Agent A: A puzzle in disguise (2015)

Agent A: A puzzle in disguise (2015), developed and published by Yak & Co pty ltd.

You, Agent A, are sent to capture an elusive enemy agent, Ruby La Rouge, a lethal adversary, who has been picking up other agents. As you are trailing the enemy agent, she manages to plant an explosive device on a cruise liner, killing your chief. 

Continuing the chase, you finally find the luxurious hideout of Ruby La Rouge, and from here, the game actually begins. The first task, getting inside the house, is actually deceptively simple. After getting in, you are then presented with a gradually growing area, where you can move freely, solving all kinds of puzzles the fiendish Ruby La Rouge has, for some reason, decided to fill her house with.

Agent A is a charming-looking game, which also somewhat deceptively at first seems like a point-and-click game. Just like the rather nice Puzzle Agent games by Telltale, Agent A is a puzzle game, pure and simple.

Almost every room you find contains puzzles. If you can't solve or access those puzzles, then it means you haven't found something important you need, like a screwdriver to open a panel or some such item. So while the game has an inventory, I wouldn't call any of the puzzle inventory puzzles. You just ferry the right item to the right place and use it on the right thing. At times, you need to activate something in another room to activate a puzzle elsewhere.

Narratively, the game is divided into 4 chapters, but the game itself takes place on the island hideout of Agent A, with some rooms cut off during the process. This in turn is a good thing, as there is, towards the end, quite a bit of moving back and forth between different scenes in search of stuff you need to solve a puzzle elsewhere. As such, Agent A is a game that rewards tenacity what comes to exploring the world.

The puzzles themselves and their locations are telegraphed to the player very nicely. It's actually surprisingly obvious where the puzzles are in each scene. Also, what items you need to activate the puzzles is similarly logical, which is always a good thing.

As for difficulty, I'd say Agent A is a fairly simple game. None of the puzzles are that difficult, and personally, I managed to go through the game in around 4 hours. Then again, I'm not new to puzzle games, so your mileage may vary. There isn't any in-game hint system, so if the few clues Agent A gives to you, or the clues you find from the environments aren't enough to help, you might need to turn to the internet for help. 

Agent A is a colorful, nice-looking, and fun little puzzle game. If you are partial to the genre, you could pick up much worse games. Agent A is sold on GOG and Steam. It's also available for mobile devices and consoles.