Background
I played Tiny Room Story: Town Mystery. This embedded narrative mystery puzzle game was created by Kiary Games, and is designed for ages 8+. It is available on mobile devices, Nintendo Switch, Windows, and Mac. This game is a good fit for anyone who enjoys escape rooms, and the target audience is any curious person who enjoys mystery and clever puzzles.
This game used embedded narrative and enacting stories to weave narrative into the mystery.
I played this game on my iPad and thoroughly enjoyed it. When I contrast this game to Babbdi, I feel this game had much better game mechanics and architecture. I loved that I could ask for hints in this game, even though it was gated behind ads. I felt this helped me get a feel for the types of puzzles I would encounter and actions I could take, so it quickly onboarded me into the game. In contrast, in Babbdi, I couldn’t complete a single subtask, which made the game feel tedious.
The bolded dots on the stovetop stood out to me, so I took a screenshot. I later found these similar knobs, and I was already well-equipped to complete this subtask.
One mechanic that could improve this game would be if you could have a notepad in the side bar where you could store clues you’ve found. I think it would be nice to not have to navigate out to my photos folder or walk back over to the original clue in order to solve puzzle. However, being able to easily swipe around to see different views of the rooms was also a core mechanic for helping me explore and investigate. Unlike Babbdi, where I felt the controls were unintuitive to the point of being unusable, navigating these tiny rooms was intuitive and satisfying. It helped me feel truly embedded in the narrative.
This game used constraint alongside obstacles and test of skill to control the story.
One aspect of narrative architecture I enjoyed was the action-limitation surrounding the bounds of the game. Contrasted with Babbdi, where I could go literally anywhere and the space seemed unbounded, Tiny Room Story has very finite bounds. In addition to having finite bounds, it would give me clues as to what was a hard barrier and what was an obstacle.
If I wasn’t allowed to go somewhere, it would say “Nothing of interest”, but if something was part of a puzzle, it would say something like “Closed” or “Locked” to let me know I needed to gain access. This would lead me to look for a secret lever or a key.
On each level, I was restricted to one small slice of the story such as the father’s house. This helps build the narrative because, as I looked for clues, I learned about this mystery character I’d never seen. I learned that his dad loves art and reading because, instead of just passively seeing his living space, I needed to collect and organize the books and straighten all the paintings to access further parts of the house. Learning this information made me more invested in getting to the bottom of what happened to his dad. Tiny clues were hidden all throughout the space, which forced me to really focus in on every detail. By just a few minutes into each level, I had a strong mental map of the system, which is a great achievement for an embedded narrative game.
Another aspect of narrative architecture used to motivate the story was the careful incorporation of obstacles. I would find a locked door, which would motivate me to look around for a key. Instead of looking generally for clues, I would begin trying to look under or inside of things. It created subtasks that were super rewarding to fulfill. I felt like every few minutes I was unlocking another clue, which kept me highly invested in the game and kept me eager to learn more about the mystery unfolding.
Ethics
One accessibility feature that stood out to me was the easy navigability of the game. I thought Babbdi was hard to navigate, but Tiny Room Mystery had functionality to let you swipe around on the touch screen instead of having to clunkily use a trackpad. Throughout the game, there are large Back buttons to help you navigate to the previous screen. One feature that I think could be improved is having menu narration or mobility assistance turned on by default when you enter the game. I’ve heard about other games having this, and I think it is a great inclusive accessibility feature that other games could incorporate. I didn’t see any accessibility features in the settings, but some way to change how you control navigation in the game could be a great feature for mobility restricted users.
