Last updated on November 27th, 2025 at 11:40 pm
A Short Tale – Adventure Game Review
A Short Tale is a Adventure/Puzzle/Entertainment game from Glitch Games Ltd, first launched in 10th February 2016.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 243+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes A Short Tale Stand Out
"For anyone who just wants to play a game chock-full of fun and unusual puzzles while exploring a charming and nostalgia-inducing environment, A Short Tale provides plenty of entertainment for a few hours" -AdventureGamers
It’s been years since I lost Ben, so long yet it doesn’t seem long enough. I never thought I’d return here, to where everything started. Where everything ended.
Something’s calling me back to his room though; a presence I have not felt since…
—
Play as Jason as he explores his brother’s room from a new perspective. After wishing to be small again, to feel closer to his younger brother, Jason finds himself in a strange new world filled with larger than life furniture, troublesome obstacles, and less-than-helpful occupants.
Features:
- A first person point and click adventure game.
• Surprisingly large* world to explore, filled with puzzles to solve. - Trademark Glitch humour and puzzles that will leave you screaming at us.
• Beautiful soundtrack perfectly suited to this bizarre world. - The Glitch Camera to help you solve puzzles and keep track of clues.
- Lots of clues to find and puzzles to solve.
- Plenty of items to collect and fiendishly clever puzzles to solve!
- Loads of items to find and use!
- Clues to find and puzzles to solve!
- Auto-save feature, never lose your progress again!
*pun fully intended, naturally.
–
Glitch Games is a tiny independent ‘studio’ from the UK.
Find out more at glitch.games
Chat with us on Discord – discord.gg/glitchgames
Follow us @GlitchGames
Find us on Facebook
This Adventure game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, A Short Tale is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 26th August 2024
Recent improvements include:
Photo Album button should now fit better on all devices.
Small fixes and improvements.
Download & Availability
A Short Tale is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
We loved this one, we have played every Glitch game up til this one, and this is the first one where we didnt have to use any clues whatsoever! That said, its still good and challenging and the puzzles were great! Im only giving it four stars because our biggest criticism would be that there were several times in the game that we had the answer to a puzzle figured out (eg. The soda stain) but you have to do things in the correct order in order for it to work, so before we realized that we were bouncing all over the place wondering what we hadnt tried, only to have to go back and talk to a toy again.
Great game but had to knock it down a notch because there was no access to hints so we had to go to YouTube to see how to pass the gears puzzle which made absolutely no sense. Even after watching the walkthrough. All the other puzzles were fair.
Camera icon covers the photo album icon. You can work around the issue by going into the item menu and accessing the photo album that way.
Have tried this on our iPhone as well as our iPad. The camera placement covers the photo album, so you cant access the photo album. It just takes another picture (which you cant see). We would need to use two devices to play. Reached out to the company and have heard nothing back. It looks like it could be fun, but very frustrating.
Our son and we enjoyed solving this game together. We would work on it some and then take a break to mull over some of the puzzles. A good variety of puzzle types to keep us both entertained.
This game was so much fun. Ive never played a game in this genre before where the entire setting is available to you right away (minus some small areas you need to gain access to). In the beginning its a challenge, but by the end we knew where everything was like the back of our hand. There are some really out of the box challenges and puzzles here – ones that really make you think, which is no surprise from Glitch. There were a few places we got stuck and had to look up a walkthrough, but each time it was because we had overlooked a clue which isnt surprising in this non-linear, single-room setting. We kept photos of everything we hadnt solved yet, so when we got stumped we could swipe through instead of having to check the entire room out again. Overall this is a fabulous little game – we would absolutely love to do another one like this.
Love this game with its rich environment, plethora of puzzles and clever clues, and charming story line. Fun.
This game was amazing. We loved every bit of it, from the storyline to the puzzles to the graphics to the funny little characters. Never disappointed with Glitch games. Thank you.
