• Log In | Sign Up

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Top Games
  • Search
  • New Releases
  • Daily Deals
  • Forums

Casual Collection - April 2011 releases

Casual Collection 8
Casual Collection 8

Ahhh, spring time... that delightful time of year when the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, the monsters are rampaging, killers are stalking prey, ghosts are manifesting, and horrific illegal experiments are being conducted. Okay, so maybe the life of a casual gamer isn't all sunshine and daisies, but there's plenty to keep eveyrone busy. April was yet another busy month of lite adventuring – so busy that we've reserved some titles, like Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water, Empress of the Deep 2 and The Tiny Bang Story, for upcoming reviews of their own. The news isn't all good, however, as a few new releases kick dirt on the graves of some familiar adventure franchises. May they rest in peace and never again inflict such abominable cruelty on unsuspecting gamers. Read on, then, to find out what's hot and what is most decidedly not in the casual gaming realm.
 



The Fool

Melanie Greeley

Long ago, a kingdom called DragonFang was besieged by an evil dragon. The King decreed that whoever killed the dragon and brought the bloody tooth as proof would have the princess's hand in marriage and half the kingdom. Many knights failed and died, but one young man decided to take his chances even though he lacked the appearance or stature of a knight. In fact, according to the narrator of the story, he’s the titular character of MagicIndie Softworks The Fool. Before all is said and done, however, he’ll have plenty of opportunity to show off his ingenuity, as what begins as a simple quest soon becomes a much larger adventure. While you might think a game about kingdoms and princesses and dragons would be firmly set in the Middle Ages, this particular game doesn't abide by these rules, as your travels take you through a dark kingdom of the undead, a steampunk city, an advanced village in the clouds, and finally the dragon’s own castle, all the while searching for useful items and solving numerous puzzles along the way.

Image #1The variety of different locations makes the game visually interesting, but there is no explanation for the sudden changes not only in scenery but in technology as well. You’ll go from hand-crafted carpentry to zombie-raising necromancy; from advanced robotics to balloon-propelled airships; from decorated Christmas trees to broken-down spacecraft. There’s no rhyme or reason for any of it, but as long as you take it in the whimsical, dream-like spirit it’s delivered, it’s easy to be charmed by the constant sense of progress through these fantastical lands. Each new area has a handful of screens to explore before advancing to the next, allowing a certain degree of freedom while still keeping you on course. Often you’ll be required to disguise yourself in order to gain access to new sections, so you’ll need to find attire ranging from a knight’s armor to ghost sheets to a baby dragon costume. There’s nothing at all strategic about this, as you’ll simply don the new duds at the appropriate time, but it’s a cute diversion highlighted by a change in the character portrait at the bottom of the screen.

As you go, you’ll encounter a moderate number of hidden object searches, some of which must be revisited to find different items later. These standalone scenes are not overly challenging, but one or two clearly-marked items on each list requires some form of interaction in order to reveal them, and rechargeable hints are available if necessary. Like the main adventure, these screens often include items that do not fit in with the current time period, unless they had slinkies and roller skates in the Medieval era. Any items you acquire by completing these searches, plus others you’ll discover on their own, are used to solve numerous inventory puzzles, all of which are fairly intuitive. That’s a good thing, as there are no hints available and no map of any kind as you explore, just a task list to remind you of your current objectives. The occasional logic puzzle can be a bit more difficult but most will seem familiar, whether it’s piecing together tangrams, sliding rows of tiles to form patterns, or tracing geometric shapes on a grid. There are also some light math problems to solve, a spatial image-rotating challenge, and a confusing tile-based minigame against an opponent whose rules for winning are very unclear. Some need to be completed multiple times in a row in order to proceed, but a puzzle skip option exists if you get stuck or sick of the repetition.

The game’s hand-drawn artwork is stylish and attractive, and there are some nice animated touches, like a storm thundering around you in the midst of a hidden object search, or a hilarious disembodied hand chasing a rolling eyeball across the floor. There are some impressive cinematics bookending the game, but it seems all the best cutscenes are reserved for the dragon, as all mid-game plot points are revealed through comic-styled panels. There is no voice acting throughout the main story either, though the game is capably supported by a diverse soundtrack that suits the atmosphere nicely. All in all, it’s a solid production offering a few hours of diverting entertainment, and it’s one of the welcome few new releases that doesn’t come with the obligatory “Collector’s Edition” extras. As long as you don’t question the many plot holes along the way, there’s a fun time to be had here. After all, the game is called The Fool, so it’s probably not a good idea to think too long and hard about what you’re seeing. Roll with it, and you’re laughing.


Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden

Jason L Blair

A mysterious woman has cursed a fantasy kingdom's royal family, trapping them in amber shells. Thanks to the quick reaction of her matronly caretaker, the infant princess is the only one who escapes. The babe is secreted away to live a peasant's life, while her family remains locked in time. Twenty years later, the princess, now a young woman, is told of her heritage and the duty that rests on her shoulders. The caretaker gives the girl a mystical amulet known as the Eye of Omniscience, which grants its wearer sight beyond sight, and our fair princess sets off to discover the truth behind her family's curse, lift the wicked spell, and confront the dark hag that imprisoned her family in ERS Games's hidden object adventure, Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden.

