Release Date: 30/06/2010
Played On: Win
Available On: iOS / Mac / PSN / Win
Time Played: 2h 10m
Progress: Completed
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
It's easy to forget that Telltale Games made a bunch of excellent adventure games before they became a household name in the gaming industry. They were always around, but I'd argue that it wasn't really until The Walking Dead came around that the studio was firmly placed on the map of notable developers. Although, with their recent closure surrounded in questions of mistreated workers and other controversial headlines, it might be worth remembering some of the good work they did before turning into the 'licensed game sweat-shop' (my words, nobody else's).
After all, ever since The Walking Dead was released, we've been treated to game after game that uses the exact same template and engine. Very little has changed since they hit is big, other than whatever license they're using for wrapping at the time. In fact, I personally believe that Telltale's eventual downfall was largely a product of their own success, as there's a marked difference in the games they produced before and after The Walking Dead.
I'm not here to argue about business practices or get into why a studio closed. On one hand I have very little information to go on, and on the other hand I just want to talk about games. To that end, Telltale have always been the studio that made niche little adventure games that gave me access to things I doubt I would have seen anywhere else.
One of their earliest titles was Bone: Out from Boneville, based on the first volume of the legendary comic strip Bone. Along with Bone: The Great Cow Race, these were some of the first games I encountered that spoke to me directly. Of course the comic strip was already a big deal, but to play through the story in a three dimensional world really blew my mind at the time.
Then came the modern Sam & Max games, Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, and eventually Back to the Future: The Game. It felt like Telltale were making games just for me, as all of these licenses were already near and dear to my heart. I couldn't believe I got to play a Strong Bad game, or Wallace & Gromit; these things were never on my radar as possible game stories, but there they were.
Of course there were other titles along the way, like a few CSI games based on the TV show, and a hotly debated Tales of Monkey Island. Most were split into episodes, but other than a few card games, one of the only stand-alone titles Telltale made where the Puzzle Agent games.
Much like the Bone games, there were only two titles in the Puzzle Agent series, but we're going to stick with the first. Unlike many of its contemporaries, this was as close to a traditional point-and-click adventure game as Telltale could get. Mostly because it was drawn in two dimensions, as opposed to their usual three, but even the name gives away just how faithful to the genre this game actually is.
We play as Nelson Tethers, who is the only Puzzle Agent at the FBI and a bit of a ditz, but handy with a puzzle. The story begins with Tethers being assigned a mysterious case of figuring out why the White House has stopped receiving its usual shipment of erasers. Yes, the entire game has tongue firmly in cheek and never lets up until the credits roll.
I'd argue that this is one of the strengths behind older Telltale games; that they actually figured out how to be funny. Comedy isn't something we see done very well in a lot of games, and usually it's just a bit of a self-aware giggle, but nothing wittier than you'd find in a typical Christmas cracker. However the writers employed by Telltale over the years have done a consistent job of developing clever scenarios and genuinely funny characters.
Puzzle Agent is no exception, and even though it does lean into a little bit of fourth wall territory, the consistent jokes throughout the game actually made me laugh. It might be hard to write comedy for games, but it's even harder to get me to laugh out loud while I'm playing, so that alone tells me that this game has some excellent writing.
Good thing too, as the story carries a lot of weight in these more traditional adventure games, so it's nice to be entertained between puzzles. Which leads us to the other main component of the game that happens to be the very unsurprising task of solving many puzzles in order to progress.
The fact that the game is called Puzzle Agent, and we get to play as that very same Puzzle Agent, really goes a long way to justify arbitrary puzzling. I mean, of course you have to solve a bunch of different weird puzzles that seem completely over the top and out of place, because that's your job. If you didn't have puzzles to solve then you wouldn't be out on an adventure in the first place, so as silly as some of the puzzles can get, it actually makes a bit of twisted sense.
There's also the usual genre staples, but instead of carrying around and inventory full of random objects that can be applied to other random objects along the way, you're given dialogue options to navigate. There's a host of secondary characters to meet and talk to for clues and amusing lines. Front to back this is a traditional point-and-click adventure game, and I absolutely love that it is.
Aesthetically, everything is hand drawn and purposely shows the pencil lines and textures that went into each frame. The animations are simplistic and at times look like they could be storyboard, or placeholder animations, but it actually suits the overall style either way. There's a deliberate palette being used in Puzzle Agent, that really gives the game its own identity, which is something Telltale haven't done a lot of over the years.
A lot of the early Telltale adventure games I mentioned above, all used the same 3D engine, so a lot of them ended up looking quite similar. The same could be said for everything that followed The Walking Dead, as they again used the same engine over and over, with little difference in the baseline aesthetics.
Perhaps this is why Puzzle Agent stands out to me a little more than other games Telltale have made, as it's the only two dimensional one that I've played. That and the deliberately hand-drawn aesthetic manage to illustrate a unique visual language that isn't nearly as strong in their other games.
Every now and then I get asked why I bother writing about old games that came out a long time ago, and I've never really had a good answer. Part of the reason is that I write about what I've been playing recently, but the other part is that even with an old game I think it's relevant to talk about it if there's something worth saying. Besides, some of these older games are still really good and a genre like point-and-click adventure never really goes out of date. Then there's the added bonus of older games being relatively cheap, so if you've never played Puzzle Agent before, I think you can pick it up for only a couple of bucks.
However, the biggest reason why I think Puzzle Agent is worth playing if you never have, is that it reveals a little of where Telltale Games came from. This is an important game in their catalogue of work, and perhaps it's even one of their best.
We can easily get side-tracked by controversy when a studio closes suddenly and may not have paid everyone properly. In no way do I support any of the bad practices that Telltale Games may or may not have been involved in, and I hope that everyone involved gets what they deserve on both sides of the fence. However, I can't help but think about all the talented individuals who worked on all these amazing games and how much creativity and joy they made possible.
It's simple to be cynical when the suits and the money mess everything up, but a lot of the time success has an origin story, and I think Puzzle Agent is part of the Telltale story. I don't know if it made a lot of money for them, or if it ever really got noticed at the time, but I think it's a fine example of the studio's potential.
Sometimes it's nice to look back and see what a talented group of creative people managed to accomplish. In this instance, it's a well written puzzle game that made me laugh my head off and revived my passion for point-and-click adventures once more. For that, I will always be thankful, even when 'the business' has gone and ruined it for everyone.