If you played Tangle Tower a few years ago and enjoyed the puzzling murder-mystery story developer SFB Games cooked up, you will be familiar with the fact the game was rather succinct and could be completed in a couple of sittings. As this was the case, since The Mermaid Mask, the next chapter in the Detective Grimoire series and the sequel to Tangle Tower, launches on July 16 on PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, you might be curious about how much time you need to allot to complete the game.
We asked this question to SFB Games co-founder and The Mermaid Mask's creative director, Adam Vian, in a recent interview, and his response was quite surprising. He revealed The Mermaid Mask is considerably larger than Tangle Tower and that you will need "at least 12 hours" to reach the credits, even if he concedes that it is "probably longer."
Vian told us in full: "Somehow... SOMEHOW, the game is double the size of Tangle Tower (which was about six hours). I want to state that that was NOT my intention. I actually really like Tangle Tower's snappy length. In terms of real-estate, The Mermaid Mask is pretty similar - by which I mean there are a comparable number of areas you visit on the map screen. But what's changed is the density - there's so much more to see, to find, to think about - on every single screen of the game. There are more clues, and there is so more to say about each one. Each clue is now 3D and can be fully rotated freely, with many of them having state changes and ways to interact with them. For instance, one of the first clues you find is a book, a novel. Okay, so - you can read the cover, the spine, the back, you can open it and read the acknowledgements, the dedication, see the author's photo, and you can even read the first page of the story itself! None of the clues in Tangle Tower were that juicy. And that's the first clue you find in The Mermaid Mask!! You wait!!
"So, yes, all this to say - the game is at least 12 hours long, we're pretty sure. Probably longer.
"Oh, and then you've got the behind-the-scenes Art Gallery after you're done. That's another half an hour or so, at least."
Clearly, players should be preparing for a much more detailed and deep adventure compared to Tangle Tower, which comes at a good time considering mid-July is shaping up to be a rather barren period for new games, which is a far cry from this coming autumn...
For more from SFB Games and The Mermaid Mask, you can find our full interview with Vian here, where we also discuss adaptations, the legacy of Tangle Tower, what to expect from a linearity perspective, and also what the future holds for Detective Grimoire.