Image #2The story is quickly summarized before launching into the game proper, a pacing that carries through the rest of the game as well. Objectives are never far from each other, and there is something about the presentation and general ease of the puzzles that gives the game a good sense of motion. A lot of puzzles require only simple inventory solutions, but some, including a potion-making segment, a tile-matching game where the pieces move after each turn, and a devious slide puzzle with very restrictive parameters, give the game a much-needed dose of variety and challenge. While you are given the opportunity to skip any puzzle, the harder ones are engaging enough that you'll probably want the satisfaction of working through them. When hidden object tasks come up, they tend to appear one after another after another, not giving your eyes much rest between searches. Each screen has a set list of items and you'll visit most of the areas at least twice to find new objects. The backgrounds are fairly dense but no item is unduly obscured, though some objects become visible only after you interact with or combine other objects. You will see the same items appear over and over, but they fit the setting well at least. The game employs a standard hint system, highlighting a hidden object or letting you know if there is nothing left to do in a particular area as you explore. Even on the more forgiving challenge level, though, the hints recharge slowly.

Despite its ominous-looking loading screen, displaying a little girl sobbing by a large body of water while a dark figure looms in her shadow, the majority of the graphics and sound design have a breezy feel. The game takes place around a small number of locations, such as the grounds outside a humble cottage and the family's palatial estate, that are well-rendered in a hand-drawn style using a soft palate of colors, reminiscent of pastel crayon drawings. While not a horror game, Amber Maiden does employ a few sudden encounters with the supernatural to good effect. The story is told through journals, notes, and discussions with folks like the caretaker and others who have encountered the curse in the past. Conversations are fully voiced, with dialogue delivered via talking heads that take up most of the screen. You can skip these interactions at any point but the characters aren't verbose and the story moves snappily. While the dialogue doesn't demand much from the actors, the voice work is quite competent, as is the game's score. If you've ever spent the day at a Renaissance Faire, you're familiar with the type of music in this game. The soundtrack works, and backs the high fantasy tone of the game well.

Clocking in at three to four hours, the game delivers a well-told story and ends with a satisfying, if abrupt, conclusion. The Collector's Edition rewards you with an extra chapter that picks up a month after the events of the main story. In it, you explore some new areas and revisit some old ones while on a quest to root out the heart of evil that lies beneath the family estate. The new segment adds more of the same distribution of puzzles and item searches as the main game within its hour of extra gameplay. Right off the bat, the bonus material addresses one of the niggling threads unanswered by the main game and ends the story with fitting, and decisive, closure. While not a difficult game overall, Spirits of Mystery: Amber Maiden spins a charming fantasy yarn and offers a fair bit of smart puzzling amongst its casual play in either version. If that sounds like a good way to spend an evening to you, this spirit is well worth inviting into your home.


The Agency of Anomalies: Mystic Hospital

Merlina McGovern

Hospitals can be places full of hope and fear. Some of the patients in Orneon’s The Agency of Anomalies: Mystic Hospital got much larger doses of fear than healing when they checked in. As an agent trained to search out paranormal activity, you are called in to investigate illegal experiments conducted on patients in a Great War-era hospital. As you explore the now-decrepit building, you’ll encounter the results of Dr. Odin Dagon’s awful research, a series of mutated humans who exhibit some fantastic powers, including the ability to freeze you on sight as well as electrify everything in their path. Your discovery of each super-soldier brings you one step closer to unlocking a dimensional vortex, something that Dagon hopes will open up a permanent portal between the paranormal and normal worlds. Fortunately, you’ll also discover a lot of creepy animations, fun interaction, and a good bit of puzzling fun along the way.

 

Image #3The wartime destruction visited upon the hospital is evident everywhere you look, as skeletons are strewn about, mingled with debris, shell casings, and the wreckage of bombed-out buildings. The artwork is finely detailed, with features such as bone saws in a morgue and rust stains from a chain hanging against a crumbling wall adding small touches of horror. Aside from the cinematics, which are fairly standard camera pans across 2D sepia-toned stills, there are plenty of supporting animations that really bring the world to life, from a rat running across your path to an eyeball tracking your every move. You’ll even be able to interact with certain objects by clicking on them, causing a chair to rock or a skeleton to shake its foot. The dominant color is a sickly green patina, which is appropriately reminiscent of military hospitals, but the washed-out colors can make it difficult to spot inventory items in their natural environments. This problem is resolved in the game’s regular mode, however, as interactive areas sparkle.

You’ll also need to solve a variety of hidden object searches. These scenes vary from finding objects on a list to placing objects from your list into their rightful places. Any item that requires a bit more than a simple click is listed in red. For these you’ll need to find something else in the same scene to prepare the object before you can pick it up. The searches are well-integrated for the most part, as you’ll be looking for gas masks, war medals, and hospital equipment, and a hint button will help you find any elusive objects. The handy hint system will also zoom in on inventory puzzles in main screens, or if you’ve already exhausted all hotspots in the current area, it will let you know that the screen is clear of paranormal activity, eliminating the need to search the same rooms over and over again. There are also a variety of non-inventory puzzles, including lock-picking, jigsaw, and tile puzzles. These are usually fairly easy to solve, but should you need it you’ll have access to a skip button, though it takes time to charge before using it. As an added fun element, old-time postcards are scattered throughout the game. Find them all, or solve puzzles without the skip or hint buttons, and the game will reward you with various achievements.

