Tangle Tower

This is the second point-and-click adventure of Detective Grimoire available on Steam, but it is pretty much stand-alone and not a sequel. It's probably why it's not mentioned anywhere on the store page. The advantages of playing Dectective Grimoire first are that it's cheaper, easier and shorter. However, Tangle Tower is improved in almost every aspect, including graphics. Very good characters with personality. Excellent voice acting all around especially for Grimoire's assistant, Sally. The soundtrack was unobstrusive and lovely, with music suitable for each suspect. I loved the art style. It was different and distinctive. I also liked the little character animations when characters talked (or not in the case of Flora) very much although they tended to repeat. Lots of described hotspots and clues, which is something I particularly appreciate in a mystery game. No hotspot indicator, but it wasn't necessary. No inventory and therefore no traditional inventory-based puzzles, but case files and self-contained logic puzzles. Pretty clever puzzles and I don't recall seeing them used before. They might not have been lying about the "unique puzzles" on the store page. They could be challenging, but I was never stuck that long because of gradual hints given when you failed. The best part for me, constructing deductions out of images and sentence fragments, was back but there seemed to be fewer of them. Or perhaps they were more spaced out. I enjoyed solving each suspect's personal mystery. I think they were optional, but I'm not sure. The overall murder mystery was quite smartly done except for a few plot holes, and that long confession followed by an abrupt ending. Tangle Tower was a very good game and I'm looking forward to the upcoming case: The Mermaid Mask.

[h1]Just buy it[/h1] I bought the game for $4 and it's worth an easy $10 for the quality and polish it delivers. The art, the music, and the characters are 10/10. Puzzles are fantastic. I love the "mess around with them until you figure it out" approach. I'm an adventure game dumb-dumb, but I only struggled with one puzzle and the in-game hints were enough to get me over that hump. Meaning: NO GUIDE WAS REQUIRED for me to beat this game. Ending feels a bit too short. Would have been nice to hear more from the characters about the final revelations, but it in no way ruins the hours you will spend exploring this world. [h1]VOICE OVER WORK IS TOP NOTCH[/h1] I don't understand how the voice talent for Grimoire and Sally are not married in real life because their VO chemistry is amazing.