Apple Arcade review #70: Tangle Tower

Tangle Tower is a point-and-tap adventure that successfully blends traditional exploration and puzzle mechanics with a murder investigation, with breezy, confident writing and voice acting that recall classic LucasArts adventure games.

Unlike traditional point-and-click adventures, the two protagonists are not always on-screen. Instead, you tap scenery and objects to trigger snappy and well-written conversations and actions. There’s also an inventory, and a well-designed (albeit occasionally frustrating) investigation mechanic that requires you to combine facts and suppositions, characters and items into successful deductions. (Think Clue, but with more narrative and emotional complexity.)

I found this process to be a bit trial-and-error at times, especially since you need to get it right before you’re allowed to progress, but as long as you pay attention to the dialogue and tap everything in a given scene, it’s not too difficult. And there are hints if you get it wrong too many times. (I’d still be stuck if it wasn’t for that.)

It’s clear that this game is a labour of love. The level of detail is impressive. I wasn’t completely sold on the mood, but I also didn’t play it long enough to get sucked in by the story. I’ll give it more time, preferably on the iPad. The controls and user interface work perfectly fine on the iPhone, but there’s enough visual detail to warrant a bigger screen.

Tangle Tower is yet another game that showcases the range and diversity of Apple Arcade. It’s wonderful that relatively niche adventure games like this can find a home and an audience on the service.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/tangle-tower/id1437742603