Tony Tough 2: A Rake's Progress

Although this game has a "2" in the title, the time frame of the story actually makes it a prequel to the first game, Tony Tough and the Night of Roasted Moths.

The year is 1953 and you play the 13-year old Tony Tough in his hometown Washington, New Mexico were he has to solve his first case. It all begins when someone breaks into the house of Florence Cook. The burglar didn't find what he was looking for and was arrested later, but the old lady couldn't handle the stress and died. Later the police set the burglar loose again. Then Florence's niece Cornelia (who works as a maid at his parents' house) disappears - and with her a few valuable artifacts she just inherited from Florence. So Tony steps into the scene and finally decides to solve the case with the help of his dog Pantagruel and his loyal friend Seymour.

As in every point 'n click adventure, you move Tony through still environments filled with items and characters you can pick up or interact with. In order to solve the many riddles on your way to solving the whole case, you need to find many items and sometimes combine them on your journey. You talk in a multiple-choice manner with other inhabitants of Washington to get information on what to do next.

The game also doesn't really take you by the hand. The riddles themselves aren't always straight forward and need some serious thinking. Once you've solved the first few riddles, you're free to roam the town, talk to the various characters and complete tasks along the way which don't seem to help you on your case at first. But as you play on, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place until you've solved Tony Tough's very first case.