There’s nothing quite like an inventory puzzler to strike terror into the hearts of long time gamers. The original versions of these, like the classic LucasArts titles, often had you carrying around dozens of different items which you’d end up trying on everything just to see if you could make some progress. Worse still were the ones that allowed you to combine items, opening up a whole other world of problems for you to solve. However modern versions of these games tend to be a little more forgiving in their implementation, most now proclaiming that there are “no dead ends”, hopefully ensuring a smoother game experience. Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise certainly does a lot of things right in this regard although there’s a few times that the developer and I’s logic diverged on some key game points.
You are Agent A: spy extraordinaire who’s been tasked with hunting down Ruby La Rouge, a dastardly villain who’s been terrorizing the world. Just as you track her down however you see that she’s on the same boat as your chief only to leap from it moments later as the whole ship erupts in a massive explosion. You’re able to track her back to her hideout where you’ll begin your long and puzzle filled journey to capture her and put an end to her villainy.
Agent A has a simple, cartoony art style that blends both 2D and 3D elements together. There’s minimal texturing and no real distinction between elements that you can interact with and those you can not which does add to the game’s challenge. Most of the lighting also appears to be baked into the environments as well with harsh, strong bordered shadows being the norm. There’s also very little animation to speak of, the transitions between rooms usually being a simple zoom in and most rooms not having anything moving in them. All these elements combined together do make for a rather visually pleasing game, even if it’s on the same bandwagon that half of the indie scene seems to be on these days.
The puzzles of Agent A are your standard adventure game affair including the usual tropes such as: finding a bunch of the same item everywhere to unlock something, deciphering a code using a decoder you found somewhere else and a good dose of combining items in your inventory to get something you need. Agent A does demand that you pay more attention to the environment than you might otherwise need to in similar games as there’s often clues as to how to solve a particular puzzle littered around. The only way to navigate between sections those is to go forwards or backwards through a pre-set path, something that becomes quite a chore later in the game when you have to back your way through a dozen or so screens to get where you need to go.
Most of the puzzles aren’t too difficult, lending themselves to what I’d consider to be logical solutions that you’d be able to figure out given a minute or two. There are, of course, a few curly ones that necessitate you being either hyper-observant, lucky or in most cases reading from a walkthrough to figure out. Now none of them are on the level of the rubber ducky puzzle from The Longest Journey but there was at least 3 of them that I didn’t really have a clue how to get past and nowhere in the game indicated towards the eventual solution. I’ve certainly had worse puzzler experiences but it does still annoy me when you get stuck with an empty inventory and no perceivable way forward.
The story is a light-hearted affair, full of silly puns and terrible jokes. It’s really no surprise how the story develops or ends as most of it is foreshadowed in such an obvious way that only children and the incredibly daft won’t notice it. The game does make the cardinal sin of screaming out that a sequel will come right at the end which is something I will never forgive a game for doing. However since this game is obviously meant to be played by anyone, whether it be jaded old game reviewers like myself or your 5 year old cousin who just likes pretty colours I guess I can give it a pass this time around.
Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise is a simple puzzle game in all senses of the word. The graphics are basic but visually interesting, the puzzles aren’t particularly challenge save for a precious few that require some real outside the box thinking and the overall interaction with it isn’t particularly complicated. Could the developers have done more with it? Sure, but too often we’ve seen developers get in their own way by trying to cram too much in and end up not getting in enough of the core things to make the game coherent enough to play. So for Agent A the basics are all it needs and should you be needing a short distraction from the upcoming tide of AAA releases then it might just be worth a look in.
Rating: 8.0/10
Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise is available right now on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch for $14.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 3 hours play time and 46% of the achievements unlocked.
