Previews

E3 2010: Hands on with Telltale's Puzzle Agent on iPad

Telltale's next big adventure series

E3 2010: Hands on with Telltale's Puzzle Agent on iPad
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| Puzzle Agent

Nelson Tethers, puzzle agent for the FBI has been sent out into the field to investigate odd happenings at an eraser factory in Scoggins, Minnesota.

Having sat bored at his desk for years, this unusual field assignment puts his and your puzzle-solving skills to the test.

Puzzle Agent is a collection of puzzles in the guise of a witty click-and-point adventure. From jigsaw puzzles to spatial mind-benders to number games, there's an array of different teasers and tests tied to significant events in the game.

Chew on this

For instance, it opens with Tethers in his office at the FBI just as he's succumbing to boredom and falls asleep on his desk. He wakes up after a bizarre dream and rips up the newspaper crossword puzzle on which his head had been resting. Your task is to reconstruct the crossword puzzle by piecing together the scraps of newspaper.

Another puzzle involves arranging logs so as to create a path for Tethers to walk. Similar to a puzzle in which you must situate mirrors in order to reflect a beam of light into a goal, here you have to arrange logs so that Tethers will bounce toward his objective.

All of the puzzles are straightforward and easily understood, but they're not always a breeze to complete. One optional puzzle, for example, has you rotating tiles so as to correctly display an image. What makes this seemingly basic puzzle difficult is the image itself: twisting tapeworms and rubber bands (the puzzle is in fact entitled 'Tapeworm Twist').

Should you have any difficulty completing a puzzle, you can have Tethers munch on gum for a hint. There's unfortunately a limited supply of gum - Scoggins has run out of the stuff and the next shipment isn't expected for some time (convenient, isn't it?) - as such, hints are limited. You can, however, find wads around the town to boost your supply.

Head case

The quirkiness of it all - Tethers's love of gum, the unusual location of his assignment, his job - bring the puzzles together in a way that makes them far more compelling than they would be on their own. Puzzle Agent comes with a charm all its own. Distinct from the lowbrow humour of the Sam & Max series, the jokes are drier and more cerebral.

There's some smart writing at play here and it works well woven together with the puzzles. The only downer is having to manually submit solutions to puzzles instead of the game automatically acknowledging completion once you've found the solution. Under this setup, you can solve a puzzle and not be aware of it.

Changes to this are unlikely, though, because Puzzle Agent will be out some time before the end of June.

Tracy Erickson
Tracy Erickson
Manning our editorial outpost in America, Tracy comes with years of expertise at mashing a keyboard. When he's not out painting the town red, he jets across the home of the brave, covering press events under the Pocket Gamer banner.