November was another busy month in the casual game realm, as developers increasingly realize what we've known all along: games are better with more adventuring! Here's a look at the most adventure-oriented casual titles of last month, plus a peek ahead and what's to come.
Note: Neither Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull, the latest installment of the groundbreaking hidden object hybrid series, or [game=]Crime Lab: Body of Evidence[/game], the casualized reimaging of Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny for the Nintendo DS, is included in this feature, as both will receive full reviews shortly.
Lite Adventures
Avenue Flo: Special Delivery
A year ago, PlayFirst’s popular Diner Dash series broke free of the restaurant for a whimsical lite adventure called Avenue Flo, and this year the gang from DinerTown are back in Avenue Flo: Special Delivery. Having saved the big day for Miss Big’s wedding the last time out, this time Flo must rescue a baby shower, as a pack of “pampered puppies” have destroyed everything at the last minute, and only our resourceful waitress can put it all right again in time. It’s another trite premise, to be sure, but really it’s just an excuse to get players out into the neighbourhood, talking to everyone she meets, collecting items, and solving all kinds of puzzles and minigames along the way.
There are familiar faces everywhere you go, like Bernie the bookworm and the Scrub Brothers, and everyone’s got something to say – literally, as the surprisingly large cast is all fully voiced. Most townsfolk are willing to help in your quest, but often have needs of their own in return. Fortunately, as you try to juggle numerous goals at once, Flo’s task list “napkin” is constantly updated, always making it perfectly clear what your objectives are at any given time. The map is equally helpful, not only showing you the various locations in town, but highlighting who you’ve met and what you’ve accomplished at each place, whether it’s the Dessert (don’t-spell-it-desert) Oasis, Fantasy Eye-Land, or the Baby Chic Boutique, to name just a few.
Obstacles run the gamut from super-simple inventory application to a diverse array of standalone puzzles and minigames. Assuming you’ve fully explored your current area, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be at a loss for what object to try where, so the lack of any kind of blatant hint feature shouldn’t be a concern. The other puzzles can be far more challenging, whether it’s choosing baby outfits from strict criteria, memorizing orders to help wait tables, wending your way through maze-like traffic jams, or sorting books on rapidly moving conveyor belts at the library. Each starts out simply, but almost all of them overstay their welcome by forcing a series of five straight, increasingly difficult versions of the same activity. As with the first game, better spacing of repeat tasks would have been far preferable, if at all, but they do all offer the option to skip entirely. There are no hidden object tasks in the conventional sense, but throughout each neighbourhood are scattered items to collect, including shower balloons and recyclable bottles to trade in for subway access to new areas. All this is wrapped in the same bright, cheerful graphics as before, once again accompanied by a jazzy soundtrack that really makes the game feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. If you’re in the mood for a few hours of breezy, lighthearted gameplay, then, you’ll probably find just what you’re looking for being served on Avenue Flo.
Hidden Object/Adventure hybrids
Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles
Sherlock Holmes is once again moonlighting in the casual realm between full-fledged adventures. For the first time, however, the great detective’s newest case is based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself – although only barely. Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles is only very loosely based on the famed novel of the same name, as Holmes and Dr. Watson head to the posh Baskerville Hall to investigate an alleged family curse. For generations, the Baskerville heirs have been murdered, apparently by a great mythical beast, and now the latest family descendent has asked for help. Ever the skeptic, Holmes agrees to the challenge, but what he discovers defies rational thought, as the sleuth must travel back and forth through time to the scenes of each Baskerville’s death for clues to the mystery.
Hidden object scenes have a tendency to pop up out of nowhere, but they’re very fairly infrequent and nicely designed, with easily identifiable items, at least on the casual difficulty setting. The harder mode makes items more challenging to find and lengthens the rechargeable hint feature for highlighting missing objects on the list. The tougher setting also impacts the many standalone puzzles, a nice mix ranging from sliders to tile-swapping to diverse jigsaw variations. The bypass option is still present, but it takes longer to access and the puzzles themselves are sometimes more challenging. The easier mode at times makes things a bit too “elementary”, as it rather quickly highlights interactive objects in the main environments that you probably won’t wish it to. That’s about the only blemish on an extremely user-friendly interface, however. A minimap not only shows you what rooms have current objectives, but you can instantly transport with just a click, removing much of the common lite adventure backtracking. When finished collecting a set of items, a popup window also asks if you wish to go straight to its source, which is usually a welcome convenience.
