Riddle Tower | PC Review

Sometimes simplicity is the best solution. Other times, it suits the price tag. The Riddle Tower takes mathematical, grammatical, and rebus style riddles and wraps them in a Jackbox Games-esque package for a challenging game that works best when playing with friends, although a solo mission of riddle solving also works fine and dandy.

The Story is Pointless

Well, they wrapped it in a story! Monking (a monkey king, get it?) has been cursed by a witch due to envy. Prince Monkid can lift the curse but only if you help him solve riddles. Sounds like a plan, let’s solve some riddles!

The story in The Riddle Tower doesn’t matter other than to give you a purpose to continue solving riddles. And boy, does this game have a LOT of riddles. My personal favorite is the Rebus style. Rebus riddles are the ones where you are given words in a strange position or an image of something. For instance:

PARD

ME

Would be “Pardon me” (get it? The “PARD” is on “ME”?). That one is super simple, I just wanted to provide an example. They can be much more difficult at times, but those were the riddles that kept me clicking for more.

What do these riddles have to do with Monking and saving the kingdom? Absolutely nothing. Let’s talk about the game dynamics instead.

The Easiest Game You’ll Ever Play, Except For The Riddles

I’ll emphasize the use of the word “Simple” when it comes to the graphics in The Riddle Tower. The backdrop is a static dungeon brick wall. The riddles are overlaid in front of it. There is a textbox offered for the player to enter their answer. Orange and brown colors galore make the riddle area pop in front of the dungeon wall. It’s pleasant and easy on the eyes. Perfect delivery in its simplicity.

The music is playful but also simple. It will quickly drop into the background of your mind as it cycles through the loop. Much like the orange and brown colors, the music is pleasant and easy on the ears. More perfection in its simplicity.

The controls are simple. Look at the riddle, enter your answer via the keyboard. Click on the “next button” for more! Thankfully, each riddle has Prince Monkid sitting near the answer textbox to offer a couple of hints. Sometimes, the hints are quite helpful. Other times, the hints are just as perplexing and don’t help at all. 

Some of the riddles are pretty straightforward. They take a certain level of math skill or thinking outside of the box. For instance, “What word begins and ends with an E but only has one letter?” The answer is “Envelope.” Thankfully, the text/grammar questions tell you how many letters there are in the answer. The math ones, on the other hand, Hoo Nelly. Don’t expect any hand holding. Instead, you might find yourself trying out every possible answer that makes sense before landing on the correct answer and finally understanding that this certain math riddle was a simple subtraction problem. 

The game offers several modes, which is a nice bonus for the $5 price tag. The main story has 50 riddles. But then there is the Riddle Road mode which offers slightly easier riddles AND you can select the style (Text, Math, Rebus). Again, I love those Rebus riddles. Hundreds and hundreds of riddles are available in this mode. Finally, there is a Season mode which doesn’t get unlocked until you beat the main story. Hours and hours of riddle fun for very little investment. This is a great game to stash in your library and boot up when you want to give your brain a little activity after a mind-numbing day at work or after mowing the lawn. (Here’s a riddle, I played The Riddle Tower after I was done “_ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _  _ _ _ _.”) 

Riddle Tower Final Verdict

The structure of the game is about as simple as it gets. In truth, this is a riddle game with a very tiny footprint behind it. A static backdrop and interface which bring the often confusing riddles to you is what you’ll get here. If you’re a fan of riddles and enjoy a challenge OR want to see how smart your “smart” friends really are, the $5 price tag will bring along hours of brain exercise. I enjoyed it, but it certainly isn’t going to wow the masses.

To hear me talk more about Riddle Tower, be sure to listen to the September 6th, 2024 episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast at the 1:53:48 time stamp.

This review is based on a PC copy of Riddle Tower provided by Keymailer for coverage purposes. As of this writing, it is exclusive to that platform.