I Spy Mystery: A Retrospective
4/4/2023:
I Spy Mystery is an excellent book that takes the art of I Spy to the next level, using its simple premise to create a distinct, tonally consistent, yet diverse experience. All of the previous I Spy books have led up to this one, which takes the lessons from the themes of the previous books to craft an experience that resembles the original I Spy, but with a much richer atmosphere.
The Hidden Clue
This one is a neat start! It’s familiar, but establishes the new tone of Mystery effectively. The lighting is more dynamic than in similar scenes from the first book, with the main light source coming from the side, creating darker shadows. Additionally, instead of using the plain maple blocks, this photo uses almost entirely primary-colored pieces, giving a consistent yet vibrant color scheme.
This type of scene keeps appearing in these books. I almost feel like it’s the “default” I Spy experience, with mostly wooden toys and some newer, plastic and ceramic ones spread throughout for more visual variety. I like the sub-game, it establishes how the mystery theme will be incorporated into each photo in different ways. In this case, the last line of the riddle is hidden in the photo itself. This is a nice opening scene that helps set the tone for the entire book.
The Birthday Hunt
The Birthday Hunt is an excellent scene that establishes a number of firsts for I Spy. For one, this is the first scene made of multiple smaller sets put together, with each keyhole showing a totally distinct room within it. This framing also establishes a clear narrative for the photo, with a child searching through each keyhole to spy into the rooms and look for their hidden birthday present. The combination of these elements really makes this one stand out. This kind of narrative conveyed through photography and rhyme will go on to become a major feature of the I Spy series going forward.
The composition of each scene is quite nice, too. I like how each scene has different lighting, in addition to differently designed sets, to give a consistent feel with some variety. I like how you can tell that each room is different, with what looks to be a bedroom, an outdoor toy closet, an indoor closet, a playroom, and maybe a main room with a chair. The variety helps ground the overall scene in a childlike reality and contribute to the narrative. I love this scene.
The Mysterious Monster
Woah. This one is different. A basic “props on a white backdrop” setup is used to create something entirely unique with just lighting alone. The long, deep shadows and cold lighting give this one a minor-key mood. I think it’s especially cool how Wick puts multiple props together to create an image in the shadows, like the little stick figure.
The composition of this one is really distinctive. The use of translucent objects helps break up the otherwise monochrome shadows, and the long shadows help fill in empty space in a photo that has surprisingly few props. The almost-top-down angle helps to obscure what each prop is while allowing the shadows to make things quite clear. Finally, I like the sub-game at the end. Turning over the book makes the titular monster’s face quite clear, though it only exists in shadow. I love this one.
The Ghost in the Attic
This one is really cool! I really like how the setting of the scene grounds the high-contrast lighting this book usually uses. It really sells the feeling of a dusty attic, lit only by the bright daylight coming in from a single window, casting the edges into darkness. The choice of props also helps convey this feeling, with a collection of old toys and antiques sprawled about. This photo is also notable for having a special effect, with a double-exposure used to create the ghostly image of the doll above the dollhouse.
The riddle for this one is quite inventive, and uses the setting well. I am particularly fond of finding the “missing key to the chest”, where the key’s silhouette is visible in the dust on the keyholder, and that helps you look for it. It’s a cool way to create unique gameplay that’s grounded in the scene itself. The second stanza also has some quite satisfying alliteration, with “tea for two, a toaster with toast”, followed by some fun almost-rhymes, with “Backward BOATS, and the dollhouse ghost.” This scene is excellent and evocative.
Masquerade
What an odd photo! This one looks like it could have come right out of Fun House, complete with the slightly disturbing giant eyeless masks. I find that I like it the more that I look at it, though, noticing all the little figures on the ground below the masks. The different art supplies all around give it a kind of lively feeling, like the little creatures on the bench are exploring a surreal landscape of masks.
I really like the narrative that this one has through the riddle. The last line asks you to find “proof that a cat knocked over the can.” This draws your attention to the spilled can of paint on the left… and the little blue paw print right next to it. Of course, the cat is all the way on the right, hiding under the ladder. This is one of the first examples of incorporating a story and a suggestion of motion into a search-and-find scene. This will go on to become a hallmark of the very best of these books in the future. This is an alright little scene!
Lost in Marbles
This one is iconic, so iconic that they used it as the book cover in new editions. The vast sea of glass marbles combined with the harsh, flat lighting is just dazzling. Looking closer, though, there’s some really cool stuff happening, with little scenes contained within some of the marbles, like the house, the key, and the ship.
I also really like how differently-shaped objects are hidden within the marbles. They’re made harder to find because of the very busy background. The end of the riddle and the mystery within this one stands out for that, asking you to find a diamond ring, the band of which is quite well hidden within the vast display of marbles.
The Toy Box Solution
What an odd little photo. This one reminds me a lot of Toys In the Attic from the first book, but structured and framed better. The multiple levels of the drawers helps break up the scene into big sections that are easier to search through. I like how Wick continues to revisit old ideas and iterate on them, even if it does lead this scene to feel kind of generic, like The Hidden Clue before it.
The mystery in this one is quite neat, though. You are tasked with finding a missing puzzle piece from a scene later in the book, which is quite unusual. In these, you usually have to go back to find something in a previous scene, so this one stands out. It’s hard to say whether you should finish this scene or do the other one first, though. This one is just alright.
