If you go into Puzzle Agent expecting a robust puzzle game with a lot of content and replayability, you'll likely be disappointed.
Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent is an adventure/puzzle game by, in collaboration with. It is the first game to come out of Telltale's pilot project and is based on Graham's and books.
It was released on June 30, 2010.Agent Nelson Tethers (voiced by Doug Boyd) is the only employee in the FBI's ignored Puzzle Research Division. At the start of the game, he is given his first field assignment in years: The factory that produces the erasers used by the White House has mysteriously stopped production and any attempt to contact them have been replied with puzzles. Tethers is sent to the small town of Scoggins, Minnesota, the location of the factory, to investigate what happened. When he arrives, he finds that the townsfolk are quite obsessed with puzzles.
He also discovers that the factory is sealed with a strange lock and that there was some sort of 'accident' involving an explosion in the factory. The factory's foreman, Isaac Davner, has also disappeared after the accident. During the course of the investigation, Tethers encounters strange red gnome-like creatures who hinder his progress. Who or what are these strange creatures?
Why are they doing all this? And why are some of the townsfolk acting so suspicious?
'I like my office. It's warm in my office. It's quiet in my office. There are no maniacal gnomes or chainsaw-wielding waitresses in my office!' .: Nelson likes chewing gum. And when he learns that there's no way he'll be able to buy any in Scoggins, he almost has a panic attack until he starts collecting that have been left on the walls, floors, and furnishings of Scoggins.
This is probably also a reference to. There's some evidence that chewing gum does help you concentrate, although none of the researchers have yet to comment on chewing used gum.: In the first game.
Sadly, you don't get to rescue the foreman, and the government won't let you. Because 'Any missing persons can be handled by local law enforcement.' Apparently, he doesn't know anything about the sheriff.: Nelson somehow gets dreams about meeting up with an astronaut in both games. Supposedly, it's the Hidden People sending him a message.: Nelson decides not to dwell on the fact that Glori Davner tried to kill him.: In the sequel, 'Issac Davner Does Not Exist.' Because his real name is Ed Davis.: The Gnomes AKA the Hidden People.: The Scoggins sign has a full moon on it.: Essentially, anyway - the second game's plot involves an astronomer's search for a mathematical explanation of/cure for lunacy.: The J. Edgar Hoover Building's directory at the beginning has a of departments before it ends at Puzzle Investigation.
Examples include Plush Agent Knittery, Department of Cheeses, Housewares, 'Personal' Affairs, Bubbleopolis, Vampire Military, Department of Lists.: Most of the Special Agents just stand around in their places, and don't react to, for example, a deranged FBI agent in his underwear dismantling the Lunar Ray they've been set to guard.:. A bad guy about to shoot you?
Throw a crossword puzzle to the side, and he instantly jumps towards it. In the sequel, Nelson distracts a guard by throwing a rock at him. The guard looks around randomly for a while, then leaves inexplicably.: The apparent fate of everyone who the gnomes speak to.
It's because they need help destroying the Lunar Ray that's repelling them from their home.: One puzzle shows a couple of coins without showing their values - it's very easy to solve if you're an American, impossible if you're not.: The Lunar Ray in the second game seems to work like this, inducing violence and lack of self-awareness. Tethers, thankfully, manages to keep himself together well enough to direct that violence towards the ray itself.: Several times throughout the games, you'll encounter a puzzle, but can only take a few moves before Tethers notes that he doesn't have all the required information to solve it.: A few times throughout the first game, the Hidden People will appear (along with a and a few close-up frames) and take a piece of your current puzzle. In the second game, a puzzle gets interrupted by.: Tethers records all his observations into a dictaphone he carries with him.
That's ALL his observations. That actually becomes He sent all of his tapes to Jim in the Vegetable Division — whom Nelson asked to file them while away — and Jim notes that the tape kept playing around the time he saw a Hidden Person communicate with Bo. Sherrif Bahg: Oh, and Tethers? Put my furniture back and fix my door on your way out.: The first game's credits end with a. Same with the second. Graham Annable likes using certain audio cues as a theme.: Unique variation.
Most of the first game is spent acquiring three gears that you need to open the factory's puzzle lock. They break apart to form one large jigsaw-puzzle gear that you must snap into place.: Involved in the second game's plot.:.: The reason why Nelson is in Scoggins in the first place. He needs to solve this town's problem or the president won't have his erasers!.
