Puzzle Agent impressions!

[Secret Fawful]

Nelson can have a gun. Guns aren't evil. Why my good friend, Abraham Lincoln, has an arm made out of a gun.



This is a recent picture I took of him on his patio. Remember, kids, Abraham Lincoln's motto is, "Guns don't kill people. I do."

God Bless you, Abraham Lincoln! salute

[Comrade Pants]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

Nelson can have a gun. Guns aren't evil. Why my good friend, Abraham Lincoln, has an arm made out of a gun.



This is a recent picture I took of him on his patio. Remember, kids, Abraham Lincoln's motto is, "Guns don't kill people. I do."

God Bless you, Abraham Lincoln! salute

I'm sorry, but you seem to be in error. According to John Hodgman's master work 'More Information Than You Require,' Abraham Lincoln was portrayed by Edwin Booth for most of his presidency and had a hook for his right hand. A HOOK.

[Secret Fawful]

Well, Abraham Lincoln is standing right next to me and he says John Hodgman is a $%&#@$&. In other words, his facts were wrong.

[taumel]

Originally Posted by Jake

You talk about mood and feeling and everything, but you want an FBI agent to not use a gun, and instead to pull a rubber chicken out and wobble it around or something goofy like that? I think it adds a ton to Nelson Tethers' character that, while he's a "Puzzle Agent," he is still an FBI agent first. He went to the academy. He had weapons training. He has a chain of command, etc. Otherwise he wouldn't be on the case at all! It's far more interesting to me that way. Also, Nelson only brings out his gun when he is scared. I don't think it's in his nature to do so, but he falls back on his training and typical FBI behavior when he has no idea what else to do, or what is appropriate.

So it's FBI training to just shoot around once you feel overstrained?

That's a pretty bad training if you ask me.

In my opinion you're mixing up fiction with pseudo reality too much. Honestly i can't take someone as a real FBI agent who scratches old chewing gum leftovers from the floor or the walls for...buah... and solves bug riddles.

Secondly who tells you that the puzzle department also gets trained in shooting like the other departments?! It also could be that they don't do this by intention in order to sharpen their intellect for solving puzzles and difficult situations. Last but not least Nelson could have a gun but due to his character he does not use it because it scares him and he doesn't feel comfy with it. And so on...

Nelson not using a gun could more add to the atmosphere, deliver an interesting background rather than destroying it. It just depends on how you colour him.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by taumel

So it's FBI training to just shoot around once you feel overstrained?

That's a pretty bad training if you ask me.

In my opinion you're mixing up fiction with pseudo reality too much. Honestly i can't take someone as a real FBI agent who scratches old chewing gum leftovers from the floor or the walls for...buah... and solves bug riddles.

Secondly who tells you that the puzzle department also gets trained in shooting like the other departments?! It also could be that they don't do this by intention in order to sharpen their intellect for solving puzzles and difficult situations. Last but not least Nelson could have a gun but due to his character he does not use it because it scares him and he doesn't feel comfy with it. And so on...

Nelson not using a gun could more add to the atmosphere, deliver an interesting background rather than destroying it. It just depends on how you colour him.

It...its just a cartoon video game, man. Just roll with it. Nelson might be an FBI agent, but hes also a human. Everyone has personality tics like the gum chewing.

[taumel]

Yep, it's just an aspect which i found disturbing and somehow superfluous.

[henke37]

I felt that the final puzzles where too easy, with the exception of the platform puzzle. That one was ok in terms of difficulty. While I figured out that they would move together, I can see why people assume otherwise, that was unclear. What does bug me is having to restart it just because a piece went missing. A piece that was never used mind you. I can't say that I like the abrupt ending either.

But what bugs me the most is that the gum collecting was buggy. If you collect too fast, pieces aren't counted and you have to collect them again. And I think the mouths where a bit buggy this time. And I honestly don't like intentional quality degradation. The low framerate was bad.

But I liked the how note, it helps when you accidentally solve a puzzle. But then again, that only happened with the annoying fitting puzzles. I don't like the final two of those. The cog parts didn't fit together in any logical way. And the arranging puzzles plain shouldn't snap at all. But they also had issues with what piece I picked.

As for the GUI, I have only one thing to say, the bouncy scrollbars suck. It is not a good idea, and it just annoys the user.

As for the lack of quality settings, I think at least the snow falling could be disabled. If the horrible noise can be part of the quality settings, why not the snow?

And the key puzzle had me assuming that each fish had another inside it, even if it already was inside another one. And yeah, get the key, jump out of the window?

[Comrade Pants]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

Well, Abraham Lincoln is standing right next to me and he says John Hodgman is a $%&#@$&. In other words, his facts were wrong.

Well, would you listen to Abraham Lincoln knowing that... um... HE SUPPORTED THE HOBO EMPIRE?

[Easy_D]

Fantastic, although the puzzle design could have been better in parts it was still a very enjoyable experience.

I really hope this one can take off and become a full fledged series

[SiN]

This is was the first Telltale game I didn't enjoy much.

If you played Professor Layton, which inspires this game, you'd feel Puzzle Agent is a cheap gimmick with no original puzzles.
If you plan on copying a game, make sure to do it right Telltale!

Also, I didn't like the animation style, though the art was great.

The game was not a total disaster, but I'd give it a 5/10 or 6... And nothing more.
Hands up for IGN review.

I have hope in Telltale, and I believe future iterations should be a lot better.

[Will]

Originally Posted by taumel

Secondly who tells you that the puzzle department also gets trained in shooting like the other departments?!

All FBI agents get standard weapons training.

(I wasn't expecting it to be that easy to find information on! Thank's FBI for your over-informative website!)

