Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

I think the minigame genre has finally grown up.

Guilty Party is a multiplayer Remote-based minigame fest with staged photos of a happy family on the back cover. And, yes, the word ‘Party’ is in the title. But there’s so much going on here that you might actually forget about the minigames.

Maybe it’s because I’m only a little into the game, but I’m surprised at how dense this game is. Upon first bootup, Guilty Party foists you into a tutorial mystery. This ten-minute opener both introduces the core game concepts and sets up the storyline-based campaign mode. Right out of the gate, you get lengthy cutscenes, a pile of characters to meet, and a good overview of the game’s structure.

It’s like a board game without an onscreen board. I guess the wacky mansion cutaway map is the board. On your turn, you have a set number of actions you can perform… like moving to a different room, interrogating a suspect or examining an object. As you explore, you collect clues which you must then use to divine the identity of the criminal. In the tutorial’s case, the criminal is an unknown person who ate the grandfather’s pudding, but hey, they can’t all be Ripped From Today’s Headlines.

There’s a cute lie detector bit where your Remote buzzes if a person is fibbing to you. It just means you have to mentally track that the correct clue is the opposite of what that person said.

When I started the next level, the game added a deck of cards to the mix. Plus, the game’s primary villain has the ability to eff with your game… by locking rooms or turning out the lights. You have X number of turns to solve the mystery or the world ends or something.

Between all of this is a bunch of dopey Remote minigames like brushing away dust or turning a combination lock. It looks like you can adjust the difficulty of the game according to player, which should be great for families.

I’ve only done cooperative mysteries thus far, but I’m looking forward to bringing this out for a game night. It’s nice to have accessible motion-based minigames framed inside an actual damn game for once.