Glitch games really deliver every time. Looking forward to playing many more.
This is a fantastic game. We have played all of them at the time of this review (this was the last one we played) and we are greatly enjoying it (not finished yet). We like that many of the puzzles were multi-faceted. A lot of this type of game is basically fine one thing and then use it. Glitch games have a great knack of making you chain clues together to work out a solution. Our only complaint is that the game, quite often, would lock up. The navigation button(s) would not display and nothing reacted to tapping. This may be due to the fact that we tend to click quickly when we know where we are trying to go. This is why we are reviewing before completing the game. But, despite the annoyance of having to exit force the game to quit and restarting it still is a great game, and the camera feature is invaluable and much better than what other games do by automatically filling in a notebook. We prefer to figure out what is important rather than being told, or even worse not having a way to record the important bits. In many other games we are forced take pictures of the screen (iPad) with our phone.
Fun game but some of the puzzles make zero sense. The hint button is not working either. This is a very old game as we understand. Other Glitch games are much better written games than this one. Note: this game does not use microphone despite you see voice command input in the game.
Really enjoying the game. However, there seems to be a common problem with the backups on this game and other Glitch Games.
We really wanted to love this game but the hint button does not appear anywhere (we made sure we enabled the hint option). Also the microphone wont work so we can turn the tv on. Its not responding when we speak into it.
Other glitch games have been amazing. This one was… For lack of a better word, glitchy. The books on the shelf puzzle glitched, there was a clue for the six settings on the vent that never displayed, and at the end, the train clue never triggered. We had to rely on Appt Unwrapper to understand what was, in theory, supposed to happen. When a puzzle game like this glitches, its deflating because you cant tell the difference between a bug and when youre actually, truly stuck on a puzzle and just need to think outside the box. You can spend 40 minutes thinking creatively only to find out its actually a bug! Iteration needed but could be a great game if these issues are fixed.
Glitch games are indescribable, and not in a good way. From obscure and ludicrous logic to absolutely foolish and inarticulate tasks… Theres NO way this side of Hell that anyone can figure out many of these egregious puzzles without a walkthrough. Dont misunderstand us; its not that the puzzles are intellectually challenging, its that they are so beyond ridiculous that youd have to be in the mind of the developer to even get. Like most Glitch games, Ive fallen into the darkest depths of creative void… Terrible graphics, atrocious fonts… A snoring 8 ball? The environment and score has a very uncomfortable vibe, like… You just want to finish it to get it over with. But we shall not finish. Get us outta here.
After we set our options, it wont let us get back to our game. Tried everything. Wish it worked cause there are great graphics and music. Please fix the game.
One word to describe this game – outstanding. This is our first Glitch game and if they are all this well made, we are excited to play all the rest! The graphics are great, gameplay is smooth, puzzles are very challenging, yet fun, and the game is just a super fun game. Ive been playing for 3 hours straight and Im not even close to being finished. If you are looking for a fun and challenging point and click, escape type game with good puzzles, give this game a try. You will totally LOVE it. Edit: we just played A Short Tale AGAIN and it was just as fun as the first time we played it. We absolutely love this cute game! Edit 2: we just finished ALL the Glitch Games and they were ALL great. Especially Veritas. Thanks.
Another classic pun-filled entry from Glitch. This is the first one we didnt cheat on (which was $&!?ing HARD!!). If youre stuck in the train thing, heres a hint, it involves a puzzle youve already solved. The only problem we encountered was when trying to get the vacuum cleaner to do something not sure if you have to click him more than once or wait for him to finish his shpiel, we thought we had something wrong but then he suddenly decided to work after the 10th time talking to him.
You have to be observant with this game. We just live it.