Lampshaded at the end when a senior agent notes that the Prez probably wasn't even aware there was a problem. Submitting a puzzle via mail costs about $ 75,642.98 taxpayers dollars.: Hooray! You've made it to the factory and found the foreman! Thanks for helping the Hidden People get to him by solving all the puzzles and clearing the blocks and gaps in the walkway. It's actually subverted.
On the hydraulics puzzle, one of the button falls and a Hidden Person tosses it back to him. They did take the foreman but that was because they needed Nelson's help not that it hurt much in the end. Isaac's kidnapping was necessary to solve the conflict in the second game a few months in-game later. In the sequel, Nelson's tapes that he keeps sending to FBI to be filed (even though he's on 'vacation') result in swarming the town.
Apparently, holding on to the tapes and sending them all later doesn't occur to Nelson at all.: Nelson can't find the hotel at which he's supposed to stay in Scoggins. After solving a puzzle to lead Nelson to the hotel, he ends up where he was before he started the puzzle. Turns out he was there the whole time. Apparently, his sense of direction is improved in the sequel, where he can easily retrace his steps after solving a puzzle, despite running away the last time he was there.: Somehow, two hulking astronauts in spacesuits can appear behind Nelson without him noticing them walk in the snow. Repeated by Isaac Davner and a Bigfoot (although the latter can be justified by Nelson being delirious at the time, oblivious to his surroundings).: Nelson Tethers in the first game.
Less so in the sequel. In the first game, Tethers sees Martha Garrett as one of the more rational people in town, but she does have a few puzzles that need solved. In the second game, Korka seems pretty well adjusted too. Then she turns out to be a conspiracy nut who believes in the Bigfoot. Who then turns out to be real.: The Hidden People. Especially since they're creepy as hell and some kind of lunar spirits.: In the first game, when you assemble the third gear.
However, any optional puzzles you missed may be performed after the credits.: Chewing gum is used to give Nelson hints on puzzles. Apparently he gains hypercognitive insight from chewing gum.: Jim Ingraham from the Vegetable Division at the end of the second game, for helping Nelson.: When the hidden people first show up in one of your puzzles, it can be quite scary.: Nelson.: At the end of the second game, Nelson gets a postcard from Issac and Glori from the Bermudas. Nelson asks, 'What could possibly go wrong in Bermuda?'
Nelson Tethers Is a man from an '80s cartoon strip.He's not so much animated, as dynamically illustrated, with a typical movement involving two frames. As a puzzle agent, he occupies the FBI's least prestigious role, and you'll find him to be a charisma-free zone.The game starts off irrationally enough, while he was having a dream about a spaceman Tether wrote the word 'Scoggie' on a scrap of paper.So, when he discovers that there's an eraser shortage in the FBI building, he hops onto his snowmobile and heads straight to the town whose name he wrote down in his dream. Yeah, the one he had before he found out about the eraser shortage.You'll be glad to hear that the logic of the puzzles is more coherent.
And for the price, you get a decent puzzle-to-pence ratio. Even more reassuringly we don't run through the usual gamut of classic puzzles. It's a relief not to have to be subjected to the Tower of Hanoi, yet again. Instead, you'll get a few clever jigsaws, codes and thoughtful logic puzzles that are generally pitched between easy and satisfyingly tricky. The marking system is cute, with every solution filed costing the taxpayer upwards of $75,000. Cuts clearly aren't hitting the puzzle-solving bureaucrats.But, I'll come clean, I'm a DS Professor Layton fan, so I was hoping for a similarly paced adventure. But in a number of ways the game annoys.
There are too many conversations, which wouldn't be a bad thing if you could speed them up to reading pace. But the text is too slow and the voice acting is slower. Unless you develop a boner for the game's dry wit, you'll be clicking your way tfirouqh the talking, in the end skipping them completely. Broken HumourThe humour isn't just broken by poor timing and passionless delivery, it's not clear whether Tethers wants to be funny or not.Take Mike Lobb. He's referred to as The Lobster. But when one character says, 'He got bitten by the lobster', you think, 'hang on, lobsters don't bite'.
And Mike didn't bite anyone, it was an argument. I refuse to believe I'm the only one who can be angered by poorly functioning jokes.Buy Nelson Tethers for the puzzles. It's not much money, and you can skip the talking without worrying about the plot. You might find the chat endearing.
After all, some people like having their balls nailed to wood.