In the Collector’s Edition, you’ll find a portal in the hospital that you had overlooked; it sucks you into a forgotten wing of the hospital chock full of paranormal activity. There isn’t too much story in this hour-plus bonus chapter, as you’ll just be trying to figure out how to return to the real world. This segment presents a higher percentage of hidden object scenes (very often in the same places) than the main game and tends to repeat non-inventory puzzles. You also get the option to replay minigames from the main episode as well as gain access to a strategy guide. It’s not a bad add-on, but it isn’t nearly as well balanced as the four-hour main game, which allows you to slowly gather information about Dr. Dagon’s deadly experiments. Mix in a variety of fun animations and puzzles, and The Agency Of Anomalies: Mystic Hospital is one hospital you won’t mind visiting even if you aren’t sick.


Gravely Silent: House of Deadlock

Jack Allin

It’s hard not to feel like you’ve been there, done that with everything you’ll find in Vogat Interactive’s Gravely Silent: House of Deadlock. But if you’ve liked what you’ve encountered in previous visits to haunted castles full of ghosts to release, puzzles to solve, and hidden objects to locate, you’ll probably like it all over again here. This time it’s a quest to help your recently-departed sister, who appears to you in a dream with a plea to rescue her soul. A frantic trip to the eerie Rainheart Castle reveals that dear Jennie was the fifth wife of Richard, all of whom died under equally suspicious circumstances. You’ll soon find out why, as their spirits still linger on the grounds, trapped by a curse that binds them there forever. To free them, you’ll need to gain access to the dreamlike “netherworld” of each woman and break the spell that’s holding them.

 

Image #4Easier said than done, of course, because there are a whole slew of obstacles standing in your way. Some are natural (if unnaturally imposing) and require little more than inventory to solve, like hungry owls to feed, poisonous snakes to drug, and giant spiders to… well, just avoid, but most are of the contrived puzzle variety. Doors and chests are routinely “locked” with complex mechanisms, most of which are conveniently missing parts needed to complete them. Once you’ve tracked down all the missing tiles, keys, shards, or other components, you’ll then get to rotate symbols into order, identify themes, construct jigsaws, connect wires, and light tiles in limited moves. Many are familiar tropes and some are merely busywork, like a few tile-switching exercises and Simon tasks, but a few feel fresh, like a scrolling colour-matching sequence and a sketch to fill in with real elements onscreen once all conditions are met. Few are particularly difficult, but you’ll need to click the “hint” button just for basic instructions, and one tile-removal puzzle in the Collector’s Edition bonus chapter finally drove me to the skip option.

I was less disappointed with the nature of the puzzles than the often underwhelming benefit of solving one. Like many casual games, all too often the reward is simply a new piece to another puzzle – did someone really feel the need to lock a crowbar in a treasure chest? This keeps the pace moving at a very measured, deliberate pace, but a little more effort to disguise it would be nice. Some items can only be attained through hidden object hunts, most of which are lists of random items, with a few set and pair collections mixed in. Usually these appear in logical areas and only rarely do they recur, though a few sneak into locations you’ve already cleared, so a little step-retracing is necessary. The hunts themselves suffer somewhat from a reliance on small objects in overly-cluttered screens, and finding some requires interacting with the environment first. Such items are clearly marked in the list, but the actions needed can be far from intuitive. More than once I tried a combination that made far more sense to me than the solution that eventually proved correct. A rechargeable hint option is available, but I found myself forced to use it a bit more often than I’d have preferred.

It can be hard to see interactive items in the main environments, too, though a sparkle should eventually alert you on the easier difficulty setting. The hand-drawn backgrounds aren’t particularly crisp, but they’re nicely designed with appropriate creep factor mixed in, from skeleton bones to cobweb-lined crypts. Surprisingly, the “netherworld” settings are often less nightmarish than the real world, displaying artistic theater sets and lush gardens, in stark contrast to the cloudy, nighttime exploration of the castle and its immediate environs. A suitably moody soundtrack rounds out the ambience without ever standing out as memorable or noticeably repetitive. All this will keep you going for quite some time, as the main game should take well over three hours to complete and provides adequate resolution to the fates of the castle’s ghosts. The Collector’s Edition offers another solid hour of similar gameplay in new locations, providing insight into the reasons behind Richard’s vile deeds against his wives and bringing closure to his story as well. Both endings, unfortunately, are punctuated by lame cinematics that are far too rushed to feel at all satisfying. A final last misstep doesn’t ultimately diminish your solid progress through the adventure itself, however. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but Gravely Silent should quietly win you over with its sure footing over familiar ground.


Voodoo Whisperer: Curse of a Legend

Shuva Raha

If it's a game about voodoo, it must be in The Big Easy. Sure enough, in Funswitch’s Voodoo Whisperer: Curse of a Legend, an ominous cloud swirls over late 19th century New Orleans as young Lillian is informed by her voodoo priestess mentor that a malevolent force has cursed the residents. Now it's up to Lillian to eliminate the evil entity, and as she seeks to discover the source of the maladies by solving puzzles and scouring a variety of hidden object scenes, she’ll also learn more about her own supernatural gifts in the process.

