough was the lift puzzle. I had no idea they all moved at once and I didn't know they only moved once. With the line that said something like "an obstruction will cause a lift to stop" I thought that meant a lift would keep going after a command until it hit an obstacle. I figured it out after a single wrong answer, but that's not a good thing. That's all I ran into that was a problem for me, though.
Professor Layton, on the other hand, was a pre-planned series, and one meant to not be episodic in nature. Sure some characters carry over, but there is no carry-over mystery. Any one subject of mystery is completely started, and done and over with each game release. Technically, you could play Layton completely out of order. In here, this is clearly an episode with one aspect of it being self-contained, but a mystery that's supposed to last the entire series. It's kind of like the New Monkey Island series, in that fashion.
I also agree with MusicallyInclined about the lift puzzle. If an important piece of a puzzle is to make people figure out how it works, then there should be a clue in the actual rules for such a thing. Otherwise, it's practically a forced point deduction. In this case, the rules themselves actually throw the puzzler off because the wording suggested a different method.
I dont see how this is any different from the layton games that whenever you complete a section, tell you on the top screen where to go.
The game is basically good, and i'd like to play a couple of episodes more; even if they not solve the mysteries of the first and only gets more complicated (as X-Files)
For me, the mouse lag is so bad it's affecting my enjoyment of the game and I won't be recommending a purchase to others.
The only settings you can change regarding quality is the resolution and that can be changed before you start the game.
(if you say you can't or shouldn't compare them, stop lying to yourself.)
Did I like Puzzle Agent and would I buy more of it? Of course.
Things I think could be improved upon:
-Clarity of puzzles, it would be better for the puzzles to be clear about the goals and rules than to be completely "realistic." (The curved table discussion in another thread is a good example of this.)
-Tighten up the voice acting a bit, the accents are nice, but some (particularly the sheriff) were too slow and awkward. It took me out of the story a few times.
-It would be nice if getting more stars and medals actually meant something (or if it were more clear what they are good for.)
-Also, not as important, but some side quests would be really cool
EDIT: Just of note to other reviewers, my computer isn't exactly a screamer (thin and light notebook), and I have no mouse lag, and the animations are supposed to be jerky, it is based on a series of graphic novels and comic books by the creative director of TTG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Annable
Yeah, I've dialled all the way down to the minimum resolution and that makes it barely playable.
Gameplay is always most important for me anyway. I was expecting lots of slider puzzles (which I don't mind), so I was pleasantly surprised with the variety here and the inclusion of logic brainteaser puzzles that aren't all that common in computer games. I'm not familiar with the Layton games (don't have a DS) but I've been playing puzzle games on computer long before Layton was invented and PA is a fine contribution to the genre, regardless of how similar it is to Layton. Yes, there were a few series of same-type puzzles that increased in difficulty, but I can't quite figure out where the folks who describe the puzzles as repetitive are coming from. Are there really that many computer puzzle games with nearly 40 absolutely unique puzzles? Most of the ones I've played repeat puzzle types more than PA does.
I agree that some of the puzzle descriptions and rules are somewhat ambiguous; this is especially problematic because the game uses the "submit" format. I have to say I'm not real fond of that -- I'm used to, and much prefer, seeing a "solved" screen as soon as a puzzle is solved. It allows you to try different things so you know exactly what is expected and aren't penalized for misinterpreting the rules. For instance, you should be able to do trial runs with the snowmobile and when it reaches its goal you're done. The complete-the-circuit puzzles should indicate how the furnace smoke or the fuel is going to flow while you're rotating the tiles so there's no ambiguity in what the target endpoint is. Confusion I've seen reported with the three lifts puzzle and the dinner plates puzzle could have been eliminated. Of course multiple choice questions aren't viable with that format, but could be adapted by making them more difficult. This would also partially obviate the need for some kind of drawing on the game screen.
I would be likely to buy any future Puzzle Agent episodes/games if they were made, but hope that the developers pay attention to some of the issues that have been raised in this and other threads.