Twas a dark and storm night, with no lights or wifi. My trusty tablet was fully charged, so what better night to play a game from beginning to end than this? Tipping Point proved to be a fun way to pass an otherwise boring evening. I was able to complete the game in one sitting over the course of about 5 hours, with copious help from the hint machine. The game's sci-fi storyline is a little goofy but engaging enough to hold my attention and the graphics, while not “widescreen HD“ in quality (it was slightly grainy and in a 4:3 aspect ratio, leaving black bars on either side of my tablet's 10.1" screen) images and animations were pretty and well detailed.
Like most games of this genre, it involves exploring lots of different "scenes" and finding things you can either pick up and use later or otherwise manipulate to create forward progress in the story. Many games like this use subtle highlighting to make finding some objects easier. This one does for some items but not for others, meaning it can frustrating if you're not good at thinking outside conventional norms and looking for things that blend seamlessly into the background art. Luckily the game has a generous help engine, with multiple hints progressing from a gentle nudge to outright puzzle solutions, available in delayed increments. I don't feel embarrassed to say I used this a lot, as some puzzles were just impossible for me to figure out on my own.
Overall, it's a great way to pass an evening (or two). You probably will chuckle at some of the goofy narration and plot lines, especially towards the end, but the imagery, despite not being super-sharp, is still beautiful to look at. And the puzzles range from super simple to fairly complex, which should engage the mind for hours, if for no other reason than to see what the programmers thought of next.