Loveshack Entertainment brought back one of their iconic puzzle noir-style games this year in June 2017, Framed 2 on mobile. While this game has been out for a little while now, the game is trending and becoming massively popular compared to its counterpart Framed.
In the original game Framed, the game uses its basic mechanics to portray a prequel that turned out better than the original. In this release, the comic book frames are still around to be swapped and manipulated in order to help complete the story. Just like the first game, the goal is to use each panel and the imagery they provide to finish a section of the story so that your character can escape the guards and much more. For example, there will be times where you may need to use a telephone line in the frame to slide down, so you must carefully arrange the tiles to make sure your character escapes, or else he falls and fails.
The first time around something was missing such as a solid story line. The game felt more like a large tutorial with too much help even though its title lives in infamy when it was voted game of the year by Hideo Kajima. At least this time Framed 2 gives the player a few easy panels to begin with before continuing with challenging frames. Added to Framed 2 is the ability to collect photos. This is mostly as an added bonus to the player for their hard work, but the photos add a layer of change by giving the player more options to complete their story. For those that don’t find all of the photos, players can still reuse tiles more than once in order to change up the puzzle and boost some personal creativity.
Mobile games sometimes get a bad reputation. It is easy to view them as just Candy Crush or Angry Birds. This could not be further from the truth, as games have evolved to the point that they can be their own stories and provide different methods of game play. For Framed 2, it makes the player an active participant in how the story progresses. How many times have you wondered why a video game character is acting a certain way or going in direction you would never do? Framed 2 allows the player to become the game designer, figuring out how the main character is able to escape from one situation to the next. You might think you have the answer, but the game challenges you to think in new ways in order to complete the level.
As we end one gaming year and look ahead to the next one, Framed 2 is the perfect example of a game you might never have played, but definitely deserves a look. How games are played are changing and this little mobile game invites you to use panels to make sure the character moves on. Smart games are sometimes rare, and Framed 2 challenges you by not making you press a button faster, but using logic to figure your way out.
Framed 2 is available now on the Itunes and Google play stores.