I played a similar game once. You were in a professors house. and someone gae you tips over telephone. And you had to break the floor of the bath room at the upper floor.
Doorways in the Sand is a sci-fi novel with similar premise. When an object is "mirrored", the changes are even deeper - on molecular level. If structure of molecule is not symmetric, it changes a lot. E.g. whiskey tastes completely different. Think of adding this feature in the next game.
I get the idea of the "assistant". He is there not to make your game easier - he makes it harder on purpose. Same people order allways the same food. You can start cooking when you see them. When you take order via waiter, you can't see who's ordering
better detective puzzle game - Clue Sweeper. You also start as Novice and with solving cases you can buy tools that give you more action points or info about suspects
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