A classy and haunting match-3 game with some literally mysterious puzzles! 

So, imagine a Victorian-style mystery-solving game with challenging match-3 mechanics and Tim Burton-esque overtones to boot. That’s Clockmaker for you. You may say it’s not the most original idea ever and... well, you may be right. Originality is a bit overrated anyways!

I must say, I’m a bit of a sucker for Victorian art, which is one of the main reasons I found games like Bloodborne or Vampyr peculiarly enticing. Here, you get many of the steampunk and Sherlock Holmes tropes we’ve all learned to love over the years.

Getting into the game proper: From the start, you’re already given some pieces of data from your uncle regarding an eerie “phenomenon” (which, for some reason, appears as some sort of green mist). 

Your first task consists of crossing a crumbling bridge, which ends up fixing itself with no apparent outside help (your uncle claims that the damage was some sort of weird illusion that was dispelled by the lamplight.) You might as well take his word since these white-bearded folks used to get many things right back in the day.

Afterwards, you are on the other side of town (called “Clocksville”, by the way), moving from household to household. The first house you visit is the keymaster’s house. As you knock on the door, no one answers, even though the lights are on (hmm, strange, innit?) So, you go back to your uncle’s house to get the lockpicks. This will prompt the first real match-3 after the tutorial.

I guess this is where my first complaint lies. Notwithstanding the effort made in other departments, this game would have greatly benefitted from having a more fleshed-out connection between the puzzles and the events that transpire in the game.

Now, to be fair, this is not an exclusive problem in Clockmaker. In this case, it’s more a waste of potential rather than a serious transgression. In any event, we’ve already seen examples of match-3 games in which the integration of gameplay and story is more convincing, such as in Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales (whether that game is actually good or not is another topic.)

It doesn’t have to be a “The Room” level of integration, by the way. Just something wherein we can see some of our match-3 successes affecting the game’s events in real-time. 

I’ve never understood why, with screen real estates getting bigger and bigger, developers have yet failed, for the most part, to implement something akin to the Nintendo DS “split-screen” approach, as seen on that console’s version of Fishdom.

Another issue to decry about this game is the lack of gameplay variety. I shouldn’t expect much from match-3, but I feel the need to bring up Fishdom again (another match-3 game) for comparison. 

Although I understand that comparisons are odious, in that latter game, you got the chance to participate in additional mini-games to break the monotony, whereas in the game under review you don’t even witness a substantial change in music or environment. This truly hurts engagement and replay value after you’ve leveled up over 50 locations.

It is said that what drives the gameplay is the story elements. I’m all in for story-based match-3 games (of which there aren’t that many). The story here has its shining moments, but the whole “we need to get X item in this house to open so-and-so in this other house” questline gets a bit old after a few boots.

On another note, I’m “forced” to praise the game’s monetization. It’s not exactly to my liking, but at least it’s not as obnoxious as usual in these types of games. This time around, you have a limited number of “lives”. If you fail to solve a puzzle, you lose a “life”. After losing them all, you have to endure a “waiting period” before playing again, which can be shortened if you pay with rubies (the game’s premium currency).

The above sounds like your run-of-the-mill pay-or-wait strategy, but I’m not as offended considering it’s a punishment for losing rather than the game forcing you out arbitrarily. 

You can also pay for boosters. To be blunt, you might need some of them once in a while (especially since the game has fewer matching options than your ordinary match-3 game) but it’s tolerable.

Verdict

Clockmaker is, all in all, an enjoyable game to kill some time between shifts. The story is “decent” (without being necessarily groundbreaking) and the gameplay is engaging (and quite unforgiving at times). If you crave that extra challenge in your match-3 puzzles, you might definitely like this one.

You can also rush over to the comments section to leave your impressions about this game (or this review). The clock is ticking! (Just kidding.)