WBG Score: 7 & 9
Player Count: 1- 4
You’ll like this if you like: Cantaloop Book 1, any of the old point and click adventure games, Unlock Games
Published by: Lookout Games
Designed by: Friedemann Findeisen, Grzegorz Kobiela
This is the reviewer's copy. See our review policy here
Way back in the early months of 2022 I reviewed the excellent point and click adventure throwback game book, Cantaloop: Breaking into Prison. Since then two follow up books “A Hack of a Plan” and “Against all Odds” (not the Phil Collins song) have been released to finish out the trilogy. I did toy with reviewing both books on their own but since they shared much of the same mechanics as the first game I figured a double bill was in order.
If you want to see how this system works and my thoughts on the first book then feel free to check out my review here
As is the way of things there will be No spoilers!
Cantaloop Book 2: A hack of a plan
Right from the off the book drops you right back into familiar territory with a full “previously on” style conversation between the three leads to help catch you up on the story. The dialogue captures the same tone as before and, if you’re playing these back to back it’s going to be a seamless transition. If however this is your first foray into this series and this style of game then A) what sort of person starts at part two? Seriously, it’s the equivalent of someone starting their saga with part four! B) don’t worry because this will give you a full run through of the rules.
The puzzle structure plays out the same as the previous game and being that that was one of the stand out things from the first games I’m so glad that that didn’t change…... .well, for the most part. As the name suggests, hacking makes up a fair chunk of this instalment and because of this they’ve introduced a new type of puzzle to try and capture it. Unfortunately it’s the weakest part of the game, and it makes up a fair chunk of it, I’d say about 30%. Obviously I don’t want to spoil anything so all I will say is it’s a logic puzzle with a bit of programming involved. Each one turns up intermittently throughout the game. The first one starts off pretty simple and adds more elements and twists with each one. My issue is that as they get harder, they take longer to solve and, if these aren’t the sort of puzzles you enjoy or are good at then they’ll only become more frustrating and you’ll start to dread their appearance. Mostly because they’re taking you away from the fun puzzles and dialogue that’s so great about these games. However if these are your sort of puzzles then feel free to ignore everything I’ve just said because you may well have just as much fun with these as the other puzzles and you could easily rate this game up there with the rest of them. For me though, they weren’t something I enjoyed, I found them an increasingly unwelcome distraction that took me out of the story. I’ll admit that I found myself searching for the answers after the first couple of puzzles and then outright skipping them towards the last few. I know it doesn’t sound like I’m being a good gamer but honestly, doing that meant that I enjoyed the game more. I love the idea of them but they just weren’t for me.
The rest of the book houses the same mechanisms, the same trigger system and the same hint system as the first. This is definitely the “Temple of Doom'' of the trilogy. There’s a lot of fun to be had out of it and you won’t want to skip it (mainly because you’ll be missing out on a whole third of the story) but don’t let that 30% that you might find unappealing put you off of playing this or carrying on to the third one. Speaking of which……..
Cantaloop Book 3: Against All Odds
Just like book two you’ll get a full rundown of the rules, however, rather than a “previously on” style intro, this will literally throw you into the story as if you’ve just closed book two and immediately opened this one. It just assumes that you’ve done the previous two which, let’s be honest, is the sensible thing to do. If you’re starting on part three and you’re confused, then I can only assume that you’ll be going back and playing part one and two as some kind of prequels?
If the hacking puzzles from book two put you off then don’t worry because those are absent here. This one goes back to its roots and sticks largely with the formula from the first book. That’s not to say that this is a copy and paste of course. They’ve still tried to throw a few new things our way to spice things up and I have to say, they’re pretty fun. One such puzzle type reminds me a bit of the old choose your own adventure games. Pick an option, follow a path and if you’re wrong then start again. Although this is designed that way so don’t feel like you're cheating when you back track. It may sound frustrating (and I can see how it could be) but these are meant to be more informed choices. The clues will be laid through the book as you get to them, it's just your job to pick them out. It adds a more investigatory element to the game, but not one that’ll overwhelm you if it’s not your thing. For that reason I’d definitely recommend having a pen and paper to hand to make (and I’ll quote my old school teachers in this) copious notes. Needless to say I didn’t do that back then and I didn’t do it here. That meant that solving these particular puzzles felt like I had to assume a lot of things when in fact the answers were right there, I just hadn’t taken that information in. This book certainly feels like it’s asking you to focus on a lot more details than previous books. It’s more akin to a mystery in that respect.
I will say that there are some puzzles that, upon reading the solution, had me thinking “well I would have never thought of that” maybe I was having an unimaginative moment, I don’t know. One particular puzzle was a little bit convoluted, it had a lot of working parts and required you to keep track of a few things without visual clues, i.e. you did something to an object but didn’t get a card to remind you you’ve done it. It’s understandable, you can’t have a card for everything, but it definitely drives home the need to write some things down. It does highlight one of the drawbacks of this system compared to its video game counterpart. In a video game you could have easily labelled that thing. It’s not quite as easy here without adding cost to the game.
I think this the Raiders of the Lost Ark of the trilogy, which is confusing because it’s book three but Last Crusade is my favourite of the movies and the first book is my favourite of the books sooo……
Visit costal Cantaloop Island.
If you loved the first book then these are a must buy. The hacking in the second book notwithstanding (try the first few out and just skip them if you’re not enjoying them) you'll have a fun time with these books. They still give you all the nostalgia and the good stuff as the first and the story is really fun and I found myself genuinely invested in what happened to everyone. They ramped up really nicely and gave the books some great tension.
Three books of such lethal cunning
I’ve had a ton of fun with all three of these books and they’ve quickly become my favourite system for puzzle games. I can’t wait to see if/ how the designers and Lookout Games are going to progress this genre of game and how they can twist the system to fit different world’s, characters and genres. I’d love to see more from these characters but I’d also love to see some different worlds and characters….I just want more, I’m not greedy.