An interesting evolution of the series. There's much more story here than in the second game, which adds a good couple of hours to the playtime if you ask everyone about everything (as I did in all three games in the series), and the cast is far more complex and interwoven here which means more intriguing secrets to uncover. Like the previous games, the story is linear and doesn't vary between playthroughs, but this isn't a criticism as many successful mystery games have a consistent story to tell, e.g. the Nancy Drew games.

The setting doesn't grab me as much as the second game or especially the first—fantasy is a major element in this one whereas it was a present but background detail in the second game and only hinted at in the first (a free Flash game on Newgrounds). This is very subjective, and if you prefer fantasy over more grounded settings, you'll enjoy this aspect of the story. Note that you yourself never do any magic; your power is your mind!

I have to disagree with other reviewers saying that the twist is too hard to notice. I didn't guess it myself (though that isn't really out of the ordinary for me, I prefer to take a good story at its own pace) but I think the clues were there for observant players. (Only click the following spoiler text after finishing the game; knowing any details of the twist early does slightly dampen the experience.) For one thing, it should be suspicious how you never really see Hawkshaw's full face, and once you know that the telescope she carries is actually from the house, that's a dead giveaway that she's not who she says she is. Her and Penny/Penelope even have the same voice talent, which if you can hear the game should give you some kind of subconscious suspicion of those characters because no other characters share a voice like that. Some people are more effortlessly logical than others, of course, but I think this is really a case where the folks who felt motivated to write reviews were mostly the kind of people who can usually predict a twist before it happens, so they're an elevated challenge over most audience members.

Another observation about the story: Officer James and the Little Girl from previous entries aren't in this one at all. Now, I'm no fan of police (I really appreciate that Grimoire is a private detective), but given we were able to interrogate that mustache in both previous games, I would have found it fun to have the guy at least mentioned in this one. Running gags get old, sure, but I think that's less of a risk in a series where mainline installments have been five plus years apart each time. And the Little Girl was in the cliffhanger at the end of the last game! The concept art notes that she was removed from the protagonist team during development, which is fair enough, but I think it would have been fun to establish that that's because Grimoire finally convinced her that it's really dangerous for a child to keep showing up at active murder investigations and that she could still help from the office by securing the map of the scene ahead of time. Maybe they'll make appearances in the next game.

Gameplay-wise, there are more puzzles and minigames than the previous entries. While some of them initially struck me as too elaborate for me to want to actually try and solve, when given a chance they all proved to straddle that line of difficulty very well, being challenging and inventive enough to be interesting but not so difficult as to prompt me to find a walkthrough. The logic sections returning from the second game had a couple of moments where I had to take a couple of guesses before I found the right piece of evidence or line of logic that the game was looking for, but everything made sense once the game fully explained itself—I was never left thinking "that's a stretch".

The art style has changed from the second game (third time in three games, which almost seems like a feature of the series in its own right now—I quite like that and wouldn't mind further changes to the art style in the next game). While the environments are stunningly beautiful and detailed, I think I prefer the concept art designs of the characters from when the art style had more obvious connection to the second game. Their final designs are by no means bad, but having a little more visual continuity with the previous game would have been fun, and keeping the backgrounds looking new would have still preserved that fun art-style-change trait.

The music is very easy to listen to and reinforces the mood of each environment very well. The voice talent is wonderful, though you can tell that Edwyn Tiong's performance as the good Detective has understandably evolved in the years between the second game and this one. I think Grimoire sounds more naturally English here, whereas (and this is pure speculation/subjective opinion, I mean no offense) there were more elements in his performance in the second game that sounded to me as uncharacteristic of a natural English accent. But I did notice that the "th"s are still often "d"s instead, which I think gives Grimoire as a character an enjoyable subtle quirk—as if he showed up wearing a hat that was a little too small (wink). Amber Lee Connors' performance as Sally seems, like her character, more well-defined here. She keeps that very slight sultry element that grabs your attention when Sally speaks, and the character-defining casually-bored tone for most lines, but I think I heard more direction and passion in this Sally than the one from the second game. She's not just tagging along with Grimoire for the sake of a paycheck; Sally has an interest in investigation (a pleasant surprise from the last game!) and frequently enjoys the opportunity to show her reasoning skills. To wit, I think both protagonists have roughly equal mastermind moments, which is a great thing, and I was happy to note many Bechdel-Wallace Test-passing conversations.

