Agent A (2019)

[tozka]

Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise (2019) is a point-and-click puzzle adventure game with a SPY theme! You play as a genderless secret agent trying to track down international spy Ruby La Rouge, who recently blew up your boss and is threatening to blow up your coworkers. I played the Nintendo Switch version.

The basic game is to click through a set of rooms looking for clues to solve puzzles to move the storyline along. I enjoyed the brightly-colored locations, the background music, and the subtitles for any speaking parts. The puzzles were, for the most part, not too difficult to solve-- the built-in screenshot button on the Switch definitely helped me keep track of clues I found three rooms away. Some of them were really fun, like dialing a phone to call a spy supply store to get a thing to solve the next-to-last puzzle.

I think I only had to look for help two or three times, and only because I couldn't figure out that there was another path off to the side of one screen. Most of the puzzles involved finding pieces in interesting places and bringing them back to a main location to unlock the next part of the game.

Which brings me to my main problem: actually DOING that is really annoying, because you can really only solve MAYBE two puzzles at a time. ( 1 image under here and the rest of the review of course )

That said, overall I did enjoy playing this game. It took maybe four hours to beat? I recommend using a stylus to speed some of the point-and-clicking up-- or just grabbing the mobile version, I suppose.

Price: $19.99, but I bought it on sale for $2 which it does pretty frequently.

Originally posted at my personal journal.

My Brother Rabbit (2018)

[tozka]

My Brother Rabbit (2018) is an adventure puzzle game set "in a surreal world that mixes reality with a child's imagination." There's not MUCH of a story, but it's basically set in the mind of a child who has fallen ill, and the game is a representation of her experiences in the hospital/getting better/etc. It's not super deep, and the story almost doesn't matter re: the puzzles except giving them a theme-- BUT the last puzzle was a total heartbreaker once I figured out the meaning behind the solution.

The art is really pretty, and the music is fun. It's a point-and-click game, which often works better on computers, but I found the Nintendo Switch port to be pretty good. ( 2 images and the rest of the review. )

It's pretty short-- I finished it in one night-- but has some replayable value, if you wait long enough that you've forgotten the puzzle solutions. If you're interested in picking it up, I would say wait for it to go on sale, and then snag it.

Price: $14.99, though it regularly goes on sale for less than $2 (about every other month, in fact).

Content notes: Sick/hospitalized child.

Originally posted at my personal journal.

Goetia (2015)

[tozka]

Goetia (2015) is a point-and-click gothic puzzle mystery that I bought because a) it was $0.99 at the time and b) I like gothic mysteries and c) I like to pretend I enjoy puzzle games.

Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch port has HORRIBLE game mechanics that ruin the overall design of the game and make it basically unplayable.

But first, good stuff: the artwork and overall puzzle/story design are really good, the sound design is great, and the CONCEPT is fascinating.

The story is you're a ghost (who died in the 1890s) trying to solve the mystery of wtf happened to your family in the 1940s; there are demons and magic, and the only clues you have are letters and notes your family left behind in the course of using magic to summon those demons. The storyline is what kept me playing despite the other frustrations. I REALLY wanted to know what happened to the family.

And finally, there's a journal feature which helps keep track of which mysteries were solved, and gives hints on which direction to go next. That came in handy.

Now for the bad: the game mechanics. ( I don't recommend this version of the game. )

It took me roughly 5-6 hours to work my way through with the help of the walkthrough. If I didn't have the walkthrough, I would've given up because playing the game was so fucking frustrating.

Price: Steam is $15, Switch store is $9.99. I wouldn't pay any more than $0.99 for this for the Switch-- actually, don't buy it for the Switch at all. The PC version would be fine to pick up on sale, especially if you enjoy text-based puzzles with a spooky atmosphere.

Content notes: Dead children, parental abuse.

Originally posted at my personal journal.

ISLANDS: Non-Places (2016)

[tozka]

ISLANDS: Non-Places (2016) is an "artscape" game by artist Carl Burton. I played the Mac OS version.

Not so much as game as a collection of surreal, semi-interactive art pieces. The "game" part is just finding things that blink, clicking on them, and then watching the scene change into something else. It's meditative and very pretty, with calming background music. Watching a bus stop turn into an egg incubator (for instance) was fascinating; I liked watching the mundane world turn into something fantastic.

However, I would NOT have bought it for full price because it's not enough game content to make it "worth" the purchase. At only about 45 minutes max, and with minimal interactive elements...idk. I'm glad I got it as part of a bundle. I do appreciate its experimental nature, though!

Price: $4.99

Serre (2017)

[tozka]

Serre (2017) is a romantic visual novel between a lonely gardener (serre means greenhouse!) and a space alien who looks like a huge bee! Harold, they're lesbians. I played the Mac OS version.

Nice colors, nice hand drawn art, adorable background music. Funny and sweet dialogue/characters, with some hurt/comfort thrown in. It's a very basic story; the dialogue choices all lead to the same plot points, so it doesn't matter what you pick. A bit of a bummer, since part of the fun of visual novels is seeing where your choices take you.

Some dialogue choices lead to cuter scenes than others. You can go back and replay the other dialogue choices, skipping past scenes you've already seen. Super quick to play, maybe 10-20 minutes if you're a fast reader. (For THAT short of a game, wait until it goes on sale or buy it in a bundle.)

Price: $5 CAD

Available for Windows, Mac, Linux. I played the Mac OS version.

If you pay extra (or got the Bundle) it comes with a cute artbook with behind-the-scenes sketches and bonus post-game comics, all of which are adorable and funny.

Content notes: Hints of past bullying, one character says a mean thing which is tonally very different from the rest of the game.