Mystery by the Sea
I love this one. This scene is like At The Beach from the first book, but focuses on found objects instead of beach toys. This decision changes absolutely everything. The color palette is more consistent and natural, and the lighting highlights the contours of the sand and the objects instead of casting shadows from off-frame. The bright white sand helps to accent those shadows, making the scene feel incredibly moody.
I like how the mystery presented at the end of this riddle plays with your expectations. You’d think to look for an X on the sand, but the X is actually on the map in the bottle. I also like how this scene balances natural and artificial objects, having just enough found artifacts scattered around the shells and branches to help break up the scene. What an excellent scene.
The Naughty Kittens
This one is super unique. This is the first time a scene has been a painting! And it’s… odd. The nursery rhyme imagery definitely changes the tone of this one, making it feel a little lighter-toned than the rest of the book. I like how 3d objects are incorporated into the painting, with rhinestones, a ring, and even a tiny teacup charm.
I really like the rhyme for this one, anything that rhymes “kittens” with “mittens” is good in my book. Additionally, four-and-twenty blackbirds is the most objects asked for in any of the books, making this one quite a long play. At some point, it stops becoming about things that are hard to find, and more about making sure you haven't counted the same ones twice, it’s a neat thing that doesn’t come up very often in this series.
The Secret Note
What an odd photo. This one feels to me like a composite of two previous photos, Make Believe, and Bulletin Board. From Make Believe, we have the more stereotypically feminine things, with the scene set on a dresser covered with jewelry and accessories, and the presence of other photographs, making me think of Bulletin Board. The hallmarks of mystery are still there, with the deep shadows giving a moodier tone.
An important thing to note about this one is the heart-shaped box in the lower-left corner. One of the extra mysteries presented at the end of this book is finding each item in the box in another photo! This adds a lot to the replay value of this book. I Spy Mystery is one of the few books that adds cross-book sub-games beyond just Extra Credit Riddles, and this photo is notable as the centerpiece of one of them. Otherwise… I don’t have that much to say about this one!
The Golden Cage
This is the pinnacle of the book and one of my absolute favorite photos that Wick’s ever crafted. I find myself drawn into the incredibly thick atmosphere this photo conveys. I always felt like this one was a basement, with the colder condensation on the window illuminated by the bright light from the outside, the rest of the basement cast in deeper shadows. The contrasting tones of mystery are brought as far as possible in this one.
The choice of subject matter is also excellent. Because the scene focuses on more natural subject matter instead of being an arrangement of toys, it feels far more naturalistic and real. It feels very much like a place that truly exists, a shelf of beautiful flowers. Of course, the usual I Spy prop density is still present, so the gameplay is totally intact despite how naturalistic the scene feels.
I have a highly distinct memory associated with this photo. When I was very, very young, before I was even in preschool, my mother ran a flower shop, and I’d be there with her during the day. One day, she took me to go to a supplier. Instead of her usual supplier in a nearby city, she took me to a much smaller one, on a farm in the foothills. The inside of the flower supplier she was visiting… It looked like this photo! In my mind, this photo has always represented that abstract memory of mine. I don’t know where that supplier was, it’s been more than 20 years… but it still stands out in my mind, somehow.
I love this photo uncontrollably. Everything comes together to form a grounded and intriguing scene that still maintains the search-and-find gameplay. This photo marks the beginning of the golden age of I Spy.
A Whale of a Tale
Beeeeeeeeeads. The previous scene is a really hard act to follow… but I really like beads. Beads are the ultimate small prop, they can have clearly distinguishable silhouettes, despite how miniscule they are. It’s sometimes hard to fit beads into other photos, with how small they are compared to other prop categories like toys, so a photo focusing entirely on beads is a nice way to use them.
I think this photo is a lot of fun. I really like how Wick arranges the long strings of beads to break up the overall photo, instead of making it a totally flat prop-scape. It’s really nice when Wick does this, it makes it easier to search systematically, since you can mentally categorize where you’ve looked already. I also really like the big whale in the center, it helps give you one big feature to focus on immediately.
This photo doesn’t have any unique photographic techniques, it’s just a fun, well-composed set of props on a white background. This one is great! I also… just really like beads.
Chain Reaction
Chain Reaction is an unusual note to end this book on. Compared to the rest of the book, it doesn’t feel particularly mysterious, though the moody lighting is still present. It’s yet another arrangement of props, though this time in a much more naturalistic floor setting. I quite like the rhyme in this one, it’s always fun to not directly rhyme props with each other, such as rhyming “Clover” with “Over.” I also like how the table and chair add a lot of depth to the scene. The perspective here reminds me of some of my early Visualize stuff, before I had a boom arm for top-down shots, so I could only position the camera at an angle like this.
This is an odd photo to talk about. It’s not the most exciting way to end this book, but it’s also not a bad scene by any means. This is a pretty average I Spy photo… but Wick’s average is still quite good, so it’s certainly not bad by any means.
Conclusion
I Spy Mystery is an outstanding book that really brings I Spy to the next level. The moody tone is excellent and brings a thematic consistency to the whole book, while maintaining the sense of variety last seen in the first I Spy book. In a way, Mystery is a re-interpretation of the original I Spy, using the experience from the previous books to make it far more evocative.
I also find that Mystery marks the beginning of the golden age of I Spy. From here on, the books will be far more atmospheric than what came before, using the new techniques from this book and bringing them to the next level.