A Short Tale is the 6th Glitch Game that we have played, and it is one of their best. The puzzles were a nice balance between clever and fiendish, with a few being maybe a little too close to fiendish. (we are looking at you Magic 8 Ball!) we liked the change in tone from the darker elements of Forever Lost, as this game is one that we would let our younger kids try out. We also thought the smaller environment within one room was a nice change of pace as it meant that you did not have to travel far to investigate a new clue or to search for the next clue. Looking forward to more offerings from Glitch.
Keep it up Glitch Games! Loved it.
All Glitch games are exceptional and we hope theres a lot more to come! We found this game to be wildly addicting and clever but also a bit frustrating. This is the third one Ive done without using hints and it was definitely challenging. We loved being able to mix up a solution, and the graphics of that transition were really cool and realistic. The creativity and cleverness are so delightful, thanks again Glitch guys! We also enjoy the creepy themes of all the games, but this one we can play with our kids so thats pretty fun. Our 2 year old is a big fan of the surprise spider :) we felt a bit frustrated with this one since there was more delayed gratification, especially toward the end. Going through a long convoluted puzzle thinking your gonna get a reward at the end and then… Nothing…AAaahhh! It started to get us down after a while. We almost gave up at the end bc of another review saying the game was glitching at the end when really they didnt finish the last puzzle. We restarted the game, played it all over again and realized… Ahaha! So dont be a dummy like us and listen to that guy, lol.
It kept glitching out on the crossword puzzle. Whenever we would play it and even just lock our phone or switch apps, the game would glitch and get stuck on that screen without any buttons around it or any option to do anything. Even closing the app and re-opening it wouldnt work. So eventually we had to just delete it and re-download which meant to completely restart our progress. Not worth it.
This is the first of all the Glitch Games Ive purchased and binged the past week that Ive run into glitches that wont allow us to continue and complete the game. Im so frustrated because Im close to the end. Our game is missing the triangle piece next to the empty Balls of Light box and we are unable to sew the 2 button eyes onto the bear because the thread disappears from our suitcase. The missing triangle piece stops us from doing what Ive been waiting to do this whole game: play the generic NES console in the game. Ive loaded our game so hopefully someone can fix this for us.
We finished all the puzzles and all the toys are willing to help but when we try to open the door, none of the do. The 8 ball still says it lost its train of thought but all the tracks are added for the train so there must be a bug somewhere. Probably because we were able to get one of the track pieces before we were supposed to or something. Now the game cant be finished and we cant see the ending.
Never allowed us to play it. Very disappointed.
The Forever Lost series of games are fantastic and this is our new favorite. The design is impeccable. We only wish there could be a new game every month.
Enjoyable & relaxing. We loved the idea, feels like you're one of the toys. We binged this game in one sitting, something we recommend. Our only complaint is the amount of time we spent backtracking from one point to another, but the puzzles were both fun & some pretty challenging (we admit we had to cheat w/walkthroughs on the moons phase puzzle and also the keyboard, since we were playing with the sound off-not recommended). We felt the ending was especially sweet. You can tell Glitch really puts a lot of care into their games. Well done & thank you.
After having played all three Forever Lost games and Alice's Cabin as well, we thought there could never be another game quite as good. And then along came A Short Tale. What a great game! The puzzles are so good. Yes, we were swearing in places…. But then the pleasure and satisfaction of the breakthrough moment! We loved the tv puzzle! Thank you, you ruggedly handsome Glitch guys, for another great, intelligent, and challenging game.
This game is great. All of Glitch Games are great. We've yet to find a developer whose games we enjoy as much as these guys'.
We're a fan of Glitch games. No glitches in this game, although we had a tough time getting that triangle shape. We really enjoyed some hours of play. The puzzles were unique and interesting. We'll play it again in a few months when we've forgotten everything.
Enjoyed the game especially the ending. Turning on the TV was hard but we guess fair – we kept spelling a thing when we needed to do something else. The thing that really should be fixed is the location of the triangle piece. Even when we looked up the answer online we couldnt find it, tapping almost everywhere on the place didnt work. After minutes and on our third time back we finally must have found the hotspot. It is way too small.
