The Newton Mystery

I worked on this game since it's inception. It has a really cute art style based on cartoons from my childhood. The dialogue is really funny and gives the player a reason to explore. If you enjoy cozy games and reading dialogue this is worth a pickup.

I played the demo 2 years ago, was pleasantly surprised to see it's finally out. The puzzle-platforming is very fun, the characters are funny and charming, and the art style is adorable. The bullet hell segments were a fun surprise and the TCG rhythm game is honestly pretty addicting. The narrative is interesting, but I feel like a lot of worldbuilding aspects were left unexplained or too open-ended by the end of the game, which makes me wonder if there's anything else in store for this world. The game is a little buggy at times, and the dialogue has a noticeable amount of typos. For some reason, I sometimes had this issue where the camera lagged but the characters moved fine so I had to slow down until the camera caught up and fixed itself. I also wish all the controls were shown in the title screen or pause menu because I had to figure out some controls for myself, such as the skip text function. Overall, besides the need for some patches, this game is a fun and nostalgic adventure and I'd love to see a continuation of some kind.

Prefacing this; I was a kickstarter backer for this game. The Newton Mystery is a short, fun game full of funny moments and a story told well enough, but what it has in charm it lacks in substance. a full playthrough of the story, with interacting with every NPC you come across ran me about 5 and a half hours, not counting any time investment into the in-game card game. Pros: the controls felt fine for the most part, switching between teammates felt intuitive and the execution of most abilities work swell, including the guest party member in Chapter 5. The art style is where most of the charm comes from, even with the lower frame rate and few frame idles. The bits of the story we see are set up cohesively enough to understand. The in game card game is really quite fun in its execution, although I wish that it waited until the attack notes lined up to the beat of the song, considering it being a rhythm game is the selling point. Cons: There's a distinct lack of challenge in the game, During the game there are 3 changes of gameplay; a top down shooter, an autorunner dodging game, and a bullet heck. only the top down shooter felt to a level of difficulty that kept it right where it should be, the autorunner wasn't difficult nor fast enough for the amount of time it consumed, and the bullet hell only hit me once because I had my cannon shoved up their nostrils the whole time, both of these simply felt boring, as though they didn't contribute anything more than to continue the plot. Then there's the story to address, don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed it but some things felt like they lacked explanation or were only on screen for a moment because the story needed a reason for it. Yes we know Newton is haunted, Zoop has been having nightmares, why? what's the source? What happened with the lovers from the 1800s after the mayor's daughter got punished? it just cuts from that to "oh friends are missing lets look at the amusement par- HOLY MOLY A LAB". there's an election plot setup if you talk to NPCs, but we just take down the big bad lab and suddenly it's all cleaned up just like that? What about Zoop's Mom? there's no narrative payoff because we snuck into somewhere and decked a few guys in suits, who quite literally just appeared and, aside from the last 3rd of the game, don't show much of a reason to even be hated. The focus of the story is on the group of friends and their issues, which is not a bad thing by any means, but it leaves the rest of the plot hungering for more. I hope a sequel or DLC comes out that may answer some of the lingering plot points. 7/10. The game's price is worth it's value in hours.

Fish

The Newton Mystery is a platformer game full of good puzzles and great story! I didn't have any problem with the game until it froze towards the end of chapter 2 BUT when i restarted the game i was able to move forward so its not that big a deal. 10/10

El juego es simple, un poco de parkour sencillo que necesita que uses las habilidades de los personajes que pida en el momento y poco más, pero con eso es divertido, con amigos seguramente te lo puedas pasar bastante bien, aunque yo lo he jugado solo. Y por alguna razón he pasado bastante tiempo con el minijuego de cartas + ritmo xd.

I was one of the people who first demo'd this game at the TooManyGames convention in July of 2023. I got to talk to the devs and was very into the game's artstyle and puzzle/platformer nature. I also loved how amusing the dialogue is, and how it helps one invest into the characters in this game. Of course there are some issues. There are some typos here and there, and I was a bit confused with the control scheme at first. But, for it's price, it provides a nice experience that I will probably be revisiting a few more times, if only to revisit the story and characters (which I really enjoyed!) and also to try out the TCG minigame the game offers. This was definitely worth the wait, and I look forward to a sequel or extension to this story.

Great game, playing through with my nephew and he loves it.

The game wasn't too bad. Plenty of bugs that still need to be fixed when it comes to clipping during mid-transformation. Also, the world the game takes place needs a lot more context to explain away Spirit Farers and some of the monsters in the past.

If Scooby-Doo was a puzzle platformer it might look something like this. It makes me nostalgic for silly flash games; the graphics, music, mechanics and story all feel like something made by a couple of good friends in their spare time. There's a lot of variety, heart, and amusement to be found. But it also has its fair share of jank; some things aren't intuitive nor explained while other times the framerate or hitboxes are wonky. The story also feels like it was supposed to have a sixth chapter that got cut, since the plot has a few loose ends. There are also so many collectibles and no real way to tell which ones you missed; additionally some of the chapters are very long and have several 'points of no return' that are easy to cross before you're ready, forcing you to start the chapter over if you missed a collectible. Personally I find these minor annoyances easy to overlook for the sake of flavor but I felt it should be mentioned.