Hidden Escape: Secret Agent

For a free game, this is top notch. It’s pretty long and the puzzles are on par with others in the genre. The dialogue is kinda over the top but they lean into the absurdity of it so I like it. Parts of the UI felt kind of slow. Like I had to wait for a message to disappear before I could click something else. That may or may not be true, just felt not as peppy as, say, the Haiku games. Action scenes were frustrating for me. Maybe there’s a strategy for the punching but I just hammered the two punch buttons until the block or power up were available. It usually worked but wasn’t satisfying. Didn’t enjoy the shooting segments either. Once or twice maybe but having to get four or five headshots to escape a prison changed the dynamic of the game too much for my liking. Still it’s hard to argue you don’t get bang for your buck. I’m guessing it’s free so the developers can get relatively constructive feedback so here I am. Though I wish them luck, I personallly wouldn’t want to sift through a sea of “it no work” comments to get something useful.

Sorry it took me so long to post this review! I actually saw the game the day after it came out because I've been periodically checking in on your games, and have started and lost my reviews on it a couple times. Plus, Apple might hate me, it was being very weird with my attempt to review The Sink Gods earlier today. But I’m back babyyyyy! First off: serious improvement on your last game! Story-wise, puzzles, all much more original and with your own spin on things, I could see that you were inspired by games like Rusty Lake or Haiku games, rather than copying them. I love the James Bond style of the game, super fun world to be in. If I could give you any advice in that arena, it’d be to take more risks with your storytelling! The concept is solid, but it feels like you’re playing it safe, relying on tropes a bit too much (a little bit of tropes is good, but too much and you end up seeming lazy). I like Falcon’s character, him being a newbie is a good perspective to play through, and he’s not just a blank slate, he’s actually an interesting person of his own. The design of the game is great, environment design, art, all of it looks fantastic. The puzzle design is clean and intuitive, no issues with figuring out mechanics. EXCEPT for the clock puzzle in chapter 2, which was nearly impossible to understand without looking up a walkthrough. Overall though, this really followed through and improved on the potential you showed with the last game. There's still further refining to do, but you've solidly established yourself as a good developer in your own right. Congrats.

Pretty fun to pass time, puzzles that make you think, some a bit too difficult to solve without the walkthrough, but the walkthroughs are nice and generally show how you get the answer. I liked the cocky and funny spy and the visuals are pretty good. The story could be a bit more spiced up but not too bad and I like the inclusion of Asian characters. And I liked that it wasn’t item search type of puzzles. Wish it was longer! But it’s free, and doesn’t take up much space so worth it if you’re looking for spy themed puzzle adventure. 👍😎 For developers, to take this from great to stellar you could vary the puzzles more and up the interactivity with the environment. And for the story, complicate the plot more, deepen the characters a bit and the way they interact with each other/their relationships. And it’d be cool to continue with these characters as a series in other scenarios/locations, since we’re already familiar with them and it’d be fun to see them again.