… And where did you come from?? Bravo, Team Glitch. Amazing game. Superbly clever. Can't think of a single word of negative critique. We've played all you have to offer with the exception of one (beginning it shortly) and am only concerned with how long we must wait for the next new one. Each takes us days to work out, which is the way we like it.
Puzzle after puzzle and layer after layer. This was no walk in the park – you really had to think! We LOVED it!! Thank you!! Highly recommended – completely worth every penny.
These guys are freakin' geniuses!! This game deviated slightly from the Forever Losts (which we also love!) in that it wasn't as dark, and there weren't any old, abandoned places to explore, but it still had the fantastic puzzles and same charm that we love from these games. It was challenging, yet short enough to keep us from getting too frustrated. We will admit, we had to look at a YouTube walk through for a few clues (including the "train of thought" one…that was BRILLIANT!), but we are pretty proud to say that the rest we did on our own. Keep these great games coming.
Well done Glitch! Worth every penny. Can't wait for the next one.
So cute and has so many fun and challenging puzzles.
The same high quality puzzles you can expect from Glitch Games, but without the creepiness. There are subtle hints at a darker backstory, but overall the game is bright and surprisingly interesting. While you're in one room the whole time, there are plenty of nooks and crannies to keep it exciting and engaging.
Definitely was glad to find a game whose puzzles made sense and flowed into the story. Please enjoy.
We love Glitch Games, having played all the Forever Lost series. If you liked those, you'll love this one. It's a room escape game, but oh so devilishly devious and clever, with lots of puzzles, and lots of things to do and find. But it's also fun to spend so much time in such a bright, colorful room, with lovely relaxing music. You must have patience, and you must THINK in order to solve this game! These are the kind of puzzles where you just can't figure something out, then the lightbulb goes on, and you slap your forehead, wondering how you could have missed such a simple solution! What a rush, when you finally figure something out. We must say that this game is in our list of Top 5 adventure/escape games. And at such a reasonable price. Thank you, Glitch Games! More, please.
Glitch games did it again! This one was really challenging and tons of fun to play! Thanks guys! Not sure what that one negative review by kellybelllly below is about. We think it's referring to the recent election, but we can't quite tell for sure… Clearly has nothing to do with this game anyway! Five stars.
And our love for Glitch Games grows fonder!!! Ya'll are absolutely amazing, please don't ever stop creating new games…we don't know what we or our iPad would do with ourselves!!! :).
Another great point and click adventure game from Glitch! Loved it. Great puzzles. Highly recommend it.
After playing the Forever Lost trilogy, we were dying for another game from Glitch Games. A Short Tale definitely went above and beyond! We can't say enough about this game and the rest of the Forever Lost series. We can't wait to see what you come out with next.
Glitch we need more games from you.
We absolutely love all of Glitch Games!! They are so in depth which makes it easy to get sucked into the story. We have played all of their games and we are never disappointed! We seldom spend money on or for apps but whenever we see that they've made a new game, we know we'll be getting our money's worth. This game is challenging, captivating, and very entertaining! We would recommend this game (and all their games) to anyone.
If you like a good challenge, although we had to cheat a bit, this is worth the time! Amazing graphics, wonderful story line with a perfect ending, and just so much fun! We really enjoyed this game, great thanks to the designers and writers : ).
Another 5 star game from Glitch Games. This one wasn't creepy like Forever Lost, but it was chock full of puzzles.
Great offline game. Maddeningly difficult in the best possible way. Couple of puzzles were a stretch…can't imagine that anyone could figuRe it out! But we will take that over an easy puzzler any day. Can't wait for the next glitch game.
Glitch Games never disappoints! We're always happy to see they have something new.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.1.5
- Size: 273.44 MB
- iOS: 11.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Glitch Games Ltd
Last updated: 26th August 2024 | Genre: Adventure, Puzzle | Developer: Glitch Games Ltd