Agent A : A puzzle in Disguise Guide
The game has you trying to capture the dastardly Ruby La Rouge in a pastiche of the '60s spy thrillers, especially James Bond ones, considering there's an Ian Fleming reference dropped at one point. Ruby isn't so much a charming villain trying to, I don't know, carve her name in the moon, versus just a straight-up terrorist, considering she blew up a boat and killed a bunch of people. And to show how much Interpol is sitting around and doing nothing about it, Ruby has a big, flashy house on a private island that has a direct view of the boat she blew up, and yet no one could find her? Okay. Agent A might be the only competent person in this entire universe. As far as point-and-click adventure games go, it's your familiar setup: find items, occasionally use them on other items to solve puzzles.
Find hints, use them to solve puzzles. Collect certain doodads to solve puzzles. The entire game takes place in and around Ruby's house, so you'll be navigating back and forth through it, uncovering new hidden things that she's got placed all throughout. Also, she has a lot of vases. She likes secrets and vases. Even the interaction you have with the game is cohesive. There are stairways leading to different rooms, and as long as they're visible, you can tap them and go to them. If you need to go back, you can do a two-finger tap to go back, or tap the arrow in the top left corner. That two-finger tap is perfect for iPad, though, and it ensures that there's no broken flow in the game at all. You're always able to go to the next thing, even if that's backward, without feeling like you're doing something out of the ordinary. This is just an extremely playable game, and it means a lot. Again, people who want extremely difficult puzzles in a point-and-click game will be disappointed, but people who want a smooth, flowing experience will get it. This is one of the most playable and least frustrating adventure games I've played, and it speaks to the strength of the game design that it is great. And it should be mentioned that Agent A is a good-looking game. Some elements feel a bit out of place – anything animated like the cutscenes or the cat in the house – but overall, the game has a gorgeous, colorful look to it, and the 3D visuals doing a great job at blending the practicality of the 3D visuals and the depth they provide, with that retro spy look that the game is going for. Exploration and simple puzzles make up the bulk of the gameplay as you first investigate and then attempt to escape from La Rouge’s house after she locks you in. Though why she would lock you, a super-competent and super-fashionable spy, in her house where you can investigate any evidence she may have left behind rather than actually eliminate you is beyond me. But spy villains rarely do anything the easy way, and Ruby is no exception.
More elaborate puzzle locks are also sprinkled throughout La Rouge’s abode. You’ll spin concentric circles to line up dots to crack a safe, find shapes to open up a lock, and navigate a key through an aquarium maze using your finger. That puzzle was a bit finicky for me, but not overly so, making the resolution satisfying when I succeeded. For a short game there is a nice variety to the puzzles, even if they aren’t that difficult. Some involve observing how your actions make changes to the environment. Pay attention to everything around you as placement, arrangements, and subtle changes provide necessary clues. Like the minimalist visual style, several puzzles involve simple mechanics such as remembering particular primary color patterns or shape order, with one memory puzzle testing the limits of my recollection.
Agent A is the first game in a series, it seems, but it struggles to end on a note that's really satisfying. You do wind up exhausting all the puzzles in the main house, yes, but the story winds up just kind of walking you into an unsatisfying conclusion where a cliffhanger is put up by way of a cinematic. It soured me on the experience, because I was hoping for some form of resolution, and the game doesn't really provide any indication that hey, this is part one of multiple episodes. I get the appeal of episodic games, but sometimes I just want a complete experience wrapped up in one go, and I want my conclusions to be satisfying even if they're part of a cohesive story. A good episode conclusion, like episode 1 of Tales from the Borderlands [Free], leaves you set up for more of the story while making sure that what you just played has a good resolution. Agent A fails in that regard, and it goes a long way toward making the buildup feel not as meaningful as I thought it was.