 

Image #5Lillian’s adventure begins on her own sprawling estate, which includes a mansion, a chapel, the family crypt and the obligatory backyard swamp lorded over by a hungry crocodile. Eventually she’ll make her way into town, encountering a population of seven along the way – four of whom are cursed, two are dead (though momentarily revivable by magic) and of course the villain. A map marks Lillian's current and completed locations, but with only four main areas (or five if you include the hotel, fully integrated in the Collector’s Edition) to visit in sequence, it has no practical use. The task list is similarly redundant, noting the two or three objectives per location which, given the strict linearity of proceedings, are impossible to forget anyway. Unlike in most games, players can toggle between the two difficulty modes at any time – regular has faster hint recharging and sparkling hotspots, while the advanced mode only has hints.

Lillian largely searches for usable items to solve inventory quests, though she does occasionally find simple standalone challenges, including pipes, image-matching and jigsaws. She can also use voodoo spells on certain items, such as the useful 'Move', which shifts heavy objects. The inventory puzzles are logical and easy to solve, and are well-integrated into the story apart from a few awfully contrived situations in pursuit of regular household objects. Two interesting items are added to Lillian's arsenal midway through the first chapter: a mortar, used to combine ingredients to create dolls and potions, and a grimoire, a book which stores the recipes and spells to enchant them. This adds intricacy and focus to the game, nicely incorporating the spirit of voodoo and elevating it slightly from just being a run-of-the-mill scavenger hunt.

The 16 hidden object screens (and several more in the CE bonus chapter) are elaborately designed, though many are repeated unnecessarily to pad playing time. The objects are era- and location-appropriate and reasonably well-concealed, and the main challenge comes either from item names no longer in our vocabulary, such as a pocket tinderbox and a boneshaker, or from familiar-sounding items like a pencil case or stethoscope looking quite different a couple of centuries ago. Unfortunately, objects are recycled between screens without remorse, and many necessary items are arbitrarily disposed of, forcing you to continually collect tools of similar purpose like garden shears, a saw, a cake knife, a pocket knife, a pen knife, and several sorts of scissors. Most areas fully explored are marked onscreen as completed, but there is still a lot of needless backtracking required to fetch objects you can only observe at first, and to find hidden object scenes you’ve already searched that have been activated again without any indication.

Image #6Easily the prime asset of this game is its beautiful, realistic screens, each of which is meticulously drawn with numerous little flourishes that bring both the genteelness of the era and the darkness of its evil to the fore. A few cutscenes of static images intersperse the story, while the rare conversations are displayed as text dialogues, with voiceovers limited to the beginning of the game. The music efficiently supports the art to create a morose if mildly perilous atmosphere, and is bolstered by sound effects like cracking thunder, creaking swings and croaking frogs. Another highlight is Lillian herself. She's an intelligent and spunky child, and leads the game with sensitivity and courage. She describes objects and situations in detail, provides straightforward instructions on how to resolve most quests, and ultimately confronts the villain with great determination. Players, however, are only given a half-baked explanation of the crisis before being summarily cursed with a 'to be continued' at the end.

It doesn’t even take long to reach that point, as even the expanded Collector's Edition can be completed in three-odd hours. Rather than simply tacking an extra chapter onto the end, this CE inserts its single bonus location, Barlowe’s Hotel, seamlessly into the main game as one of five places visited by Lillian. This brief chapter, which features a few inventory quests, a handful of hidden object screens and one jigsaw puzzle, doesn't add any new revelations to the investigation; it merely boosts playing time by a half hour. Overall, Voodoo Whisperer: Curse of a Legend is an attractively crafted game that's unfortunately pinned down by a lukewarm mystery, repetitive item searches, needless backtracking and an abrupt cliffhanger ending, so step in only if you're keen on soaking up the spooky New Orleans atmosphere and rummaging through the delightful antique-laden hidden object screens.


Dark Ritual

Jack Allin

Vogat Interactive pulled double duty this month, as along with Gravely Silent the Russian developer also released Dark Ritual. This time the story revolves around a police detective’s search for her missing sister, though the tale quickly takes a turn for the surreal. What begins as a raid on the home of Dr. Brown, a scientist believed to be conducting illegal experiments, soon spirals into a life-and-death investigation into mind control substances that date all the way back to the Incans. Unfortunately, while managing to deliver a few solid hours of puzzle- and hidden object-filled gameplay, the mindlessness isn’t limited to the not-so-good doctor’s subjects alone, as the plot is so ridiculously flimsy and the scenarios so contrived that your own eyes will soon be glazing over with the absurdity of it all.

