Universal LAYTON BROTHERS MYSTERY ROOM - (by Level-5 Inc.)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Sanuku, Jun 26, 2013.

  1. ChocoVanilla

    ChocoVanilla Well-Known Member

    May 31, 2009
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    And therein lies the problem. It's actually a pretty huge gripe because all the suspense is lost from a genre of games that is supposed to build itself on suspense and the likelihood of failure. I honestly just wish that they would port over one of the original Layton games, all of which would adapt brilliantly to the iPhone/iPad's touchscreen. Even in the original games failing a puzzle had a consequence, however minor.
     
  2. Appletini

    Appletini Well-Known Member

    Jan 8, 2011
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    This is one of the few issues I have with the game, because allowing such behaviour encourages laziness and removes the incentive to pay attention and actually try to figure out the how, what and why. Such a loophole really does help defeat the purpose of this kind of game, but conversely it also only really affects people inclined to behave in that way anyway – I made a conscious effort to get things correct the first time even without the threat of penalties, for example, so "lives" wouldn't have made any difference in my case.

    To be fair, if you're complaining that the game has let you brute-force your way through cases you weren't actually able to solve via your own brainpower alone, then I'm not entirely sure it's the game that needs to "step it up" in this situation. :p
     
  3. ChocoVanilla

    ChocoVanilla Well-Known Member

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    The part of the game I want to step up is the challenge. My original question was regarding the game length, only because I completed Cases 1 and 2 in 7 and 10 minutes, respectively. The fact that you CAN brute force your way through the game is only something that I've noticed as I play. So yea, I'd say the game needs to step it up.
     
  4. Aventador

    Aventador Well-Known Member

    Jan 16, 2013
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    #84 Aventador, Jun 29, 2013
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2013
    It steps up in later cases when you have to present 2 things as evidence or tie suspect with one of evidences ; considering some cases have 5 ( and maybe more suspects ? ) and lot of evidences avaliable it forces you to pay attention because randomly guessing 50 combinations isn't so fun ;)
    Btw file number 4 ( The Walking Dead ) looks like it was took out straight from Scooby Doo cartoon, really thought Mystery Machine and gang would show up any moment ( well apart from person being dead and not abducted like in a cartoon :p )
     
  5. Appletini

    Appletini Well-Known Member

    Jan 8, 2011
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    I confess that I love the meta-ness of getting to take the role of Baker/Layton myself in the following:

    Setting aside the fact that you're complaining/boasting about beating the one-star difficulty tutorial cases quickly, you're also a liar. I just performed a timed speedrun of the second case again, and even skipping all dialogue without reading it and only examining the exact things needed to win the case, it is still quite literally impossible to complete it in much under 19 minutes, not 10.

    Normal first-time players certainly aren't going to be playing that way, so I rather doubt you did; even if you had, you still couldn't have finished the case in the time you claimed. Take issue with the game if you will, but don't deliberately and unfairly misrepresent the reality of the situation, please.

    MYSTERY SOLVED! :D
     
  6. ChocoVanilla

    ChocoVanilla Well-Known Member

    May 31, 2009
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    I didn't know that actual internet detectives existed. I really hope you've been on teh interwebz long enough to understand exaggeration. The point I'm trying to convey is not the length of time by which I've finished the two one-star cases, but the difficulty of doing so. The fact that you had to actually perform a speedrun to validate the obscure time duration I wrote of two cases which I played on my groggy 13 hr flight to Paris and the fact that you called me a complaining/boasting liar is completely unwarranted. I haven't voiced anything that other members haven't agreed to, and if I wasn't a longtime interwebz habitant I'd take personal offense to it.

    But thank you for the info regarding later cases nonetheless. :)
     
  7. C.Hannum

    C.Hannum Well-Known Member

    Feb 13, 2011
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    On the other hand, PW made my blood boil on more than one occasion as I got stuck replaying the exact same content because I wasn't picking the right choice according to them, e.g. there might be a dude you knew had lied about a particular item and who it belonged to, but if you tried to say the item showed the dude was involved, bzzt, wrong, if you tried to question the person you knew the item actually belonged to, bzzt, wrong, no, you were supposed to have introduced his statement, and other such frustrating inflexibility.

