🔎Mortimer Beckett🔎

French Revolution: What a time to be alive! Mortimer is sent 888 years into the future from his previous point in the timeline, right in the middle of a very tumultuous time for France. In particular, he's in front of the Bastille. There are two areas within the Bastille, but only one (the front) is accessible for now. The items placed here are a little trickier than in the previous areas. Only 2/5 items can be found and no puzzles can be solved yet without changing location.

Street: Next stop! Head over to the Street where two boys seem to having fun together despite the current revolt of the people. Search and collect. You can find ALL item pieces and replace two misplaced items.

Shop: 2nd stop, the shop of peculiar goods! Here, a shady salesmen promises something good (a mask) in exchange for royal jewelry (the king's crown). You need the mask for later but also can't get the crown just yet. You will need to visit this area later. For now, search find and place. You can find all item pieces except for one and replace two misplaced items without changing location.

Chateau: 3rd stop, the private home of the king! Luxurious and cluttered with personal junk... I wonder if that's part of the reason people are shouting outside the window? Anyway, you can find 3 of 5 items and replace one misplaced item without changing location. You will need to return to this location later to access the second area.

Bastille Part 2: Return to the Bastille. Replace any misplaced items you can and solve the fencing flyer puzzle. You should have a story in your in-game notes that closely describes the order in which the figurines in the Chateau must be placed to unlock the Chateau's second area. This puzzle is different each time, so just read the story and go off of that.

Chateau Part 2: Return to the Chateau. Replace any misplaced items you can and move to the figurine cabinet to solve the puzzle using the story in your in-game notes. Then use your small key to unlock the cabinet...

And descend into the Chateau basement... Where lies the only puzzle in this game I don't like. (Skill issue, really) Replace the misplaced item, solve the puzzle or skip it, and find the crown. Starting placement of portraits may be different each time. (I haven't tested this yet to be sure). You will need to revisit this location again later.

Shop Part 2: Return to the Shop and give the crown in exchange for the last piece of the mask that the King needs to escape. This location is now complete.

Chateau Part 2: Return to the Chateau and give the king the mask. Take your coin and head to the Bastille.

Bastille Part 3: For the second to last time, revisit the Bastille. Bribe the guard at the gate and enter the Bastille's second area. Search, find, and replace as usual.

Chateau Part 3: Finish up the location's misplaced items and final puzzle to get the artifact and Time Bomb part, then return to the Bastille.

THE ACTUAL GAME REVIEW!

Tutorial: If you choose to play the tutorial, you will learn the game functions I've described above and more with the help of good ol Great Uncle Jerome!

As well as that, you will reveal the first portal aka the origin of all of poor old Mortimer's future(and past) troubles. The tutorial's end is also the beginning of the actual game!

Enter The Portal: The beginning of the game is the end of the tutorial as stated above. You just have to navigate through the menu to click "Play Game" now instead. Once you do, a partially 3d partially 2d cut scene will begin. It's still obviously in the game's art style, just better now! Specifically it isn't as jarring and overwhelming. Yippee!!! Great Uncle Jerome explains that the portal is one of 9, meaning we will be exploring 8 distinct zones. The ever loyal Mortimer hops in...

And then he finds himself in the first time zone of the game: Year 0901 A.D., Viking Age.

Specifically, he begins in a small seaside village. There is much to see and two locations to explore here: First the village, second the ship that is docked nearby. ALL item pieces can be found and one puzzle (The shield on the ship) can be solved without entering changing location. For the shield on the ship, simply click each ring of the shield until it matches the placement of the innermost ring and the last piece for the the flint rocks will be found. Do note that pieces seen here are not always in the same spot if you choose to play. Also the shield changes design every time.

Note: The next stop could be anywhere really. For the Viking Age, there isn't any particularly slow route unless you bounce around between the areas over and over. And it doesn't really matter anyway. But if you are like me and want to replay them faster for the fun of it, I would recommend the route explained in this post. It makes the most of each location so you visit each location as few times as possible.

Tavern: The next stop! A bustling room full of bearded vikings. As usual, you take care of the big three: Item placing, puzzle solving, and piece collecting. You will visit this location again to make use of the phone later. ALL item pieces can be found and one puzzle can be solved without changing location.

