I was given products in this post for the purpose of review. I was not paid to write this review.
Developer Pine Studio, the company behind the well-received Faraway puzzle adventure series, has announced that its latest Harry Potter and Professor Layton-inspired title, The Academy: The First Riddle, has launched today on PC and Mac via Steam for $19.99 and the App Store and Google Play for $9.99. In celebration of the title’s release, the studio has shared a features trailer showcasing the variety of challenges, characters, and settings puzzle fans can expect once they delve into the game. The Academy will arrive on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch later this summer.
It doesn't happened often, but every once in awhile I come across a product I dislike completely. Sadly The Academy: The First Riddle falls solidly in that category. I was excited to play a game with riddles and puzzles. Instead I got a game of nonsense. The riddles aren't riddles at all. They are as I said above nonsense, one example is you get a bunch of animal foot prints and are told to figure at the riddle. Okay that's it! Like for real no hint or riddle to help you figure out what you are suppose to do. There isn't a riddle at all, instead you were suppose to figure out to count their toes. Umm, what? Another riddle was which animal print doesn't fit with the rest. That's the riddle you were suppose to figure out how many legs each animal had and that was your answer which ever had less. Now keep in mind this was a bird print, deer print, bear print and wolf. I though okay maybe the bird is different... No, well maybe because the bird might be a meat eater maybe it is the deer... Nope... I don't even remember at this point what the answer was, but with only that clue above I was suppose to figure out I was counting legs. My kids didn't like the game, nor did I. Not only were the riddles nonsense, but the game its self is really hard to navigate. I spent more time running into walls then anything.
I really wanted to like this game, I thought it was really cool looking. I was let down.