Time best spent elsewhere - Tick Tock: A Tale for Two Review

Developer: Other Tales Interactive | Platform: PC | Playtime: 1:33

Jade didn’t have time for It Takes Two this month as planned so we settled for a different game we both had from prior conversations - Tick Tock: A Tale for Two. Originally on mobile, the game promises complex puzzles in a mythical world. In a one sentence review? It’s not going to stand the test of time for me.

So the game operates on a selling point of two people needing to play together but not through a lobby system. Instead, each player selects a different campaign as it were with each offering a similar scene but different. The idea here that each player has the answers for the other person. It’s a cool idea in concept but the execution here feels somewhat arbitrary.

Both campaigns follow the same story and timeline of events so it does at times feel like a single story was divided into two with the relevant set dressing changed rather than a story that would require two people. I can’t help but compare it to Operation: Tango that I played last month which offers the same two perspective campaign idea but cleverly uses it in the context of a spy in the field and their agent back at HQ.

That’s not to say the puzzles aren’t fun - they definitely are but nothing was difficult at all. The steam page says average time is 2 and a half hours - take away the wee (small, not toilet) break we had to take and my 93 minutes was probably closer to just over an hour. What stings the most about the game is that there is a story there that seems like with the right amount of attention could be something really special but in execution is just there enough to be interesting and for it to feel disappointing when the ending rolls around.

I’m told by Jade the sound and background ambience is fine and that there’s no voice acting, I wouldn’t know because the sound wouldn’t work (It worked on other games I tried during setup but it was still probably a me problem not a game problem).

On the one hand I feel like I shouldn’t be too harsh as it’s a £5 mobile port and it was generally okay but on the other hand given the saturation of puzzle games, you could probably find the same quality for cheaper or much better for not that much more.