All this does cut into the play time, of course, but the game will still provide a few solid hours. The Collector’s Edition adds a substantial amount of bonus content with tougher puzzles that could take as much as a couple hours to work through. The extra segment challenges you to investigate another few deaths in a new area outside the manor, and only then is there any real attempt to resolve the actual mystery behind the killer hound, the original “ending” being rather anti-climactic in itself. Both versions contain the same crisp graphics and clever use of both past and present versions of the manor’s interior locations, each filled with eerie touches that emphasize a noble but troubled family, from stuffed mythical beasts to lab-experimented canine corpses to haunting portraits visibly distorted by death. Apart from item comments, the game is fully voiced with quality acting as well, and Holmes’ adventure fans will be pleased to know that the same actor reprises his role here. The orchestral music is also impressive, though at least one repeated piece is a bit overwhelming for the quieter onscreen events. Even so, it’s an attractive, polished presentation overall, and though much of the game bears very little resemblance to Doyle’s original classic, it’s an entertaining investigation in its own right that any casual adventure fan can enjoy.
Nightmare on the Pacific
Step aside, Titanic. Move over, Poseidon. Make way for the Neptune. In most respects, Little Games Company’s Nightmare on the Pacific is a fairly standard hidden object adventure: you’ll progress through an expanding series of environments, collect inventory to get past obstacles, solve the occasional puzzle, and scour the odd screen for lists of random junk. The difference is, here you’re doing it on a sinking ship. And what a difference that makes! While not adding any actual time pressure or tangible danger, the decision to set the game aboard the ill-fated Neptune luxury liner still trapped in a deadly storm at sea makes this one of the more dramatic and richly atmospheric casual adventures around. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there’s a solid game built around its disastrous (in a good way) premise along the way.
Visually the game doesn’t stand out, but it offers decent hand-drawn images of the ship, from private compartments to the dining hall and casino, even out onto the wind- and rain-lashed decks, though usually the circumstances dictate these scenes look more ruinous than opulent. Strangely, the display occupies only a thin middle section of the screen, the rest reserved for your inventory and objectives, which is a bit excessive. There are a few impressive cinematics of the ship’s ongoing demise, but the low resolution of these cutscenes makes them regrettably hazy. Where the mood is really cranked up is the sound department. Often forsaking music altogether, the sounds of the storm are omnipresent and foreboding, and a wide range of water effects are thoroughly convincing, as are the echoed pleas for help spurring you on. Some of the voice acting is a bit stilted, but you’re usually alone and the protagonist rarely speaks, and there aren’t any non-interactive hotspots to click on merely for observation. Rather than feeling like an omission, the lack of music perfectly suits the situation, as the dramatic tension comes from the desperation of the scenario itself. This sucker’s going down, time’s running out, and your kids are still missing. How it all turns out depends on which version you buy, as the Collector’s Edition includes and alternate ending, along with a bonus prequel chapter and strategy guide. You really can’t go wrong with either version, so really it’s whatever floats your boat. (Or sinks it, in this case.)
Mystery Age: The Dark Priests
In Digital Quarter’s Mystery Age: The Imperial Staff, the young, innocent Amber vanquished the Chaos Gods along with her shaman mother and father. Thirty years later and no longer a child, can Amber defeat the Chaos Gods’ evil followers who now threaten Westwind Village in Mystery Age: The Dark Priests? To answer that question, you’ll need to explore fantastical sets, meet a menagerie of animals, and play through a large swath of puzzles. The village is overrun with the Chaos God’s dark priests, and the task will be yours alone as all of the townsfolk have been turned into stone. Fortunately, before they were entrapped, the villagers left behind various clues about a great power that may help you overcome this menace.
