Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery (Review) – Vita

Summer Camp, the basis of so many stories, films and books. Where American parents drop their children off for a summer in the vain hope that their children will come back a little more rounded and a little less satanic. Lucid Games have followed in this grand tradition with Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery, setting the first episode of the series at Camp Eagle Feather.

Following in the ‘Professor Layton’ school of game design, you control Jacob; walking him through the story one puzzle at a time. I found most of the puzzles challenging with one being bastardhard that I eventually had to cheat on to get past. Drawn from a pool of logic, observation, mathematical and lateral thinking there’s a good variety to test your little grey cells and a very comprehensive hint system should you get stumped. Whilst the developers say that the story is aimed at all ages I don’t think you could expect children to solve most of these puzzles without a) your help or b) YouTube.

What’s really great about this game is that the story isn’t just a means to get you from one puzzle to the next but is both emotionally engaging and funny. Playing to numerous stereotypes of snotty children and camp staff, Lucid have managed to capture some of the more surreal points of childhood and spin them in to something I found myself caring about.

It’s pretty too; the temptation is to use the word ‘charming’ but that’s not quite right. Graphically speaking, the environment fits the story very well. It’s bright, quirky and gives you the impression that this is how Jacob sees the world. Controls-wise, not such a fan I’m afraid as I found these to be a bit of a muddle. When they worked and I ended up with Jacob in the right place, fine, however more often than not I’d go around the camp in confused circles because I wasn’t touching exactly the right place to pick up an errant soda can. It’s a really minor niggle considering how much I loved this game but a niggle nonetheless.

For £1.59 on the Vita and £0.99 for iOS this game is an absolute bargain and provides a good amount of game for the pennies. With the promise of more episodes to come it’s definitely worth trying out.