Image #7The story, such as it is, takes players from an inexplicably puzzle-laden mansion to a secret medical laboratory, then on through an underground subway to a bizarre airfield from which Dr. Brown intends to escape. The only real goal is find your sister and the FBI agent who foolishly stormed in ahead of you and got himself mind-wiped. Along the way, you’ll find some incredibly incriminating notes that lay out the entire backstory and the doctor’s evil plans. Presumably conviction won’t be a problem, but you’ll need to catch him first. Helping in that regard are some equally helpful visions courtesy of the doctor’s own serum, which poisons you but doesn’t manage to overwhelm you completely. You’ll need all the help you can get, because pretty much nothing else that happens makes the slightest lick of sense. Logic puzzles are everywhere for no apparent reason, from lamp alignment obstacles that open the doctor’s front door to pattern-tracing puzzles to power a train to resuscitating a mannequin(??) in strictly-defined steps. If you love puzzles and don’t ask questions, it’s easy to lose yourself in the many challenges here, from sliders to symbol-matching to coded sequences. But if you like integration and find yourself joining the protagonist in asking “Why does a soda machine carry acid?”, you’ll get no answers at all.

Puzzle difficulty is usually quite manageable, though a few are quite devious, like simultaneously guiding a pair of keys around a trapped-based grid. Part of the challenge stems from the poor instructions, however, which were no help at all to me in figuring out the chess-like final puzzle. There are some inventory puzzles as well, and while the solutions are always intuitive, the integration is once again lacking. Why we need to bring an electrified doll five items of her choosing before she vanishes into thin air isn’t rationalized at all – just shake your head, accept it and move on. This can make it difficult to know what to do next, especially since the sparkles that highlight interactive areas rarely ever sparkle, even on the easier difficulty setting, and hotspots are difficult to distinguish from the background details. This is at least partly because the hand-drawn graphics are often hazy and dull, with a colour palette so muted that the yellow-skied abandoned airfield looked almost post-apocalyptic. Rather than retracing my steps and cursor-sweeping each scene for some detail I’d overlooked, more than once I resorted to the hint system, which not only guides you to the nearest interactive area of interest, the clue provided is often a pointed one about what needs to be done when you get there.

Hints may also come in handy during the game’s many hidden object hunts. There are quite a few random item searches, many of them repeat visits to the same scenes, albeit always for different items. There is no map to consult, but while there is some puzzle-solving backtracking involved, the game does a fairly good job of directing you towards the next item search instead of sneaking new ones in where you least expect them. Unfortunately, the murky graphics factor in here as well, as each scene is quite cluttered and some of the smaller items are quite hard to spot. The occasional interaction is also necessary to reveal items that aren’t currently visible, though such items are clearly marked. Strangely, the tone played for each correct object is a rather grating noise, though the rest of the sounds are better, from ambient cawing crows and clock chimes to a suitably eerie soundtrack. There’s nothing memorable about it, but it never feels repetitive during the three or so hours it will take to complete. Whether you’ll find it’s worth the effort depends entirely on what you value in your casual games. If you like crisp visuals and compelling stories, you won’t find them in the shady depths of Dark Ritual, but if all you care about are puzzles and object hunts, there’s enough here to feel like a slow-drip IV that will keep your mind occupied all the way through.


Snark Busters 2: All Revved Up

Jack Allin

Alawar Stargaze’s Snark Busters 2: All Revved Up arguably doesn’t belong in this article, as it’s rather light on adventure and heavy on hidden fragment searches, but it makes it by virtue of being just so darn charming and fun. The sequel to last year’s Welcome to the Club once again challenges players to prove themselves worthy of admission to a group dedicated to finding the speedy snark, a mythical creature that has so far eluded capture. It’s not at all necessary to have played the first game, or even know what a snark is going in, because the all-new protagonist sure hasn’t. This time it’s Jack Blair, race car extraordinaire, who takes up the mantle of his legendary grandfather, who disappeared many years earlier in pursuit of the snark. Apparently now there’s a high-speed car capable of catching up with the creature, and no one is more qualified to drive it than Jack. The only problem is, there are six doors in the way, each one leading to a surreal world of steampunk landscapes, bizarre obstacles, reality-altering mirrors, and lots and lots of broken items.

 

Image #8What’s a problem for Jack is good news for gamers, of course, because there’s so much that need to be done. Supported by cheery jazz and toe-tapping ragtime tunes, each world consists of a handful of brightly-coloured cartoon-styled graphics packed full of imaginative, oddball details. There is no continuity between locations: one minute you’re prepping your wheels for the big “Formula 0” race coming up and the next you’re catching fireflies outside giant treehouses. Later, after barely averting an airship disaster, you’ll find yourself at a carnival funhouse in various states of disrepair and in a museum of broken prehistoric displays. The absurdity only begins here, however, as you also have the ability to travel between magical mirrors that lead to an alternate version of each current dimension. In theory, this “backward” realm is supposed to be stranger than reality, but in a world that already contains robotic dogs, giant spiders, metal-cutting sawfish and fingerprint scanners, jumping to a plane full of magic wands, energy balls, and human bone xylophones is really like stepping from Oz into Wonderland. The game makes no attempt to rationalize its weirdness, but no apology is needed, as you’ll gladly just roll with it to see what bizarre scenario you’ll encounter next.

