The Secret of Grisly Manor Review
PROS
- Short, neat puzzle adventure game.
- Clean digitally altered photo artwork.
- Good mix of logic and memory puzzles.
CONS
- Fiddly controls for some of the puzzles; the safe in particular.
- Extremely short; anywhere from 20 minutes to just over an hour depending on your skill.
VERDICT
If The Secret of Grisly Manor is an indicator of more titles with a similar level of polish then this title does a great job of whetting your Adventure appetite.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
The Secret of Grisly Manor by Fire Maple Games is a puzzle adventure title of the style most people will easily compare to games like Myst. While the 'pure' Adventure genre saw a sharp decline some years ago, a recent revival in the form of bite-sized episodic challenges has helped to bring this classic genre to the foreground again.
We're not talking about hidden-object style games here either; no, this is all about taking abstract situations and puzzles and attempting to make the pieces fit together. Grisly Manor is quite linear in its approach and all but one or two puzzles are likely to give you trouble, but the simple touch-based exploration and puzzles slot together perfectly and in a matter of an hour or so you'll be done with this chapter.
The game's graphics are a hodge-podge of digitally altered photo-realistic images, though barring a few poorly edited sprites the world looks and feels coherent with an edge of spookiness to it all. Why your Grandfather would build such an elaborate way to lock himself in to his house is anyone's guess, but you can worry about that after you've figured out what to do with the fishbowl full of water.
'Short and sweet' titles are a sort of rare gem on the App Store and while opinions may vary on the 'true value' of such games they remain a satisfying experience to enjoy and sometimes it's nice to be left wanting a little more. Definitely worth grabbing for adventure fans and in particular those who enjoyed the Myst series.
Screenshots
$0.99