There is very little creepy factor here, though. This is a step up from the second game which did not unsettle me whatsoever, but the only time I felt on edge was in the final confrontation, worrying if there was some kind of fail state I might blunder into at the eleventh hour where the murderer killed the team for guessing the wrong piece of evidence. (There isn't, by the way. At least, I didn't experience one.) The first game was genuinely creepy, though that probably had as much to do with the early-2000s Flash game art style as it did the setting, backgrounds, and music (I hope that's not too harsh; I like it!). I would not mind creepiness being a more central element in future games at all, though I think keeping fail states out of the series is a good call. But if you'd rather have a mystery experience that you can comfortably play at the dead of night (maybe aside from the climax which is marked by the daytime backgrounds shifting to nighttime), Tangle Tower is for you!

Overall (and TL;DR), Tangle Tower is an engaging, charming, witty, and easygoing mystery experience with skill and care showing in every aspect. I got it on sale for under five US Dollars, and I'd say it's well worth that price. My total playtime which included trying to hear every piece of dialogue I could came in around 12 hours, two of which were me away from the computer with the game open. I'd say eight hours is a good estimate for someone who's playing casually but to the credits. I think $20 is a bit steep for 8-10 hours of playtime given the state of wages in this country (the game, as with all quality games, is of course worth that and more in a vacuum), so I'd recommend waiting for a sale down to $15 or less. But if you'd prefer quality and immediacy rather than value, then full price is not bad at all. Plus there's a free demo so you can make sure you're likely to like it before you buy (this is a good thing and every game with a price should have a free demo). Easy recommend.