Packed in between are a few slider, jigsaw, and logic puzzles, and even a somewhat frustrating fishing minigame that requires some dexterity to complete. There is a helpful skip option for all standalone puzzles in the game, and the hint feature highlights hidden objects and lets you know if there is something else left to do in a particular scene. There aren’t many such puzzles and not much variety, so whenever you’re stuck, chances are there’s a hidden object area that you’ve missed. And it’s easy to miss them, as many scenes only appear (often in places where you had already solved one) after you’ve viewed a critical object or solved a new puzzle.
While the tasks may get repetitive, you’ll explore a nice collection of colorful locales as you go. You’ll wander through several houses in Westwood Village and branch out across a cavernous gorge to a mysterious castle with suits of armor and book-bound libraries. You’ll make your way through mystical gardens and even catch a ride on a griffin to a floating castle with ghosts and lasers. In fact, you’ll meet so many different creatures, from dragons to three-headed dogs to winged demons, and view so many different scenes that the initial shamanic theme can become muddled and diluted. It's as if the creators tried to pack in as much imagery, puzzles, and creatures into one game in an effort to improve upon the first. Fortunately, while this introduces some tedious backtracking at times, it generally provides a lot of entertaining gameplay. The series has grown right along with Amber, and you’ll have a fun time exploring this sequel as a result.
Hidden Mysteries: Salem Secrets
The Hidden Mysteries series continues this month in Massachusetts, circa 1692. In Salem Secrets, players assume the role of Constable Hawthorne, whose first case is the investigation of four young girls who experienced strange tantrums and mysterious fits, then disappeared entirely from Salem. Local residents believe they have been influenced by witchcraft, and your task is to prove or refute the claims. To accomplish this, the Constable must explore the seemingly deserted town, looking for clues and items that may help him locate the missing children.
Inventory items are collected from completed HOG areas or while exploring the village itself. Some are automatically combined in your inventory to make a final object before use, while others are as simple as using a key on a door. Puzzles such as these are usually marked by a glowing white star, as are other items of interest such as notes and clues. There is a huge amount of backtracking involved, as items to be used together are often at opposing ends of the map, and sometimes new puzzles will appear at previously visited locations without any notice or explanation. This is frustrating, and results in the constant need to retrace your steps, as something new may have become available since you visited last.
The graphics lack much in the way of crisp detail or animation, but the dreary, cloudy village setting does successfully create an eerie atmosphere. The music is foreboding, though it’s somewhat over-used and becomes repetitive and monotonous over time. Hidden object hybrids often don’t feature many human characters, and this game is no different, so voices are used sparingly. At first this feels unnatural, but the emptiness does add to the creepy mood, creating a feeling of isolation that suits the story perfectly. In fact, given the underwhelming presentation and bog-standard gameplay, the thick, even unnerving atmosphere is perhaps the strongest feature of the game. That alone may be enough to make it worth a look, though for a game about witchcraft, there just isn’t much magic to be found in this version of Salem.
Upcoming Releases
Detective Voodoo
Although not yet available, it won’t be long until we’re seeing more of SMI Games’ Detective Voodoo. In this ambitious combination of film noir mystery, supernatural thriller, and a dash of cyberpunk high adventure, players assume the role of detective James Voodoo, who receives a written demand to return something in his possession or fear reprisal, though the warning note is anonymous and the threat doesn’t specify what’s been taken. But there are more immediate concerns to attend to in the meantime, as you’ve been asked to investigate a bank robbery in Richtown. This seemingly ordinary mystery proves to be much more, however, as you soon begin seeing mystical rune markings and red-eyed shadowy creatures lurking around you as you investigate.
