Puzzle Agent Review For iPhone

TellTale Games has managed to repack comic artist Grickle's puzzling tale into an offering that will delight people tired of the Internet's stash of recycled puzzles.

The game begins with a solid intro to the cushy bureaucratic life of FBI Puzzle Agent Nelson Tethers as he drifts to sleep over his crossword puzzle. From here, his life is turned upside down as he gets his first field assignment in ages. His mission: investigate the interruption of the White House's eraser production in Scoggins, Minnesota.

The town of Scoggins is sprawling, snow-covered, and shrouded in mystery. As Nelson speaks to a growing assortment of touched townsfolk, starting at his hotel and working his way across the arms of an ever-widening spiral of conspiracy, he finds a puzzle in nearly every interaction.

One improvement on the usual text dialog tree is the embedding of puzzles within the conversations. While picking normal choices will shed more light on the plot and enrich the story, impatient puzzle fans can mostly jump right to the action.

Easy as they may sometimes be, these puzzles are varied, well drawn and implemented, and involve path, tile, pseudo-jigsaw, and math/word puzzles. Do a logic puzzle about a ladies' arm-wrestling contest one moment, and you might be rerouting someone's brain so he'll listen to you a few minutes later.

The only two downers in playing involve very complex puzzles and the smaller screen of the iPod. There's no real way to focus on the rules while solving a puzzle, and vice versa, so you may have to write down the rules for these puzzles: yes, using primitive pen or pencil and paper. Still, it's a small price to pay for some elaborate challenges. The other small problem is that in the middle of drawing paths with your finger, it's easy to hit the Hint or Reset buttons and ruin the fun.

When you do submit your puzzle solution, there is a superbly suspenseful high-tech action screen, filled with 3-D and sound effects to evaluate success or failure, and show your stats for that puzzle.

Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is holistically designed to engage both the fancier and the figurer. Leapfrogging between a slow descent into northern gothic and some of the coolest puzzles I've seen, rich in dialogue and graphics, this title is well worth the $4.99 I paid.

Graphics and Sound: 8.5/10. Fantastic all around, except for the grainy/blurry closeups of mid-range character drawings. A memory issue, or a laziness issue?

Gameplay: 9/10. Exploring town is mostly picking up chewed gum, examining points of interest, and talking. However, the amount of story content a player gets for solving a puzzle is often very encouraging. The clever interface lets stubborn players poke at the screen to find interaction points, while players who appreciate being spoiled can just hold a finger over the screen for a second to see hotspots.

Control: 8.5/10. Puzzle path drawing can be a little dodgy on a cramped iPod screen, and it's easy to spill over into the menu buttons, but otherwise it's a solid setup.

Replay value: 8.5/10. The dossier lets you play previous puzzles as you go through story mode, then the game puts you in a free-play mode after, where you can access puzzles you didn't visit, or in some cases, solve extra variants. Would have been nice to explore the town after finishing the game, but free-play mode is fine.

Intangibles: 9/10. A charming little jaunt into a demented, secluded town. The Grickle influence is everywhere, and the richness of the puzzle layouts is very appealing. The ending is a little underwhelming, but still works, and there is one laugh-out-loud scene between Nelson and an ornery local.

Overall: 43.5/50
Good job, Grickle and TellTale Games.

Reviewer disclosure: Lionel Houde paid full price for the copy he reviewed. No other relationship between TellTale and the reviewer exists.