The rule of “anything goes” applies to the gameplay as well. Each screen is littered with fragmented objects you’ll need to collect and reassemble in order to overcome the various inventory obstacles in your path. Again, there is no attempt to justify this contrived task, as pieces are scattered willy nilly for no obvious reason, but gathering them all is mindlessly rewarding. Very few items can be completed by observation alone, however. Many objects include parts that are not currently visible (clearly marked to easily distinguish from those that are), and you’ll have to interact with the environment, solve puzzles, or even perform other tasks on totally different screens in order to reveal them. This gives the game a fairly open-ended feel at the start of each world, before gradually funneling to a more focused, linear progression near the end. Some of the necessary triggers are a bit too random, resulting in the occasional “what do I do now?” moment, but for the most part you’ll have a fairly clear idea of your next move even without a task list or journal of any kind. If you do need a nudge, the rechargeable hint feature will highlight visible item fragments or interactive areas currently accessible, or point the way to the nearest solvable puzzle.

The “standalone” puzzles come in all shapes and sizes. Most will be familiar, as you’ll rotate gears, align pipes, play musical notes, and turn mismatched lights out, but some are nicely incorporated, like posing a dinosaur skeleton, developing film, and matching a scale model to certain conditions. Several puzzles require codes or clues found elsewhere, even from multiple sources, so you’ll need to pay attention to relevant details along the way, as the game records some but not all of them for convenience. There are a few minigames that require a bit of hand-eye coordination, like fishing with a magnet, shooting (toy) ducks, or guiding coloured balls into their correct holes, but nothing that requires any fast reflexes. A puzzle skip option is available in a pinch, but most of the puzzles are fairly easy. That doesn’t mean you’ll whip through the game, however, as there’s enough variety of content to ensure several hours of play time – all of it entertaining. There’s no storyline to speak of, but unlike so many games that try to force a serious narrative into their lite gameplay framework, Snark Busters 2 embraces its casual nature with flourish and zeal. Give it a try and you’ll soon find yourself forgetting all about why you’re doing it; you’ll just be happy you are. In a world this delightfully silly, even catching the snark is a secondary concern, because the real adventure is the thrill of the hunt, and there’s plenty of hunting to do.


The Treasures of Mystery Island: The Ghost Ship

Merlina McGovern

Blue skies, crystal clear water, and a tropical island – sounds like paradise. Unfortunately for the residents of Santa Rossa island, their idyllic life is haunted by an overwhelming number of ghosts. As a visiting journalist, you’ve got the necessary investigative skills to determine what has these ghosts all riled up in Alawar’s The Treasures of Mystery Island: The Ghost Ship. A quick glimpse of the past sets the table in the opening cinematic, as an awesome and terrible wave gathers, strengthens, and threatens to engulf a huge luxury liner, the Queen Margaret. What happens to the ship and all of its passengers is left for you to discover in the present day, 60 years after that event. There's a lucrative reward to whoever can rid Santa Rossa of its ghosts, and you’ll spend your time scouring many scenic locales for necessary object fragments and puzzling your way through a spirit-filled escapade.

 

Image #9Although this is the third game in the series, there is virtually no connection at all to the first two games. During your visit, you’ll be looking for your friend, who came earlier in search of paranormal adventures. She’s now missing, and finding her won’t be easy, as what seems at first like a tiny island soon expands to include close to sixty different locations spread out across four main areas. Locations range from the dock and puddle jumper you flew in on to island huts and mysterious temples. You’ll even visit a photo studio hopping with monkeys. All of these areas have nicely detailed artwork, which somehow manages to blend tropical images with a ghostly feel. The brief bit of sunshine that welcomes you to the island is short-lived, as you’ll mostly investigate the island at twilight or later. The game eschews bright primary colors in favor of more subdued indigos and the glowing golden hues of sunset. Despite the dark lighting, there are fun supporting animations that are lovely to look at. In a temple of fire and ice, you’ll see molten globules of lava suspended next to floating ice shards and a fire bellowing out of a stone animal head over an old-time smelting pot.

While you can’t use it for quick travel, a map shows you all locations and helps you chart your progress, indicating which areas are still undiscovered, which ones you’ve explored, and which have items of interest. It isn’t too difficult to find what you’re looking for, as item hunts are fully integrated into the game. Every scene contains something you need, displayed at the bottom of the screen, though they’re broken into fragments. If you scroll over the objects in your “find” menu, they break apart so you can see which pieces you still need. Once you’ve completed an object, it moves into a “use” menu. You’ll occasionally come across a blinking red fragment, which indicates that you’ll need to use a completed object first to recover the missing red piece. Areas where you can use completed objects sparkle on the game’s “casual” level but not the harder difficulty setting. In addition to the fragment searches, you’ll also be required to find multiple items of the same type, as well as standalone objects needed to solve inventory puzzles. Each scene also contains what the game calls “beyond objects.” These unlisted objects subtly shift form periodically. While it’s fun to try to spot all of them, it’s purely an optional bonus that has no real relevance to the game.

You’ll also find some key items by solving logic puzzles, from jigsaws to tile and memory puzzles. There aren’t very many of these types of puzzles, and they are easy for the most part, though there’s a skip button should you find yourself stumped. Also useful is the hint system, which not only points out hidden fragments, but also indicates which direction you should go if you have exhausted all possibilities in a particular area and need to decide where to go next. Along the way, you’ll have to give some of the items you discover to the motley crew of characters you’ll encounter, ranging from a famous ballerina to a sculptor to an archery expert. You won’t be speaking to any of them, however, as most of them are ghosts.