Frost Giant: Third stop! You come across a fearsome giant made of ice... Remember those piles of wood and flint rocks? Make the fire (solving the first puzzle) to gain access to the cave. Search, find, and place as usual then enter the cave and do the same. You can find ALL item pieces and solve three puzzles without changing location. You will return here later as well for the portal.

Temple: 3rd stop! The stone temple is cluttered and disheveled, but still standing. Search, place, solve where you can. You can collect ALL but 1 item piece and solve two puzzles without changing location. You will revisit this location later.

Village Part 2: Return to the Village and solve all remaining puzzles, including the one involving the white flag which contains a simple math puzzle revealing one of the multiple phone numbers you need for the phone in the Tavern: 5024917, 9448185, so on. It's faster to just solve the puzzle without looking up an answer. This location is completed.

Tavern Part 2: Return to the Tavern and use this number with the phone. A cut scene will play of the crow on the telephone booth at the Temple flying away to reveal the final missing item piece you couldn't get before. This location is completed.

Temple Part 2: Return to the Temple and complete the cat statues as well as anything else needing completion. The Goddess Freya will appear, summoned by the cat statues laser eyes. She will request that her belongings be returned to her, so give her the golden sword and shield. She will repay you with a part of the Time Bomb. This location is now complete.

Frost Giant Part 2: Return to the Frost Giant. Finish up business and collect the first Ancient Relic, an ancient Greek vase.

Then exit through the portal to the next Time Zone... Which I will cover in tomorrow's post!

Once inside, you can begin to find solve the mystery. To find the parts to the ghost machine, you have to play a hidden object game much like I Spy. Items are strewn about often messy and junk filled rooms in fragments rather than whole units. The places these items are hidden range from the frustratingly hidden-in-plain-sight to the very obvious to lowkey annoying places like a sliver of a white colored item on a curtain of that exact shade. But most are not hard to find after a few minutes of looking. Each level is fairly short, even with some moments of confusion at the unfortunately unhelpful art style.

You meet your first ghost, the Tipsy Ghost, in the tutorial level called the Basement; He blocks the door to the Boiler Room where the first machine part is. When given a bottle of alcohol, he will disappear and allow entry. Along the way you have to find, assemble, and replace other items where they belong. These are Misplaced Items and are in a different section of the item menu than your more important and far fewer Puzzle Items. They are displayed in a hotbar like horizontal menu on the bottom of the screen in full so you can actually see what the fragments might look like. Puzzle Items are ESSENTIAL to move forwards in each level and often have fragments of Misplaced Items tied to them, such as a Puzzle Item key unlocking a box that holds a Misplaced Item. Or another Puzzle Item. In the Map menu, you can see exactly how many puzzles, Puzzle Items, and Misplaced items you have left to find or solve. Upon finishing the Boiler Room, you are given access to the Ground Floor. But most importantly, it takes you to the Map Menu where a collection of blank squares resembling wooden scrabble tiles is. The word "behind" is added to the tiles, one tile per letter. This is a final hint to the location of the last piece of the machine and the final level and is slowly revealed as you go through all the subsequent levels. Each hint is only awarded after all of the Misplaced Items have been put in their correct spots. A fun detail I enjoyed while playing is that the ghosts in the manor will punish you for spam clicking all over the place instead of properly searching; A ghost appears on the screen and bounces around for a few seconds, blocking your cursor at times.

All of the 13 total rooms after this in the 6 total sections of the manor follow the same pattern. Find items, place items, don't spam click, and keep going til the very last room. It should take you roughly 45 minutes to an hour at most on a first playthrough, assuming you're familiar with PCs and puzzle games. When repeated, it can take half that time. In the end, all the ghosts are removed from the house and you find out that your Great Uncle Jerome has an even greater secret; Basically the first advertisement for the following game Mortimer Beckett and the Time Paradox.

Overall, this game is not great. Like I said above, Paprikari has notably better examples of the team's work. But it is fun for me still and so I just had to write about it. I'll post something similar to this for the other games, but probably a bit longer than this one because there is more worth describing.