Tiny Room Story: Town Mystery, developed by Kiary Games, is a mobile and PC game targeting casual players and mystery lovers who enjoy puzzles and atmospheric storytelling. It’s rated 4+ and designed for users who prefer exploration and deduction over action-heavy gameplay. I played the game for about an hour, during which I uncovered how important world-building and narrative structuring is, especially for adventure games like this one. For our second project, we’re thinking about building an escape room in a box with a digital element, and it makes me think about how we have to set our game apart by having a very clear narrative and plot.
The game starts with a back story, you are in the role of a detective who has received a letter from your dad to uncover a town mystery. When you arrive, the town is mysteriously empty. No people, just a series of locked buildings filled with secrets. This initial premise creates a compelling embedded narrative structure, where the core story is already written into the world, and players must uncover it by solving puzzles and progressing through levels.
Each location in Tiny Room Story acts like a miniature escape room. You rotate through different rooms and buildings to explore it and collect certain clues, collect new tools, and solve puzzles. For example, in Level 1, I went to the detective’s father’s house to uncover clues and open his laptop. Moreover, I think what makes this room unique is that each challenge also serves as a storytelling device. You don’t just solve for the sake of solving, solving grants you access to more of the town and more of the backstory. The narrative architecture aspects in this game stood out to me, especially since it tells the story through space rather than dialogue. The movement and actions of the detective within the architecture are the story. For example, when I discovered a gun in the father’s house, I knew that the story had a dark twist, especially when the detective stepped in and said, “This is unlike my dad”. In addition, details like the empty town revealed to me that maybe something bad had happened in this town. To me, this game thrived on embedded narrative, where the little clues themselves are stories that reveal the bigger plot. However, emergent narrative plays a role in this too, as when players discover new details, they can form their own theories about what has happened. In my game, we have to think about engaging progression. Different than P1, when we don’t necessarily have to tell a story with our game, with P2, we have to make sure we have a narrative that makes sense. For this, I want us to think about building our own adventure games to help us guide our narrative building.
The clues in the game
The game’s space building and architecture also stuck out to me. While the game looks simple at first glance, every detail is so subtle and intricate. For instance, in level 0, when I arrived at the town, I had access to a laptop I could click on the laptop, and even when I clicked on icons such as the Instagram icon, it led me to the Instagram app. It led to me feeling like this is a real world, and added to the flow-state I was in when playing it. The details in this game also make me think about the importance of small hints, big wins in our game. For adventure, mystery, and puzzle games, you want to challenge the player who allowing them to feel those big rewards. How do we incorporate that into our game is something I want to keep in mind. Another thing that stood out to me was the modular progression of the town. Rather than giving you a large open world, the game isolated areas, turned each level into a puzzle. This reminded me of the importance of sequencing in designing our own escape room game. It’s not just what’s in the room that matters, it’s how the player moves through those rooms and what story it tells.
The laptop screen I was impressed with
The last detail I found helpful was the hint, which is very accessible and helped me a lot in solving the puzzles. In our game, I think this can be a good opportunity to incorporate mobile elements to allow players to have accessible clues as they progress through the game, rather than having the hint hidden or being too obvious, which I can see happening if we make a 100% physical product.
The hint
While Tiny Room Story succeeds in spatial storytelling and embedded narrative, it falls short when it comes to accessibility. The game requires players to notice small visual details (like symbols on a wall or colors on a dial), but it does not include any contrast adjustment or colorblind support. I can see, for instance, that for players with visual impairments, these minor mechanics can create major barriers and prevent them from experiencing the game fully. Moreover, there’s no option for alternative controls or screen reader compatibility, which can impact players with cognitive or motor impairments. Considering the game is built on small, detailed puzzle-solving, excluding players from accessing these key mechanics directly limits their ability to experience the narrative. In our own escape-room-in-a-box project, this means rethinking puzzle design from the start: could a color-coded puzzle have an alternative clue or sound-based mode? Can a visual lock be described narratively?
In the hour I played, this game revealed how important architectural and narrative design are in adventure and mystery games. It reminds me of how important details are and how they can carry narrative weight if designed with intention.
