Recently Telltale Games, already the most prolific developer of episodic adventure games, announced that they’re branching out further with what they’re calling the Pilot Program. In this Program, more experimental ideas will be released as standalone episodes, with the possibility to expand to a larger series if they’re successful. The first pilot is called Puzzle Agent, based on the work of former Telltale employee Graham Annable. At this year’s E3, I had the chance to sit down with Telltale’s Design Director Dave Grossman and Marketing Director Joel Dreskin to see the first segment of Puzzle Agent on the PC for myself.

Nelson Tethers is the sole employee of the FBI’s Department of Puzzle Research, and mostly fills his days analyzing puzzles and sending unwanted memos to his superiors suggesting ways puzzle-solving could be useful in various high-profile cases. The game begins with Tethers dozing off in his office, only to have a dream or vision where a frightening figure approaches his desk and writes something on a crossword Tethers had been working on. He wakes up with a terrified start, tearing the crossword page to pieces in his fear and confusion.



This triggers the first puzzle: reassembling the torn crossword. In this way, the game heavily resembles the Professor Layton series, where puzzles and brainteasers are loosely incorporated into a larger mystery narrative. When the crossword has been put back together, it contains a word it didn’t have before: Scoggins. Moments later the phone rings in Tethers’s office. Shockingly, he learns he’s being sent on his first field assignment in years. Production at the factory that manufactures all of the White House’s erasers has stopped, and the FBI believes Tethers is uniquely suited to get to the bottom of it. The name of the town where the factory is located? Scoggins, Minnesota.

When Tethers arrives in Scoggins, he finds the townspeople rather hostile and standoffish. The sheriff even seems to be actively misleading him. In fact, the first person Tethers meets sends him on a wild goose chase in the form of another puzzle, in which the player must figure out how to use a series of logs to guide Tethers’s snowmobile from Point A to Point B, which ends up with Tethers right back where he started. Whatever is happening, there seems to be a deeper mystery to uncover than is immediately apparent, and that’s not even getting into the mysterious gnomes that sneak around in the corner of your eye. Though there were some amusing moments in the parts of the game I saw, Telltale claims the story actually becomes rather dark in tone, describing it as somewhere between Twin Peaks and Fargo.

Gameplay-wise, Puzzle Agent is designed to be accessible to all comers, with a built-in hint system in which clues can be purchased with pieces of gum (chewing gum helps Tethers think). More gum can be found throughout the town if a player searches diligently. The puzzles that are vital to progress the story are meant to be simple enough for anyone, but there will also be optional puzzles that are considerably more difficult. Though I didn’t see much beyond the first couple puzzles, it appears that players will interact with Scoggins by simply clicking on various areas of the screen to talk with people, change locations, or discover more puzzles. Tethers himself is visible on screen at all times except in the actual puzzle screens, and when it comes to dialogue, there are a few choices available of what to talk about.



The game has a very interesting aesthetic, which will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Annable’s work. The cutscenes look like they could have been taken straight from Annable’s Grickle cartoons. Everything looks like it was drawn with a thick pencil in a very simple style, and the backgrounds use color to great effect. The voice acting for Nelson Tethers is perfect: a sort of earnest hesitance, and from what I heard of the supporting cast, Puzzle Agent maintains Telltale’s winning streak in spot-on voice casting.

I’d have liked to see more of the game, but at least we won’t have long to wait for the full version of Puzzle Agent, which is due to come out on PC later this month, and will also be released on Mac, iPad/iPhone, and WiiWare. Before I left, I asked Telltale if they had more releases planned for their Pilot Program, but while they said more pilots were likely, they didn’t have anything to announce at the moment. Grossman indicated they’d been talking about a Pilot Program for years, but didn’t put their plans into motion until Annable approached them with the pitch for this title. And it does look to be a promising starting point. While it’s quite unlike anything Telltale’s ever done in terms of gameplay, art style, and tone, if what I saw is any indication, Puzzle Agent will be a worthwhile entry in their catalog.