As you progress, you’ll pick up clues to what the Queen Margaret has to do with the current day Santa Rossa. Unfortunately, the further along you get in this four-hour game, the more the story becomes over-complicated. Discovered notes and your own journal entries mention people you’re apparently supposed to know, but because the full tale becomes so much more than a ghost story, throwing in angry Polynesian deities, stolen idols, and shamans, the details can be difficult to follow. Despite the convoluted plot, however, the sheer number of locations to puzzle through in The Treasures of Mystery Island: The Ghost Ship make this one haunted island that’s a pleasure to explore, and you won’t be in any hurry to leave.


Art of Murder: The Secret Files and Art of Murder: Deadly Secrets

Jack Allin

Oh, how the mediocre have fallen. City Interactive’s Art of Murder series was never particularly good, but once a year from 2008-2010 it provided a competent new serial killer whodunit for adventure fans. Since then there have been TWO new installments, which sounds like a good thing. The trouble is, both Art of Murder: The Secret Files and Art of Murder: Deadly Secrets have shifted far into casual territory and suffered horribly in the conversion. The Secret Files, which was actually released to retail late last year but only now making the downloadable rounds, is by far the more “substantial” of the two, though only by relative comparison to its shockingly brief and atrocious successor, whose most egregious crime isn’t murder, but stealing money from unsuspecting buyers.

 

Image #10The new games once again star FBI Special Agent Nicole Bonnet, though as first-person titles, the only times you’ll see Nicole are the introductory and closing cinematics, plus a small headshot during non-interactive dialogues. The FBI connection has always been tenuous in this series, and that’s true here as well. In Secret Files, a chemist helping the DEA in Mexico has been kidnapped, and naturally only the Bureau’s serial killer expert can save him from a drug cartel. Huh? Deadly Secrets is at least about something the FBI would investigate, as a number of antique dealers are dying across New York City, and a serial killer may be involved. Not that anything Nicole does is worthy of a federal agent. She’ll casually peruse a few crime scenes, non-chalantly interview the odd witness, and analyze evidence by means of light puzzle-solving, but that’s only when she isn’t fixing neon signs for shopkeepers, helping clean a bar to ensure cooperation, or organizing a prison archive. She does get to dust a weapon for fingerprints and spray Luminol under a UV light – once – and draw her own three-part facial reconstruction sketch, largely by means of trial and error (that’s what the FBI gets for not sending a real artist), but most of Nicole’s time is spent searching for random lists of junk.

That’s true of all hidden object hybrids, of course, so a little casual liberty is to be expected. Unfortunately, here it’s shoehorned in so forcibly that it feels completely contrived. The series’ first foray into hidden object territory, the “casualized” Nintendo DS game Crime Lab: Body of Evidence, at least made an effort to involve relevant clues and items in organic situations, but these games throw all such pretense out the window. Time to search a crime scene? Better find a fish, a turtle, and a lion while you’re at it. Even that wouldn’t be so bad if it were any fun at all, but it isn’t. Hidden object screens are shown at a distance, and listed items are often very small and partially obscured. I don’t know about the FBI, but if I was looking for an incriminating cigarette butt or bullet, I’d probably step forward for a closer look instead of literally pixel hunting from across the room. There’s a hint option available, but it charges fairly slowly, so you’ll want to keep an eye out for extra pocketwatches that serve as additional hints. You’ll be glad to have a couple extra stockpiled when you hit the timed searches. Why you need to find twenty lab tubes with a timer ticking down is beyond me, but you’ll need to start over from the beginning if you fail. These timed segments are triggered unannounced, so you’d best keep an eye on the hourglass each time to see if it’s dwindling. I got caught unaware more than once, having no reason to think I was under the gun.

When not scavenging useless clutter, which makes up the vast majority of the gameplay, you’ll encounter the odd inventory and logic puzzle. In Secret Files these run the gamut from piecing together jigsaw strips, connecting wires, arranging a 3x3 slider to decode an obvious clue you can easily figure out without it, and aligning gears to operate a… well? (Pretty sure those run on standard cranks.) Some of these tasks are mildly integrated, like matching wounds to weapons, finding map locations from word fragments, and making rubbings, but even these are made arbitrarily difficult: slicing through a prisoner’s bounds can only be done in the correct order of layers or it suddenly resets, while processing evidence means playing a game of Concentration with extremely similar shapes and colours to choose from. If the goal is a little unclear, there are no instructions to help get you started, clicking anything but the correct hotspot typically yields no response at all, and there’s no skip button at all. That’s almost unheard of in casual game circles, but this game is determined to make you slog your way through, no matter how little fun you’re having. Deadly Secrets largely avoids that problem by making puzzles practically non-existent instead: a couple simple jigsaws and a few brain-dead-easy item comparisons that can barely even be called puzzles are the best you’re going to get.