    Either way, both games let you brute force your way through them if you don't pick up on where they're trying to lead you, one of them just does it in a way that is easier on the player. I came to hate the way PW did things, just wish this one had some sort of scoring to balance out goign to the opposite extreme.
     
  8. ChocoVanilla

    ChocoVanilla Well-Known Member

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    #88 ChocoVanilla, Jun 29, 2013
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2013
    The PW extreme does put some pressure on you to use your cognitive reasoning to present/press by placing the constraint of failure upon you. While this game gives you the opportunity to do so, as was pointed out so eloquently in Appletini's very enlightening "sherlock" post above, it really gives me no incentive to do so. I guess I'd much rather feel the frustration of trying to guess my way out of a situation where failure is imminent than trying to guess my out out of a situation where random clicking would also suffice.

    Also, the murders in this game are severely lacking anything in the way of fine details. They seem to be haphazardly thrown together to please fans of A. Christie's novellas. For example, in case #2:
    the "ice sword"...really? I don't know if the developers have ever tried to stab someone with a knife-like piece of ice from a domestic refrigerator, but I severely doubt the likehood of the victim receiving anything more than a wet patch on his shirt.
    But hey, I'm sure someone will find a way to Sherlock this post too, because it's teh interwebz after all.

    EDIT: I'm just mainly surprised that with such a dedicated fanbase and great puzzle games on the DS, Level-5 couldn't just solidify and capitalize upon their popularity on iOS devices which could perfectly house the Layton games. Instead, they decided to make a mediocre version of a series that's already on iOS.
     
  9. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    I finished case one, and really enjoyed it except for the accents. I guess it might be fun for those who know that particular accent as it is a nod to them, but it really breaks the immersion for me, as I have to sit there pondering the meaning of the dialogue.

    Perhaps future games which incorporate accents could have a toggle to switch between Standard English and the Director's Cut with accents and all...
     
  10. Appletini

    Appletini Well-Known Member

    Jan 8, 2011
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    Before I changed tacks and moved into publishing I worked for four years as a very successful fraud investigator, so there's nothing "internet" about it. :)

    Also, I'm watching Columbo at the moment, so I'm deliberately delivering this response in the spirit of the great detectives and you shouldn't get too worked up over it. ;)

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Come now, we both know you weren't casually exaggerating for effect, because if you had been then the second half of your latter statement would directly contradict the first half: it doesn't gel that you would express an honest interest in the length of the cases in the game and then in the same sentence deliberately misrepresent the length of the two you had played in order to suggest that the game was very short. Your mistake here was in placing such emphasis on two different, very precise and ostensibly realistic individual completion times; people who exaggerate for effect do so in obvious generalities, not in seemingly legitimate individual itemised lists. You specifically stated 7 and 10 because you meant 7 and 10 and assumed you wouldn't be challenged on that; let's not pretend otherwise. ;)

    In a conversation directly regarding the complexity and length of the cases, you decided to counter my argument with the claim that you finished a particular case in ten minutes, something it is literally impossible to do so. The likelihood is that it would have taken you at least three times that the first time around, which is a sizable difference it is hard to believe you would not have been aware of. If you're accounting for that by changing your testimony to being "too groggy" to remember how long it actually took you to play through the cases, then it was dishonest and irresponsible to make the bold, unambiguous initial claim that you beat them in,"7 and 10 minutes, respectively." You can't have it both ways.

    The difference between a game with nine 10-minute cases and nine 30+-minute cases is substantial enough not to be ignored or dismissed, especially if you're genuinely interested in establishing its overall length. It's also a little confusing that you express an interest in knowing how difficult the cases are, and complain that the ones you've played are too easy, but then you repeatedly refer to disliking having the ability to brute-force them. If you ever end up resorting to guessing your way through a case, it clearly is difficult enough/too difficult for you, but nobody can tell you ahead of time whether you'll find yourself in that situation. If you've already had to do that at some point during the first two cases, though, there's a good chance you'll be in that position again before too long.

    I personally never ended up in a position where I had to randomly guess at evidence or statements in order to progress; if anything, I found that the cases were too logical, which is a perverse irony in adventure games because in general the more satisfyingly logical they are, the easier and shorter they are to complete. Based on that, I can't really support your tacit argument that the game is at fault for allowing you to be lazy, to be honest.

