Little Locked Rooms

I was a bit torn on this, but to get straight to the point: I cannot recommend this for the current price. I like the vibe of the game, and I enjoy solving mysteries, but there is almost no real investigation here. The cards on the side of the screen are just given to you straight away. I expected to do some investigation, find the clues, testimonies and facts by myself by investigating the scene but here you are just looking at the facts presented to you. I don't mind that the cases are very short, but they're not engaging either. From reading other reviews I learned that some if not all of the cases are (well)known mysteries so you may already know the solution without even playing. For me this was not the case, everything was new, but the lack of freedom frustrated me so much that I let the game give me the answer at some points (there is a hint system). This partly has to do with the fact that the questions you have to answer to solve it are phrased in a way that annoyed me. For example, a question that starts with "How" shouldn't have answer options that start with "Because": "because of what he used", "because of where he was". It confused me and I didn't know what the game expected as an answer, especially because you can get a partially correct answer regardless of what you pick. Since you're playing for a meaningless score you get at the end of the case, it didn't feel rewarding enough for me to figure it out myself, because there is basically nothing to do except stare at the notes on the screen that are given to you and just sit there and think about them, which doesn't engage me as a player. As for the art direction, there is none. The 3d environments, the character designs, the UI and the cover image -although all well made and nice to look at- do not really fit together, and I assume were made separately by different people. There is quite a bit of dialogue from the characters which ranges from encouraging to annoying (especially when the child characters argue with each other). Honestly I think for someone's first published game this is great, I just don't think it's deserving of this price point. If the dev improves on the points I've mentioned I think they could make something awesome.

This game was just okay. The basic premise is that you have a small diorama of a locked room mystery and have to figure it out. The frame story is the dioramas are made by a dad for his son and daughter to test their mettle with. You solve the mysteries via dialogue options and by clicking on items in the dioramas. The idea is nice, but a few things held it back and I ended up underwhelmed. For one, it has some really tired and grating character cliches. It has both the “serious little boy studying for his career while little girl is bubbleheaded and careless” thing, as well as the “girl is competent and boy can’t believe it and says she’s just a lying cheater.” These are bad tropes. There was no reason for this game to be sexist about children and it was really irritating. It also decided to make the “thief” in the first story dark-skinned which was… A Choice. I’m shocked no one pointed out the optics of some of this to the developer because this was like “don’t be a jerk 101” kind of stuff. The bigger problem for me was that two of the mysteries were ones I knew. I recognized the theatre one instantly — I can’t quite figure out where I know it from but the game even says it’s an old story, so who knows where I saw it. The final case is just a John Dickson Carr story, “The Shadow of the Goat.” I haven’t read it but I must have read about it at some point because it was extremely familiar to me from the getgo. It’s disappointing for the game to not have tried to come up with its own plots, and somehow I get the feeling Carr’s writing wasn’t used with permission, which feels not great — I also find it kind of iffy to only credit him in a line in the end credits when it would have been so easy to have the dad character say, “This one is based on a short story I like,” which feels more honest to me. This is such a tiny game — four plots, finished in 77 minutes — that it feels pretty egregious the dev couldn’t come up with something original. It makes me wonder if the other two were recycled stories as well — I recognized the solution to the first one, but assumed at the time it was just an old mystery trope; now I wonder if it was lifted wholesale from a specific story that wasn’t credited. So for those keeping count that's... 75% of the game made up of preexisting stories. If all that doesn’t bother you, you may get something out of this game, which does have a very cute premise and runs well enough, but to me it felt like kind of a waste of the idea. [b]edit:[/b] I am absolutely not going to change the review because you're upset I suggested there were some Unfortunate Implications. Lol. Lmao, even. Grow up.

Very fun, very cute... and unfortunately very short. Just as the complexity was ramping up and getting juicy, the game was over. I enjoyed it the whole time, but it was like a small slice of really good cake. I want some more cake ;_; That said, this is a fantastic first start from an indie dev. I'd love to play more just like this!

This is a rather cute, short game. I like the mini-dioramas and the ninja people. I like the portrayal of the siblings/their relationship with the dad. As for the mysteries... I liked reading them... But let's just say that I should [i]never[/i] be allowed to investigate. Lmao.

locked rooms, this reminds me a time of a certain mansion with various locked rooms but in red very interesting puzzle of mysteries that even a mystery enjoyer like myself stumped me a bit its nice

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overall relaxing and good. can recommend it. the price of this game is a bit to high but in offer for -50% very good.