 

Image #11Even with the imposed time-lengtheners, neither game is long. Secret Files clocks in at two and a half hours, tops, while Deadly Secrets is so unbelievably, appallingly short you might be able to finish it all in a one-hour demo (though I suspect the trial sampler is more limited than that, for obvious reasons). In both cases, that’s plenty of time to be dreadfully disappointed by the quality of both the gameplay and the production values. Neither game is visually attractive, displayed only in a needlessly thin bar across the middle of the screen and showing nondescript locations like apartments, hotels, offices, and gas stations. I’m pretty sure I even saw the subway tunnels in Deadly Secrets in a previous Art of Murder adventure game. Secret Files’s streets of Mexico are more appealing, but you’ll merely glimpse those in passing as you move from sparkle to interactive sparkle in the two or three screens available at any time. There is no voicework at all, only poorly translated text to read, but conversations are short and dull, so you’ll want to quickly click through them anyway. Really the only GOOD part of either game is the music, which is a moody mix of pieces with the occasional local flavour blended in where appropriate, like some native chants and Mexican brass.

Whatever you thought you knew about Art of Murder before, it clearly no longer applies. It’s one thing to move a series in a casual direction, it’s quite another to churn out dismal products like these two games (and Deadly Secrets in particular). The switch to primarily hidden object gameplay will turn off many adventurers, and the quality of the actual results should scare off everyone else. It’s sad to see even a mediocre adventure franchise diminished to such a sorry state, but here’s hoping the abject failure of The Secret Files and Deadly Secrets serves as a wake-up call for City Interactive. With mailed-in efforts like these, it’s obvious the publisher no longer cares. As of now, neither should you.


Chronicles of Mystery: The Legend of the Sacred Treasure

Jack Allin

Having mastered the art of murdering one franchise, City Interactive went right to work on ruining another with the release of Chronicles of Mystery: The Legend of the Sacred Treasure. Like its whodunit counterpart, Chronicles of Mystery began life as a decent but underwhelming traditional adventure (and sequel), then similarly dipped a first toe into casual territory with a pair of DS conversions that streamlined gameplay significantly while still retaining some degree of adventuring appeal. Now, just as Art of Murder devolved largely into hidden object shovelware, so too has The Legend of the Sacred Treasure taken just about everything worth valuing from the Chronicles of Mystery legacy and stripped it bare in favour of ill-fitting scavenger hunts amidst a cringe-inducing, badly-translated story. The saddest part is, it’s sullied the franchise’s “good” name for no reason at all, as the new game shares nothing in common with its adventure predecessors, including its heroine.

 

Image #12Sylvie Leroux must have been unavailable this time (perhaps she read the script and wisely passed), as the star of the previous Chronicles is nowhere to be found. Instead, young reporter Chelsea Connor is seeking clues to her father’s mysterious death twenty years earlier. Her search sends her to the Institute of Anthropology, where she hopes to meet with a former colleague of her father’s just prior to the opening of a new African exhibit. Unfortunately, much like this series, it turns out the once-respected Professor Remy has let himself go and is now a homeless bum, leaving Chelsea to split her time between the Institute and the rainy streets of New York, performing menial tasks for cops, porters, and hobos in exchange for cooperation. Eventually her efforts lead her all the way to an African villa to meet a self-proclaimed prince with a personal interest in Chelsea’s research and an unknown connection to her father. Naturally, the only way to piece this mystery together is by… collecting lots of junk!

I could cut and paste most of the criticisms from Art of Murder here, as pretty much the same disastrous formula has been used to equally atrocious effect. The hidden object searches once again feature poor, undersized graphics shown from a distance that is totally unconducive for finding small items, which are all too often visibly obscured to begin with. Mercifully there are no timed stages this time. Instead, there’s a blend of silhouetted object hunts to go with the odd find-the-difference stage and one replace-the-item level that is all but impossible to complete on your own. There’s a rechargeable hint option, but it’s less an option and more a necessity far too often. With no rhyme or reason for the objects displayed, nor any coherent visual design to rely on (a paper clip may be bigger than a “large plank” in one screen and barely pixel-sized in the next), eventually you’ll end up with one useful item needed to solve some simplistic inventory puzzles, made all the more obvious by the ever-present sparkling of the one or two interactive areas per screen.

You’ll also want to keep an eye out for tiny coins, as these represent the currency for skipping the standalone puzzles (a convenience never pointed out in any way, shape, or form). There are so few puzzles that you might think this unnecessary, but several are so poorly designed that you’ll gladly spend your hard-scoured gold. A couple of tile jigsaws and a layer-removal puzzle are easy enough, but one hieroglyph slider made no sense to me even with the so-called “clue” for determining the correct order, and I only solved a mismatched test tube-arrangement challenge by pure guesswork. There is also an incomprehensible fishing minigame with “instructions” that are no help at all, and the world’s worst jigsaw ever invented. I’ll allow that ancient broken stone slabs probably wouldn’t fit nicely together anymore, but surely the solution shouldn’t resemble something designed by a blind man.

I’d have stopped to feel disgusted a while longer, but I was in too much of a hurry to race through the remaining shockingly absurd story that filled out the rest of the game’s two-hour duration. I heard (make that “read”, with no voice acting outside the cinematics) something about an ancient artifact of untold power, but the specifics slipped through the chasm-sized plot holes before the end. And by “end” I mean the credits rolling, without the benefit of any resolution. With another Chronicles of Mystery due soon, I can only assume that Secret of the Lost Kingdom will be a continuation of the debacle begun here. If that’s the case, I’ll urgently remind everyone that some secrets are best left alone. This is one of those times.


Note: Adventure Gamers is a Big Fish Games affiliate.

 

continue reading below
continue reading below
feature
Back to the top