As such, you set out trying to track her down, with the lady herself setting traps to halt your progress. Overcoming these traps, therefore, forms the backbone to the puzzles, and – as with all the best point-and-click adventures what appears like one problem to solve soon becomes a multitude of different interlinked quandaries where hunting for hidden objects and then working out where and when to utilise them makes up the bulk of the challenge. Doing so is just a question of tapping. Interacting with every object in play whether checking behind a cushion on a sofa or entering in a keycode on a safe lock – is a matter of tapping, while you can also deploy items you’ve picked up by dragging them across from the right of the screen into the centre. A handy running commentary at the top of the screen helps let you know what’s working, what isn’t and what your current goal is, helping to ensure that you never feel lost, despite the fact that Agent A is no pushover. As such, it’s clear that Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise is a point-and-click adventure developed by folks with some experience with and love for the genre, making the comparative puzzles in some of its contemporaries look comparatively basic and without the level of complexity demonstrated with such aplomb here. The delivery may be a touch cheesy and the world its set in nowhere near as quirky and cute as some of its rivals, but when it comes to the gameplay itself, few puzzlers can claim to be in the same league as Agent A.
You’re Agent A, a fashionable spy who has just received a new mission from her boss, Chief Ermin D. Skies. He tasks you with following up on the nefarious Ruby La Rouge. She’s beautiful and dangerous, wearing a pale kerchief on her head and large pearls draped around her neck, and as your boss says, she’s got a reputation for dismissing agents such as you. After a flashy trip to a luxury liner that ends with a bottle of wine and an explosion, you’re headed to La Rouge’s house to learn more about her and why she’s intent on taking down your colleagues, hopefully before she takes you out as well.Ruby’s manse is gleaming, white, and Frank Lloyd Wright-esque. As you approach, there are no sparkles or other highlights indicating hotspots.
You’ll just examine your surroundings in first-person perspective and tap on anything that looks interesting. This is quite a joy as the ‘60s-era cartoony graphic style is cool and clean and elegant. Crisp horizontal lines of a floating staircase are a hip contrast with the rounded slate curves of a stone wall backing a built-in fireplace, while egg-shaped chairs hover above an infinity pool; all trappings of a midcentury mansion. The minimalist abode cantilevers out over the ocean, where you can hear gulls crying and waves gently splashing on the shore. Once you enter the house, the soothing sounds of a crackling fire meet you. And it’s not just the audio that will draw you in; in addition to the opening cutscenes filled with fireworks and zippy speedboats, there are also fun background animations including lazy grey sharks swimming amidst floating bubbles in an indoor yes, indoor aquarium, water sluicing between geometric water features, and hidden panels whispering open and shut as you explore. To see those sharks, however, you will have to first make your way into the house. Like any good spy story, what seems perfectly innocuous often hides something more complex. Though La Rouge’s style is tastefully understated, she certainly has an elaborate mailbox, which you must of course break into. Pretty much everywhere you turn, you’ll encounter some secret control panel that must first be unlocked and then used to access a different puzzle or part of the house. You’ll continue to use simple finger taps to explore the rest of Ruby’s home. Tap on everything, leaving no plant unexamined or furniture unmoved. Tapping on an interactive area of interest will zoom your view in closer, and a back arrow will appear in the zoomed-in view that you can then tap to click back out.
Doing so will allow you to discover and pick up inventory items, such as puzzle pieces, keys, and other items that will allow you to progress further. The house and its multiple rooms, from a cozy living room to a book-filled library to a mundane garage, are pretty much the only places that you’ll be exploring in the game. Fortunately, there are a lot of observations made by the protagonist, which makes the game world feel a bit larger, a bit more fleshed out. Tap on a fountain and Agent A notes: “A lovely water feature. It has soothed my soul but is of no further use to me.” Tap on books in a library and you’re met with: “Impressive collection. I wonder if she has any Fleming.” The conversations and snippets of dialogue only with yourself, of course, as you won’t meet any other characters aside from your boss in the opening and fleeting glimpses of Ruby throughout – are all jaunty and super-aware that this is a '60s-style spy game. The only voice work you’ll hear are a few bits from Ermin and La Rouge, with both actors bringing a bit of verve to their characters.
