The president is out of erasers and agent Tethers of
the FBI Puzzle Division must travel to Scoggins
Minnesota and make sure the official White House
eraser factory is back online. What’s more, this is the
agent’s first field assignment in ages, which is more
than appropriate, as Puzzle Agent is the first Telltale
game that won’t necessarily be episodic since, well,
ages, meaning you’ll have to support it if you want to
see it developed to its full potential.
After all, Puzzle Agent is a truly unique game for
Telltale, that according to, well, everyone, feels and
plays a lot like the DS mega-hit Professor Layton. Not
that I’d know, mind you, as I’d never think such
games would appeal to me, but who can argue with
the Internet?
Truth is, this is an adventure-light game filled with 50-
odd puzzles of the puzzle-book variety. You’ll get to
talk with characters using a rather traditional
adventure interface and point-and-click at screens,
but what you’ll mainly be doing will be rotating tiles,
answering riddles and arranging logs in order to solve
the puzzles that will allow you to reach the game’s
end. Despite the fact that some of said puzzles do
feel inspired, engaging, and fun, Puzzle Agent is
guilty of unbalanced difficulty, repetition, and even
some incredibly easy yet ridiculously elaborate
puzzles that feel like work.
On the plus side, this being a project directed by
Graham Annable, Puzzle Agent sports some
incredibly evocative and highly stylized graphics, that
perfectly capture the atmosphere of the Grickle
Internet-cartoons. The weird animation, the topquality
artwork, the odd voices, the surreal
-simultaneously unsettling and amusing- writing, all
make for a game that really nails its atmosphere, its
characters, and its plot. A fantastic gaming
experience only slightly marred by the gaming bit
itself.
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