An interesting evolution of the series. There's much more story here than in the second game, which adds a good couple of hours to the playtime if you ask everyone about everything (as I did in all three games in the series), and the cast is far more complex and interwoven here which means more intriguing secrets to uncover. Like the previous games, the story is linear and doesn't vary between playthroughs, but this isn't a criticism as many successful mystery games have a consistent story to tell, e.g. the Nancy Drew games. The setting doesn't grab me as much as the second game or especially the first—fantasy is a major element in this one whereas it was a present but background detail in the second game and only hinted at in the first (a free Flash game on Newgrounds). This is very subjective, and if you prefer fantasy over more grounded settings, you'll enjoy this aspect of the story. Note that you yourself never do any magic; your power is your mind! I have to disagree with other reviewers saying that the twist is too hard to notice. I didn't guess it myself (though that isn't really out of the ordinary for me, I prefer to take a good story at its own pace) but I think the clues were there for observant players. (Only click the following spoiler text after finishing the game; knowing any details of the twist early does slightly dampen the experience.) [spoiler]For one thing, it should be suspicious how you never really see Hawkshaw's full face, and once you know that the telescope she carries is actually from the house, that's a dead giveaway that she's not who she says she is. Her and Penny/Penelope even have the same voice talent, which if you can hear the game should give you some kind of subconscious suspicion of those characters because no other characters share a voice like that.[/spoiler] Some people are more effortlessly logical than others, of course, but I think this is really a case where the folks who felt motivated to write reviews were mostly the kind of people who can usually predict a twist before it happens, so they're an elevated challenge over most audience members. Another observation about the story: Officer James and the Little Girl from previous entries aren't in this one at all. Now, I'm no fan of police (I really appreciate that Grimoire is a [i]private[/i] detective), but given we were able to interrogate that mustache in both previous games, I would have found it fun to have the guy at least mentioned in this one. Running gags get old, sure, but I think that's less of a risk in a series where mainline installments have been five plus years apart each time. And the Little Girl was in the cliffhanger at the end of the last game! The concept art notes that she was removed from the protagonist team during development, which is fair enough, but I think it would have been fun to establish that that's because Grimoire finally convinced her that it's really dangerous for a child to keep showing up at active murder investigations and that she could still help from the office by securing the map of the scene ahead of time. Maybe they'll make appearances in the next game. Gameplay-wise, there are more puzzles and minigames than the previous entries. While some of them initially struck me as too elaborate for me to want to actually try and solve, when given a chance they all proved to straddle that line of difficulty very well, being challenging and inventive enough to be interesting but not so difficult as to prompt me to find a walkthrough. The logic sections returning from the second game had a couple of moments where I had to take a couple of guesses before I found the right piece of evidence or line of logic that the game was looking for, but everything made sense once the game fully explained itself—I was never left thinking "that's a stretch". The art style has changed from the second game (third time in three games, which almost seems like a feature of the series in its own right now—I quite like that and wouldn't mind further changes to the art style in the next game). While the environments are stunningly beautiful and detailed, I think I prefer the concept art designs of the characters from when the art style had more obvious connection to the second game. Their final designs are by no means bad, but having a little more visual continuity with the previous game would have been fun, and keeping the backgrounds looking new would have still preserved that fun art-style-change trait. The music is very easy to listen to and reinforces the mood of each environment very well. The voice talent is wonderful, though you can tell that Edwyn Tiong's performance as the good Detective has understandably evolved in the years between the second game and this one. I think Grimoire sounds more naturally English here, whereas (and this is pure speculation/subjective opinion, I mean no offense) there were more elements in his performance in the second game that sounded to me as uncharacteristic of a natural English accent. But I did notice that the "th"s are still often "d"s instead, which I think gives Grimoire as a character an enjoyable subtle quirk—as if he showed up wearing a hat that was a little too small (wink). Amber Lee Connors' performance as Sally seems, like her character, more well-defined here. She keeps that very slight sultry element that grabs your attention when Sally speaks, and the character-defining casually-bored tone for most lines, but I think I heard more direction and passion in this Sally than the one from the second game. She's not just tagging along with Grimoire for the sake of a paycheck; Sally has an interest in investigation (a pleasant surprise from the last game!) and frequently enjoys the opportunity to show her reasoning skills. To wit, I think both protagonists have roughly equal mastermind moments, which is a great thing, and I was happy to note many Bechdel-Wallace Test-passing conversations. There is very little creepy factor here, though. This [i]is[/i] a step up from the second game which did not unsettle me whatsoever, but the only time I felt on edge was in the final confrontation, worrying if there was some kind of fail state I might blunder into at the eleventh hour where the murderer killed the team for guessing the wrong piece of evidence. [spoiler](There isn't, by the way. At least, I didn't experience one.)[/spoiler] The first game was genuinely creepy, though that probably had as much to do with the early-2000s Flash game art style as it did the setting, backgrounds, and music (I hope that's not too harsh; I like it!). I would not mind creepiness being a more central element in future games at all, though I think keeping fail states out of the series is a good call. But if you'd rather have a mystery experience that you can comfortably play at the dead of night (maybe aside from the climax which is marked by the daytime backgrounds shifting to nighttime), Tangle Tower is for you! Overall (and TL;DR), Tangle Tower is an engaging, charming, witty, and easygoing mystery experience with skill and care showing in every aspect. I got it on sale for under five US Dollars, and I'd say it's well worth that price. My total playtime which included trying to hear every piece of dialogue I could came in around 12 hours, two of which were me away from the computer with the game open. I'd say eight hours is a good estimate for someone who's playing casually but to the credits. I think $20 is a bit steep for 8-10 hours of playtime given the state of wages in this country (the game, as with all quality games, is of course worth that and more in a vacuum), so I'd recommend waiting for a sale down to $15 or less. But if you'd prefer quality and immediacy rather than value, then full price is not bad at all. Plus there's a free demo so you can make sure you're likely to like it before you buy (this is a good thing and every game with a price should have a free demo). Easy recommend.