    Not at all: by your own admission you knowingly misrepresented how quickly you completed the cases in question, and in the context of this thread the only real reasons for you to do this would be so you could either boast about your speed in clearing them, or complain about their lack of length. I do agree with some of your arguments about the game, but the unfounded claims you've made are disrespectful and potentially harmful to a developer who has done nothing at all to warrant them. If somebody read your misleading statement about 7/10-minute cases and took that at face value as a reason not to pick up the game, I'm sure you could see how that might be considered a problem. Correcting you on the matter is not personal; I corrected the misapprehension about the supposed "bad translation" for much the same reason.

    You're welcome, although I'll be keeping an eye on you. Nothing further at this time. ;):)

    [​IMG]

    Ehm, while
    functional ice knives (as opposed to random freezer icicles) take a bit of work to make and are hardly convenient or sustainable weapons, they are indeed entirely possible to create – you could make one yourself if you were so inclined. It would be difficult but not at all impossible to make a moulded one-shot "knife" to be used immediately on an unaware, passive target in the same location, as was done in this case. You may be thinking of ice bullets, which are nonsense.

    If anything, the main problems I had with this aspect of the case were that the idea of the dagger basically comes out of nowhere to begin with, and the fridge is identified solely as a fridge (many smaller fridges don't have freezer compartments), with the freezer not mentioned at all until after the dagger is brought up, so that there's really no way the player would ever come up with "ice knife" on their own based on the case up to that point.

    Interesting, though. You are allegedly familiar with the Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton games, and yet feel the need to pick on this classic murder mystery chestnut, of all things? All three of these series revolve around broadly outlandish characters, problems and solutions, and this is hardly the most egregious example to be found. The cases in Layton Brothers are positively subdued when compared to those in Phoenix Wright.
     
  11. Andy C83

    Andy C83 Well-Known Member

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    Dear Appletini: please marry me. ^_^
     
  12. Alister

    Alister Well-Known Member

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    Wow that was an awesome presentation Appletini..Brilliant job on making your case and kudos for bringing in Peter Falk into the mix..But why is Benedict Cumberbatch not in there?!?!?:confused:


    ;)
     
  13. horsewithwings

    horsewithwings New Member

    Jun 30, 2013
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    Hi all. I just finished this game. Took me 8 hours and 45 minutes. I want to say its absolutely great and worth getting for 8 bucks for all 9 episodes. It had great animation, characters were interesting and walked a fine line between cartoon fun and semi psychopathic horror. Enjoy!
     
  14. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    I just completed the two free cases and downloaded the first case pack. Enjoying it more than Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective so far, and the difficulty level seems good to me as I am able to puzzle out most of the two cases so far, even though the second case was a bit tricky.
    I thought he was killed by spaghetti, but it was the other thing in the pot that did it.

    This game makes me want to go get Crime and Puzzlement 2 too...
     
  15. Aventador

    Aventador Well-Known Member

    Jan 16, 2013
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    Whole pack ( cases 1 to 9 and there is no discount ) is 5 bucks, not 8 bucks.
     
  16. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
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    Maybe he is using a non US App Store and did not convert to USD?

    Hey wait, what am I doing on Toucharcade forum when I could be playing Layton Brothers?
     
  17. Aventador

    Aventador Well-Known Member

    Jan 16, 2013
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    Can there really be that much difference when converting to different currency ?
    I mean it's 60 % increase in price if that's true.
     
  18. Avantyr

    Avantyr Well-Known Member

    Sep 14, 2012
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    Here
     
  19. JayTay

    JayTay Active Member

    Jan 25, 2013
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    I'm stuck on the conclusion to case 3, not sure what I've missed though :(
    Who masterminded the case and switched guns?
     
  20. Buffy6

    Buffy6 Well-Known Member

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    I don't really know how to give a clue. But, I can try. Spoiler:
    Who else could have known the guns were switched? Think of the switch for the blood that wasn't used and thrown out. If the actress carried it on her, who could be the only one to throw it out? Also there's something to do with the note on her body. Sorry, I played through the whole thing already, and can't remember everything of the conclusion or their names. I only remember the most important parts to find out who did it. It took me a few tries too.
     

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