Where the game looks to stand out is in its stylish presentation and surprising scope. It starts out quietly enough in Voodoo’s office, lingering there just long to collect a few things and feed his peculiar black cat. With dust particles floating in the moody lighting, and a light, jazzy score playing in the background, it feels like the start of another dark, gritty mystery for a hard-boiled private eye. From there, however, it’s off to the train station, where securing a ticket means overcoming some unexpected obstacles, then onto the ritzy Coins Express, where an act of sabotage forces you up onto the roof for a little derring-do as the nighttime scenery whizzes by. All this is presented in a lovely alternate-reality, 1920s-era style, with classic cars and flapper-fashioned women and coal-operated steam engines mixed with robot police. Richtown clearly lives up to its name, with deluxe skyscrapers, zeppelins flying overhead, and a giant statue in the middle of the central plaza. By this point you’ll have long forgotten about the game’s humble beginnings and feel like you’re involved in a grand adventure that’s hurtling along at a breakneck speed. And all that’s before you even get to the crime scene! Whether it’s able to sustain its momentum remains to be seen, but Detective Voodoo clearly shows promise in the lead-up to its targeted year-end completion.
Other Games of Interest
Mystery of Mortlake Manor
Progress is typically blocked by the occasional standalone puzzle involving such things as rune-matching and symbol-rotation, with the occasional inventory task thrown in for good measure. Another distinct feature of this game is its more stylized artwork, with thick, bold outlines highlighting its often dark, gritty environments (especially in the shadow realm). There’s some nice atmospheric music and voice acting as well, though the latter is rather spotty in quality, particularly the talking raven that urges you along. The elements are all here for a solid hidden object adventure, just with a lighter emphasis on puzzles and exploration, but don’t be surprised if it feels like you’ve been here, done all this before.
Fear for Sale: Mystery of McInroy Manor
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: you’re a reporter arriving at a stately old mansion that’s now haunted by an “evil presence”, and only you can uncover its terrible secrets and free the ghosts from the demonic curse that binds them. Yes, EleFun’s Fear for Sale: Mystery of McInroy Manor is anything but original. It’s the latest in the growing number of hidden object/lite adventuring hybrids, though this game leans heavily towards the scavenger hunting side. As you open up new rooms and areas of the manor grounds, you’ll collect inventory items and solve the occasional puzzle. There are only 15 total standalone puzzles in total, some of which are exclusive to the Collector’s Edition, and several are repeated, like arranging simple chronology patterns and lockpicking tasks that require mere seconds of trial-and-error. Inventory puzzles are similarly straightforward, the only real challenge being the contrived nature of finding the items you’ll need.
Fiction Fixers: The Curse of Oz
While its gameplay leans heavily towards the hidden object end of the spectrum, some light exploration and a variety of late-game puzzles just might make Fugazo’s Fiction Fixers: The Curse of Oz worth a look for casual adventure gamers. Well, that and the fun little storyline, which is twisted take on the L. Frank Baum classic. After mucking things up for Alice in Wonderland, the evil Illiterati agent Victor Vile is now sucking all the life and energy from the not-so-merry ol’ land of Oz. The gang’s all here, as players will meet, rescue, and team up with Dorothy (and her little dog, too!), the tin man, scarecrow, and the cowardly lion, each contributing a unique talent to the cause with the click of an icon.
The Mystery of the Dragon Prince
Nevosoft has a long and fairly accomplished track record in the casual realm, with popular games like Mushroom Age and Vampireville to its credit. That’s what makes The Mystery of the Dragon Prince such a surprise, as it’s a badly dated, poorly executed hidden object hybrid adventure that doesn’t come close to the company’s own highest standards. The premise is simple enough: A woman named Anna receives a letter imploring her to come to an old castle to save it, but the letter is 200 years old. Intrigued, she heads off to this castle (apparently she knows where it is from only a picture, because its location is never otherwise specified) and discovers that it’s fallen under a dark magic spell that has mystically preserved it, empty and unchanged for two centuries. At the urging of the old gardener who calls her “Countess”, Anna’s challenge is to explore the castle, solve its puzzles, and try to undo its curse.
That's it for now, but better get cracking if you like what you see, because we'll be back in the new year with more!
Jack Allin, Merlina McGovern, and Robin Parker contributed to this article.