The Newton Mystery

https://youtu.be/0jOcB9Plwsw?si=vsSz3GMQpJQOVlXj Set in the titular town of Newton, this visual novel / platforming-hybrid revolves around the misadventures of a ragtag group of monster hunters. Working under the alias of a “Bird Watching Club”, the five teens work to keep this small town of eccentric folk safe from ghosts, ghouls, and…gentrification. Over the span of five episodes, you’ll swap between the members of The Bird Watching Club to overcome a wide range of challenges. Each of the members has their own unique set of super skills, from Tess’ ghost form and demonic bullets to Phil’s fish form. Each character has obvious strengths and weaknesses, and using them in tandem can be a lot of fun. I would have preferred a way to swap between characters aside from a selection wheel though. By the end of the game, I was kind of annoyed with how often I had to pull up the selection wheel, only to pull it up again seconds later. An option to cycle characters via button input could be really useful here. When it came to the actual gameplay, The Newton Mystery really surprised me with how much variety it had. In addition to the various puzzles and platforming, you’ll also experien…

I played the demo 2 years ago, was pleasantly surprised to see it's finally out. The puzzle-platforming is very fun, the characters are funny and charming, and the art style is adorable. The bullet hell segments were a fun surprise and the TCG rhythm game is honestly pretty addicting. The narrative is interesting, but I feel like a lot of worldbuilding aspects were left unexplained or too open-ended by the end of the game, which makes me wonder if there's anything else in store for this world. The game is a little buggy at times, and the dialogue has a noticeable amount of typos. For some reason, I sometimes had this issue where the camera lagged but the characters moved fine so I had to slow down until the camera caught up and fixed itself. I also wish all the controls were shown in the title screen or pause menu because I had to figure out some controls for myself, such as the skip text function. Overall, besides the need for some patches, this game is a fun and nostalgic adventure and I'd love to see a continuation of some kind.

The Newton Mystery is a platformer game full of good puzzles and great story! I didn't have any problem with the game until it froze towards the end of chapter 2 BUT when i restarted the game i was able to move forward so its not that big a deal. 10/10

If Scooby-Doo was a puzzle platformer it might look something like this. It makes me nostalgic for silly flash games; the graphics, music, mechanics and story all feel like something made by a couple of good friends in their spare time. There's a lot of variety, heart, and amusement to be found. But it also has its fair share of jank; some things aren't intuitive nor explained while other times the framerate or hitboxes are wonky. The story also feels like it was supposed to have a sixth chapter that got cut, since the plot has a few loose ends. There are also so many collectibles and no real way to tell which ones you missed; additionally some of the chapters are very long and have several 'points of no return' that are easy to cross before you're ready, forcing you to start the chapter over if you missed a collectible. Personally I find these minor annoyances easy to overlook for the sake of flavor but I felt it should be mentioned.

I was one of the people who first demo'd this game at the TooManyGames convention in July of 2023. I got to talk to the devs and was very into the game's artstyle and puzzle/platformer nature. I also loved how amusing the dialogue is, and how it helps one invest into the characters in this game. Of course there are some issues. There are some typos here and there, and I was a bit confused with the control scheme at first. But, for it's price, it provides a nice experience that I will probably be revisiting a few more times, if only to revisit the story and characters (which I really enjoyed!) and also to try out the TCG minigame the game offers. This was definitely worth the wait, and I look forward to a sequel or extension to this story.

Fish