Discover Family Secrets In Little Laura: The Mystery
Little Laura: The Mystery ($1.99) by rupas games is a game where a young girl, Laura, has no idea where her family is. It’s up to you to unravel her story by solving puzzles, unlocking doors and finding all the clues.
You are shown a series of static scenes with various objects to interact with such as a bed, a chest or a hanging picture. You are given a brief hint about what you are looking for and later are assisted by a mystery man named Gabel who gives additional direction or a puzzle to solve.
The game is atmospheric with good music (best enjoyed with headphones). Unfortunately, that’s where the good points end.
It all starts off with good intent, but does not completely deliver. You are expected to collect hidden pieces of a photograph as you go along, but the complete picture does not give any vital information. Furthermore, once having explored the three areas available, Gabel insists you explore the world you’re in before he gives you the last puzzle.
Those instructions seemed very obtuse to me, I don’t consider it fun to poke around my iPhone screen endlessly with no real idea of what I’m doing. Also, the fact that the last puzzle was so quick and easy to reach means the game has neither great depth nor substance.
The puzzles themselves are extremely easy to solve. The lack of challenge and quickness of the game makes Little Laura rather lacking in replayability.
I also don’t particularly like the way the inventory works. Unlocking a door is simple enough, tap the key then tap the door. However, the key disappears from the inventory when tapped the first time rather than when the door is unlocked.
This is rather disconcerting, leaving you uncertain about whether the key was used properly. I guess you could get used to it, but it happens to other non-key items too. It's as though they have been used before you’ve actually tried to use them. It makes it hard to know exactly what that item was intended for.
The saving grace of this app might have been the storyline which has huge potential for being interesting, but without being able to access the last puzzle, I’ll never know what the final reveal is or if there’s more worth playing after that.
The game was very stable for me, but reviews on the App Store have had people reporting frequent crashes.
There’s a lot of potential overall, but the app doesn't seem ready yet.
