May 092022
Remember Detective Grimoire?
It’s been quite a few years since we discussed Detective Grimoire, which I found to be a charming and funny adventure game with an entertaining story.
At the time, I mentioned a sequel was planned. Well, that sequel came out in 2019: Tangle Tower.
Since it doesn’t use the Detective Grimoire name and wasn’t mentioned through Detective Grimoire channels at first, I stumbled across Tangle Tower by accident a couple years ago. (And from what I’ve seen, there are still Detective Grimoire fans who are surprised to learn the sequel exists, and Tangle Tower fans who are surprised to learn there was a first game.)
Now, as part of our mystery celebration, I finally played it.
Tangle Tower follows Detective Grimoire and Sally, who is now his assistant, on an investigation at a mysterious place called Tangle Tower, where a woman has been murdered under strange circumstances.
It’s a simple point-and-click adventure game where you’ll gather clues and solve puzzles by interacting with items in each scene. The puzzles felt a little trickier this time around, and everything in general feels like a step up from the previous game.
You’ll meet several characters in the course of the investigation, and talking to them is another way of gathering clues. You ask each character the same few questions – about themselves, where they were on the day of the murder, and their official statement about the murder – but you also can ask everyone about every other character and every item you find, with unique dialogue for each.
That’s a lot of dialogue, and like in Detective Grimoire, it’s funny. Tangle Tower has a lot of great lines that made me laugh, especially from Grimoire’s observations.
Each character also has a secret they’re hiding, which you can uncover once you’ve found enough clues related to it. And of course, there are times when you need to draw a conclusion about the case by filling in the blanks with key phrases.
Taking me around 5 hours to finish, Tangle Tower is about twice the length of its predecessor. I thoroughly enjoyed it for most of that time, too. However, the ending feels a bit rushed and includes some points that aren’t well-explained, and then it ends with what I assume is a sequel hook. Apparently a sequel is in development but won’t be called Tangle Tower 2, so here’s hoping the connection is marketed more clearly this time.
Anyway, Tangle Tower is a great choice if you loved Detective Grimoire or want a funny, intriguing mystery game, even if the ending leaves a bit to be desired.
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“Ask everyone about everything”… my favorite game feature but also my worst nightmare for actually *finishing* a game!
Maybe I’ll get to this one eventually… I had a few opportunities to play in the past but it never rose up enough to pierce through the backlog.
Haha, yes… although since it’s not too long of a game overall, at least that never became too much trouble.