I played Tiny Room Story: Town Mystery on and off for a couple hours. I downloaded Tiny Room Story from the Apple App Store and played directly on my iPhone. It is also available on iPads and iPods. It was created by Kiary Games and is classified for players of age 4+. I personally feel like children would probably not get the full experience of the game, so I’m not sure I agree with the age rating. I felt that the target audience was maybe 12+, so that players are able to actually reason and move towards solving a mystery. Other than that, it was very intuitive and easy to get started with, so many younger users could probably have fun with it. Since it’s available for free on iOS I feel like it is pretty accessible.
The story places the player as a detective who receives a cryptic letter from their father, and we have to explore the city in order to advance through chapters until all questions are answered. Narrative was woven into the mystery of the game through mechanics such as separate levels (called chapters) that were small steps towards solving the mystery, and the introduction sequence that contextualizes the player as a detective. Throughout the game, particularly at the end and start of new chapters, you are reminded of the existing story and what the next step in solving the mystery is.
In the context of game architecture, I felt that the game heavily relied on constraint, concealment, and obstacles. There were only some things that I could click, and oftentimes I had to rotate the world in order to see what I needed to see. Additionally, I had to open drawers and solve little puzzles in order to move forward. At the secondary level, there was some surrealism employed, with eerily empty corridors, rotting food, broken lights/furniture, etc. These set the mysterious scene, and gave some context as to why the places were left as they were. The architecture of the game controls how we move through the level and how we achieve the end goal of a chapter, so that by the end the player can solve the mystery.
To me, though, I didn’t feel that the architecture of the game supported the story of the game– I was more focused on the smaller goals (like opening a door, finding a code). Each chapter has its own inner narrative: the intro was getting the remote to open the gate to the town, and Chapter 1 was about getting some bank safe key. While I was playing, I initially kept these goals in mind (i.e. looked specifically for the remote), but quickly realized that the mini obstacles were actually not at all related to finding the remote. Instead, the chapter was filled with small unrelated tasks like finding books and arranging them, climbing ladders, unlocking laptops, etc., which are not actions that are intuitively related to finding a remote. The architecture of the game didn’t honestly rely on the backstory much at all, it was rather just solving small random puzzles and suddenly solving those puzzles would unlock something about the backstory. Because of this, I found myself getting stuck, and had to rely on hints to move forward several times.
The hints were really long so ometimes I would forget I was playing the game. This avalanche effect from the hint/video mechanic really impeded on the story narrative for me. Additionally, there were several instances of in-game promotions. When you would unlock a computer, you would be expected to click around, and more than half of the things you could press were advertisements to other games by the creators, and there were even links to Instagram.
This really broke up the flow of the game narrative, and I honestly got a little frustrated that I kept getting navigated away from the game.
I do feel that if I was able to get through more chapters (I only got to 2), there is a chance that the big picture narrative regarding the story with the father would have helped to control the game a bit more. There would have been a stronger sense of connection and meaning behind the goals of each individual chapter in solving the entire mystery, but I still feel the mini puzzles in each chapter would continue to draw attention away from the mystery narrative as a whole. One thing the game did do well with incorporating narrative into the mechanics of the game is that they used simple/helpful prompting from the detectives POV to tell the player when to stop looking somewhere or when to turn the world around a bit. They were kike small hints that were helpful but wouldn’t give too much information away like a real hint would, and also game from the detective (his face is shown), which kind of reminded me about the story behind the game.
Unfortunately, I was not able to find any firsthand accounts of Tiny Room Story from disabled players. From what I can tell, the accessibility settings are rather limited. There is a setting for making the graphics low/medium/high, but when I switched from medium to high I didn’t see a huge difference. I can imagine that this game would be difficult for low vision or blind players, even with a screen reader. There are many very tiny details, and the interface of the game can be rather visually confusing since you cant see all four walls of each room unless you intentionally rotate. By the time I got to chapter 2 I got super confused which doors led to what rooms so I just started randomly clicking. There is also an option to change the language, which can make the game more accessible for players from different backgrounds.
One separate ethical concern that I had was about how the story seems to revolve around randomly breaking and entering into a bunch of places. I understand that the player is supposed to be a detective, but the tasks we have to complete in the game can be very intrusive, such as using a ladder to climb into the top window of a house… The entirety of the game is designed to compel players to think of peculiar, out of the box ways to enter buildings and find objects to solve the mystery. I felt this design feels very intentional and can coerce users to think about unique and effective ways to break and enter places. For example, if we didn’t think to use the ladder to climb into the attic, we simply cannot move onto the next round.
Despite the fact that I felt narrative was not woven into the game very well, I was surprised at how addicting the game was. With more time, I can definitely see myself finishing the entire map!
