Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink – Review

Loading up Clockwork Tales for the first time, I was fairly apprehensive. After having played Artifex Mundi’s other Xbox One title, Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek, I anticipated a flawed yet appealingly simple puzzle game. The developer’s other game, while fun, suffered heavily from low production values that affected the game’s overall presentation and yet, while Clockwork Tales still doesn’t align itself with the higher tier of games on Xbox One, it improves on Artifex Mundi’s previous endeavour in almost every way, making for a much more enjoyable puzzle game.

Set in a steampunk world, you play as Evangeline Glass as she meets with long-time friend, Dr Ambrose Ink. Following a number of cataclysmic earthquakes and the resulting damage to a number of cities across the world, Dr Ink believes he has uncovered the cause of the mysterious events. Not long after your arrival though, he is pulled from his room by a towering robot and so begins your mission to rescue your friend and put an end to the schemes of the crazed General Engineer of Gottland.

Much like Artifex Mundi’s other games, Clockwork Tales is a point and click adventure game that has the player exploring beautifully hand-drawn environments, picking up tools, solving puzzles and uncovering the mystery behind the earthquakes that are destroying the world. Where Clockwork Tales differs though is in its much heavier focus on traditional adventure gameplay rather than the hidden object puzzles that were a huge part of Enigmatis. While these elements are still present, their decreased significance allows for a much more focused and enjoyable experience.

Many of the issues of Enigmatis are wiped away in Clockwork Tales. The world is fascinating, offering a mix between historical and futuristic themes. Exploring the Wolfenstein-esque castle and its surrounding areas, you will come across huge robots called Golems and ride in a zeppelin. The story cleverly uses its steampunk setting to validate the presence of its many puzzles with them rarely feeling forced or out of place, which is even more impressive when taking into account how varied puzzles are. Some have you using previously discovered items to interact with your environment while others are more traditional pen and paper type puzzles. While none of the puzzles are exceedingly difficult, the game is consistently throwing new challenges your way, advancing the story and leading you further on your quest to find Dr Ink.

The shoddy 3D models of Enigmatis are absent this time round, replaced by more effective (and  much less terrible) 2D animations. These animations are fairly limited though, meaning the storytelling still isn’t quite on par with other Xbox titles. Thankfully, the rest of the game makes up for this as, once you’re facing the next puzzle or exploring a new location, you will forgive the game for some of its shortcomings.

Much like Enigmatis, Clockwork Tales was developed with the mobile platform in mind but the transition to consoles seems to have been handled in a much better way. The game, unlike Enigmatis, never strikes you as having a lesser quality due to its mobile development; the 2D art is great, the story and world are interesting and the sound has been much improved.

Fans of point and click adventure games will be right at home with Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink. It is an accessible, yet fun adventure game that is jam-packed with puzzles and offers a surprisingly interesting story and setting.

Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink is a simple, yet fun, way to pass a few hours for those looking for a change of pace.