[taumel]

Still, as i wrote a) it's a weird balancing, trying to be over correct on this one if you're comparing it to the others things he does and b) also if he had a training, it doesn't say anything about his character and that he must use it.

In my opinion a Nelson without a gun would be the better Nelson, also as an FBI agent and even more as a Grickle character.

It's fine that Sam uses a gun but Nelson just would do very fine without. Maybe it's also a culture thing as well because europeans aren't so much into firearms.

[GinnyN]

Originally Posted by Will

All FBI agents get standard weapons training.

(I wasn't expecting it to be that easy to find information on! Thank's FBI for your over-informative website!)

The FBI site just make my day!

Edit: @tamuel OUR version of the FBI (Or something similar) use guns as well. And you are putting too much into it. I don't think he having a gun make him, well, less him. More a FBI Agent yes.

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Andrew Ryan

Well, would you listen to Abraham Lincoln knowing that... um... HE SUPPORTED THE HOBO EMPIRE?

I misread that as the hobbit empire. Yes I would support him knowing he supported the Hobbit Empire. :3

[AlekSanter]

I love the game! Please make more!!!!

[wwitthoff1]

Full Season +1

Seriously I liked this game, granted 2 of the puzzles I had to get help from these forums on but other than that an awesome game overall. I agree that the ending seems like something's missing but not knowing the Grickle comics I don;t concider my self qualified to make that judgement.

[ABlackEyedPea]

I HATED the football pass one. I forgot what it was called, but I so HATED IT.

I did pretty good on the other ones, though. I always smiled whenever I got Top Agent. Even on the not-so-tough ones.

Anyway, I'd like to see what the deal with the astronaut dude was. Full Season +9001

Also, I loved R. L. Jackson as Sheriff Baug. I couldn't even tell he was the space-faring science-gorilla Skun-ka'pe! You've got some great talent on board, Telltale! And not just Jackson, either. Every single regular you have is great.

[Steky]

I just got around to finishing the game. I really enjoyed it! But I have to say I would have liked it more if it wasn’t so similar to Layton. For me the puzzles got boring after a while and it was only the interesting story and the cool world of the game that kept me playing.
I would have liked the game more if it was more like Phoenix Wright than Professor Layton. This is because in Phoenix Wright the puzzles are not just mini games and have more to do with character and story. In short I liked the Nelson Tethers part of the game and not the Puzzle Agent part. But maybe this is just me.
Also I find it hard to imagine playing a full season of Puzzle Agent because the puzzles are going to get repetitive after a while. Some puzzles were similar in the polite alone.
Over all I really liked the game and think TT did a great job in make Puzzle Agent look and feel like Grickle and I hope to see more. Maybe even different storeys and kinds of games but in the world of Grickle.

[WarpSpeed]

I finished the game up last night. So here are my impressions.

I liked the way the puzzles integrated into the storyline (for the most part). It's OK that some are easy and some are harder and they're mixed up. I even liked the occasional placement puzzles that everyone is complaining are too easy because of the pieces locking together. Not every puzzle has to be a mind-bender. Purists will probably think that the harder ones should count more toward your "score," though.

It was annoying that the instructions weren't always clear that certain approaches were allowed or disallowed, so you have to ask for hints or try a solution to find out how the puzzle really works. If you can't express the complete rules up front or demonstrate how it works (maybe allow one free "try" on a simpler version), it probably isn't a good puzzle.

It would have been nice in some cases to be able to draw on the puzzle, or pull up a notepad, so I wouldn't have to use real paper. For the puzzle with the crows, it would have been nice to be able to slide the pieces around on the screen to benefit my own thinking process, even though it wasn't necessary to complete the puzzle.

It's kind of gross that Nelson is pulling previously chewed gum off the wall to chew himself. The gum is so plentiful that you might as well have given him an infinite supply up front. Or, make it harder to come by in future games, if there are any.

It isn't always clear if it would be better to chew more gum or make a guess that might be wrong, scorewise. Maybe have a scoring button that says things like "For this puzzle, chewing a piece of gum will cost two stars, and a wrong guess will cost five stars."

It should be easy to quit the game at almost any point (except maybe the cutscenes) and restore back to that exact point, even if you're in the middle of a puzzle. Quitting the game should indicate that the game will be saved.

I liked the character development, where you got a sense of how the characters feel, more than them just being a one-dimensional obstacle to the next puzzle.

Having a gnome occasionally breaking into the puzzle you're trying to solve and stealing a piece, so you have to run after the gnome to get the piece back is genius. Of course, if there are any more games in this series, now I'll be expecting it.

I think more map exploring and less of Nelson saying where he was going to go next would have been good. It would have kept the tension level higher if the player wasn't sure what was going to happen next.

Here are my thoughts on the ending. It would have been easy to wrap up the game by having the foreman happy to be saved, the gnomes cursing their plan's failure and running into the forest, and the town cheering that their puzzle predicaments are over. Of course, that's not what happened. Not only did the ending leave questions open with no answers, it went out of its way to leave questions open with no answers! And because there's only one game at this point, I don't know if you did that as an homage to the Grickle style, or if you plan for the next episode (if made) to also feature Scoggins, or if the entire season (if made) would have a hidden people theme. If you decide not to make any more Puzzle Agent episodes, I hope you'll reveal what you were planning to do if you had.

Overall, it was $9.95 well spent, and I will probably buy more episodes if they are released. There are a few things you could have done better, and I hope you will if you release any more.

[Custode]

What can i say: the perfect mix of tension and fun. I loved the story, the music, the graphic style, the puzzles, the price, Glori Davner --, the humor and all the jumps on my chair caused by those damned red gnomes!
I also discovered the talent of an author like Graham Annable.
If one day i will have the luck to meet some Telltale Guy, i promise them a warm handshake and my sincerest congratulation.