A Juggler’s Tale from Mixtvision and Kaleidoscube is an adventure puzzle game in which you’ll follow Abby, a marionette. Check our A Juggler’s Tale review!

 

In A Juggler’s Tale from Mixtvision and Kaleidoscube, you’ll play as Abby. She’s a marionette working in a circus by day and, as you’ll see in the opening sequence, living inside of a cage at night. She’ll want to escape the clutches of the evil Circus master, and that’s when you come in! This game presentation immediately reminded me of Puppeteer, which I played a few years ago.

You’ll begin in the circus, and your first puzzle will be to get out of the cage you’d been trapped in. You won’t get any clues for this puzzle – nor in subsequent ones – so it’s up to you to figure out what to do and how to do it. For instance, for this puzzle, you’ll have to draw the attention of the circus master to steal his keys in order to break out. I liked how the game doesn’t hold our hands and forces you to be creative with the objects nearby to solve the different problems you’ll be faced with.

The main gameplay mechanic requires you to move Abby from point A to point B while solving some light puzzles along the way. Being a marionette, Abby will often be limited by the strings that are holding her up. Many puzzles will require you to move the environment around you in order to help her progress. I thought this was a creative way to offer new puzzles ideas, but more on this later. She’ll also be able to interact with items that are light blue colored.

 

Some of the puzzles did feel a bit intuitive, requiring some outside-of-the-box thinking to find the solution. There’s one puzzle in particular that will require that you take a torch from spot to spot without it going out, which is hard to do since it’s raining. Doing this 3-4 times would have been more than enough, but A Juggler’s TAle asks you to do this tent times before you can burn away some branches that are in your way. I never had to resort to a guide to find the solution to a puzzle, so even the more cryptic ones can be solved when you think about them for a bit.

As for the game’s presentation, it is a stunning 2.5D fantasy world built on the Unreal engine. You’ll only walk sideways to the left and right, but the backgrounds are highly detailed, and the lighting effects are superb. I also liked how the presentation for the menus was creative since each menu is attached to the next one with string – which was reminiscent of Abby’s whole situation as a marionette. You’ll also hear a narrator as the story progresses, giving you some insight into what is going on as Abby tries to escape from her former life.

If you’re playing this game for the trophies, you’ll be disappointed that this game doesn’t have a Platinum trophy. The short trophy list is composed of 15 Bronze trophies and 3 Silver ones… and that’s it! Some trophies are tied to story progression, but take note that a few of them are missable, so you will need to use chapter select to give them another try. The game can be completed in around 2-3 hours, and cleaning up the trophies after that – if needed – shouldn’t take too long as only one is skill dependant.

 

A Juggler’s Tale is a fun adventure puzzle game that has some creative puzzles and an impressive presentation. Some of the puzzles dragged on for too long. I was also disappointed that this game didn’t have a Platinum trophy, nor any Gold trophies. All in all, I liked playing this game, so it’s easy to recommend it to gamers looking for a short adventure.

Disclaimer
This A Juggler’s Tale review is based on a PlayStation copy provided by Mixtvision Games.