Tangle Tower: Low Key Mystery Solving

My wife managed to salvage Tangle Tower out of the ever-increasing gigantic Switch eShop garbage heap a few years ago. We had no idea what to expect, and based on the trailer, we thought it would be a Professor Layton-esque puzzle adventure. After a few hours in, it feels a bit more like a low key Duck Detective with added puzzles, exceptionally witty writing and great voice acting thrown in for good measure. Welcome to Tangle Tower, or what Grimoire, the private detective of service, calls a spooky murder mansion.

Yup, you’ve got another murder to solve, and this time—apparently it’s a semi-seqel to the first Grimoire Detective game—you’re not doing it alone. To my big surprise, I learned that the developer SFB Games is the same small indie team behind Snipperclips, a totally different game with a totally different style. Their recent hit Crow Country is yet another impressive style pulled out of their magic hat.

In Tangle Tower, you’re not only untangling the mysteries of the mansion and its many rooms—including the obligatory secret ones—but also the mysterious backgrounds of its inhabitants, and of course, the circumstances of the murder. You do that by gradually unlocking single screen static rooms where each one is filled with things to highlight and inspect, not unlike Agent A. In fact, I played this by using the Switch touchscreen which worked out great.

Not everything of interest turns out to be significant, though. That’s the first bump in the otherwise quite spotless ride, especially towards the ending of the game: I felt that there were many loose ends or insignificant trinkets that I expected to somehow come together but did not. In any case (ha!), after you’ve discovered an item—either by just finding it in the environment or by solving a puzzle that might unlock a container—it is added to your case file for you to inspect at any time to hopefully generate that much-needed lightbulb.

The more inhabitants you talk to and the more weird stuff you uncover, the more suspect claims you can make and then gradually eliminate. This is done by going back and forth each room and talking again and again until Grimoire and his assistant Sally are able to put the pieces together. That is, until you put them together by relying on your superious deduction skills. You’ll have to select objects and link them to facts (or fiction) in order to make a valid statement.

In this mode, the Duck Detective part kicks in, as you can see in the screenshot below, where I pieced together (spoiler) that “the pink cassette tape - found at the crime scene matches - the pink cassette player - used by Poppy in this old photo”. Bingo! I think? Don’t worry if you’re wrong: the game is very relaxed and simply provides tips when you’re unable to figure stuff out. After a few tries it just highlights which section is wrong and you’re free to try again or brute force your way out of it. The same is true for where to go if you’re stuck: just press the help button on the top right and the game will suggest what you could do next. I made ample use of that and do not have any regrets, as it can be difficult to progress if you play Tangle Tower in-between other games.

The puzzles are fun too: they’re not as demanding as most far-fetched Layton ones, usually involving haptic manipulation of pieces in one way or another. If you’re here for the mentally demanding puzzles and complex mystery-in-mystery, you’ve come to the wrong place. Tangle Tower should be enjoyed as a low key game that is best enjoyed while sitting back and relaxing. Its lovely soundtrack and joyful representation only add to that atmosphere.

The game reaches its conclusion after just five hours of fun, which was a bit of a disappointment. Not only because I liked the game a lot and hoped it to last longer, but also because the unravelling of the murder itself is… weird at best? Obviously, the big amount of Reddit and Steam forum threads discussing the ending proves the divisiveness of opinions across fans. I don’t know what camp I ended up in, except that I was confused and agreed that the writing of the last 30 minutes perhaps feels rushed.

Still, that did not subtract much from the overall great time I had with this little puzzle/mystery adventure—or whatever category you want to put Tangle Tower in. I’m really glad to see Grimoire and Sally return in The Mermaid Mask hopefully somewhere in 2025. I’m sure SFB Games learned a lot since Tangle Tower. If you can’t wait, the demo is already available!