Wow. Just finished it. What an amazingly innovative game! I loved every minute of it...well except for the time I spent on that crows on the wire puzzle or that snowmobile puzzle tracking the hidden person... The rest were awesome. The animation is great. I loved the return to 2D (with the technology nowadays, 2D has no excuse but to be this perfect). The interface was very very simple point and click. I'd love a complete series preferably to solve the mystery in Scoggins, but I'd love another Puzzle Agent game set ANYWHERE. I love Graham Annable's drawing style and the humor is really refreshing and doesn't bash you over the head with gags. Am I the only one who laughed uncontrollably when Sheriff Bagh purposely rearranged the security photos and attempted to justify it? It was almost a joke to the player along the lines of...you're playing a puzzle game, what did you expect?
I also loved the parody of more traditional adventure games. I must have done hundreds of "rearrange the pieces" type puzzles in the last 3 Tex Murphy games, but let me tell you, never have I been interrupted and almost crapped my pants as a hidden person pops onto the screen and steals a piece of the puzzle.
I do think the game was a bit short, although I found it to be a little longer than the average Telltale episode (counting the number of puzzles that is). The dialogue was a bit limited, but the whole game sort of felt that way, kind of like an introduction to Scoggins. The game after all was just a pilot and I hope they're planning on making more.
I felt the game was overall the most easily playable Telltale game I've ever played. While I loved Tales of Monkey Island, it's kind of hard to pick and choose episodes out of order and each game isn't a consistent experience. Many times with other Telltale games the long and extensive dialogue (or internal commentary) can get tedious (Sam & Max and Strongbad) if you aren't in the right mood to hear it all. Puzzle Agent really streamlines the commentary (although Grickle usually has no commentary). Also I love Puzzle Agent's more limited location orientation. You have a single screen and typically can go inside a building, but otherwise use the map. I get more frustrated in other adventure games having to run around all over the place with no idea what I'm supposed to do next. I had no issues with knowing what to do next. In fact I think I would have liked exploring more with a slightly less linear storyline so we could explore the town in full as well as follow where the clues take us. While not perfect, the game's main flaw is that there isn't more episodes yet. Just an extremely unique gaming experience which really goes to the core of why adventure gamers are adventure gamers.
Btw, am I the only one who thought Mr. Scruffman was the Grickle version of Scruffy from Futurama?
