Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery

It’s been a long time since my last post here. It seems it gets less and less of a habit. It’s probably because I am not sure if someone reads my posts. Anyway, here goes a new one.

Lately, I’ve been playing the game Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery on my Android phone. Lately, I am not a big player, but the fact the game runs on a smartphone and can be easily played in small bits, helps. The game reminds me of the Sierra text adventures, like the Space Quest or the Police Quest series. I was a big fan of Space Quest, and I learnt a lot of English playing that game. Yes, I know, I still need to learn a lot of English.

Town Mistery is a point-and-click adventure. You can interact with the scenario, pick up objects, use them in different places and solve mysteries and puzzles. One thing that makes it quite different from the later Sierra games, where point-and-click was already a thing, is the isometric view, allowing you to see objects from different angles, making the game more immersive (minor spoiler, there is a small act at the end with a first-person-view, that while I found interesting, did not add much to the game itself). It also allows you to zoom in on some game places for better viewing, puzzle solving, or just interacting with smaller objects.

The game is free to play. And it is advertisement-free. Mostly. You just need to watch one ad whenever you need a clue. Or you can play without clues. Or you can find them on the web. Nevertheless, I bought the game, so I had free clues.

The game story is not exactly great. But is acceptable. The puzzles and graphics are what made me keep playing (and I still have a bonus chapter to play, that is offered in case you buy the game). Also, the fact that the authors included some fun references in the game, to movies, facts and other games. One of my favourite references is shown in the picture below.

Fun, right?

Regarding puzzles, sometimes they are too hairy to solve. At least for me. For some, I needed to use clues. Then, I thought, okay, it makes some sense, but I would never get there by myself. This is where clues get useful. And, mostly, are well written, giving you small hints, but not giving you the full picture, so that you can do that baby step and try to solve the next details by yourself.

Now, beware, as spoilers appear in the next paragraphs.

Nevertheless, I got one situation that did not make sense. A hint that is shown almost at the end of the game is presented without context in the story. See below the hint and my explanation.

Usually, this does not happen. By this, I mean, showing a code directly in the hint. Usually, they are hidden, and only if you click on it it shows up. Then, this password was, I now know, to be obtained using a portable encoder, and a server to decode the encrypted message. I never used any of them to retrieve this code, as I was unable to understand what message I needed to decrypt. So, instead of pushing me to understand what I needed to use on these devices, the hint solved everything for me. Somehow I missed part of the game. Note that the game is very good, and the hints are usually well-crafted. I did not use all the possible hints, of course, but this was the only situation where I got sad.

Now, I will finish the last chapter of the game (it seems it comprises a different small story) and look forward to similar games by these guys.

Congratulations!