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Casual Games

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Real quick note: BFG has a Memorial Day Sale. Games are 1/2 price. I picked up Final Cut -Death on the Silver Screen as recommended by marcd2011.

     

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I just finished Midnight Mysteries: Devil on the Mississippi by Mumbo Jumbo games, the third in the series (currently still on sale at Amazon for $2.99).  They all involve historical mashups with literary figures.  In this case, you have to help the ghost of Mark Twain fight the curse that has plaqued his life and afterlife.  The plot eventually ties in with William Shakespeare as well, and time in the game is spent investigating Twain’s Missouri and Shakespearean England.  The game is a HOG adventure hybrid, where the HOG scenes are kept to a minimum.

Pros: The visual design is appealing and the graphics are very good for a casual game.  The setting is interesting and involves areas not normally seen in casual games, including a riverboat and the Globe Theater (as opposed to a haunted house or an abandoned asylum).  Puzzles are integrated well, including some puzzles that appear to be original (not a variant of the same old puzzles) and even one that appeared to be inspired by Angry Birds.  The game also requires the combining of inventory items to create new items (another step towards more traditional adventure games), which was welcome.  Replay value is above average, aided by requiring the player to collect hidden clovers throughout the game.  On my first play through, I did not find them all.  Finding a certain number will unlock an additional unlimited hidden object mode.  There are also meaningful achievements (such as finding all hidden crows in the game) which will also likely add to replay value.

Cons: As with the other games in this series, I found the plot to be overly convoluted, with an abundance of historical characters that can be difficult to keep straight.  The story definitely didn’t keep me involved in the game.  The puzzles are all fairly easy.  I also found the game to be short compared to other recent HOG’s I had played.

Overall: The technical quality is high.  However, on the whole I found the game to be average.  Worth picking up on a sale.  If you enjoyed the previous installments in the series, you should enjoy this one as well (probably the best in the series so far).

     
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rtrooney - 27 May 2012 07:20 PM

Real quick note: BFG has a Memorial Day Sale. Games are 1/2 price. I picked up Final Cut -Death on the Silver Screen as recommended by marcd2011.

That’s nice, I’ve been waiting for another half price day to pickup WMC 2. Will also take Nostradamus and first Carol Reed adventure now, though I guess they aren’t really casual.

I have to start writing down these recommendations for casual games and check them out later.

     

Currently Playing: Dragon Age Origins: Awakening
Recently Played: Red Embrace: Hollywood, Dorfromantik, Heirs & Graces, AI: The Somnium Files, PRICE, Frostpunk, The Shapeshifting Detective (CPT), Disco Elysium, Dream Daddy, Four Last Things, Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, The Signifier

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To Interplay - I played the first in the series, the Poe episode, and really enjoyed it. The second, the Hawthorn episode had some severe techical difficulties which BFG was unable to solve. (They gave me a credit.) Thus, I was not tempted to go for the third. But, seeing as I’m now playing on a newer PC, it might be worth a try.

     

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marcd2011 - 26 May 2012 11:47 AM

The game has achievements but some of them are ridiculous so you’d have to be a complete masochist to want to get them all. Stuff like having to spend more than 10 minutes in every HOG or skip every puzzle aren’t really the sort of achievement I like to see.

Overall

I would give this one a 8/10. I would have given it a higher score if it wasn’t so easy and they’d done a bit better with the characters in the game, but it was a joy to play this and it is gorgeous to look at, so I would recommend you play it.

By and large I agree with everything you said. I started playing the game today and found it addictive. With a couple of breaks and an emergency visit to the vet, I think the game was completed in a bit over five hours. Maybe closer to six. Which is a good deal of gameplay for a casual game. I’m still working on the bonus play.

I did not like the HOGS in general. In far to many there are twelve items to be found. Eleven of which can be found in under a minute. The last one is camouflaged to the degree as to be “unfindable.” Maybe that’s why you get an award for spending 10 minutes on a HOG. (By the way, I got an award for spending more than 5 minutes reading the Journal as I was backtraking trying to find some obscure clue.)

I agree that the puzzles were quite easy. However, I think that the SKIP button timing ought to be based on the puzzle’s difficulty. Or maybe the puzzle’s “tediousness quotient” would be a better term. That is, if I know how to solve the puzzle, but also know it will take me ten minutes to do it, what are the chances I will use the SKIP button that charges in one minute rather than going through the process. For me, it’s almost 100%.

     

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rtrooney - 28 May 2012 08:45 PM

To Interplay - I played the first in the series, the Poe episode, and really enjoyed it. The second, the Hawthorn episode had some severe techical difficulties which BFG was unable to solve. (They gave me a credit.) Thus, I was not tempted to go for the third. But, seeing as I’m now playing on a newer PC, it might be worth a try.

I think if you liked the Poe one, you should like this one as well.  I played both and thought both were fairly average, but I felt the Mark Twain one was definitely the better game, imo.

     
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rtrooney - 28 May 2012 09:47 PM

By and large I agree with everything you said. I started playing the game today and found it addictive. With a couple of breaks and an emergency visit to the vet, I think the game was completed in a bit over five hours. Maybe closer to six. Which is a good deal of gameplay for a casual game. I’m still working on the bonus play.

I did not like the HOGS in general. In far to many there are twelve items to be found. Eleven of which can be found in under a minute. The last one is camouflaged to the degree as to be “unfindable.” Maybe that’s why you get an award for spending 10 minutes on a HOG. (By the way, I got an award for spending more than 5 minutes reading the Journal as I was backtraking trying to find some obscure clue.)

I agree that the puzzles were quite easy. However, I think that the SKIP button timing ought to be based on the puzzle’s difficulty. Or maybe the puzzle’s “tediousness quotient” would be a better term. That is, if I know how to solve the puzzle, but also know it will take me ten minutes to do it, what are the chances I will use the SKIP button that charges in one minute rather than going through the process. For me, it’s almost 100%.

Yeah, I agree about the HOGs, there were occasions where i just could not find the last object even after using my tried and tested technique of standing about a foot from the tv and scanning the screen slowly, but i did eventually find everything without skipping or using hints and never took as long as 10 minutes to do so. At least didn’t seem to suffer like some HOGs with being in “american english” which can make it hard for UK english people like myself to know what some items are meant to be.

I do try not to use skip on puzzles and i think the only time i tend to do that is if i’ve gotten bored of the game and want to just blaze through it for the sake of seeing the ending.

I don’t think any puzzle here gave me cause to even use my brain much though so skipping wasn’t necessary. The thing for me was that puzzles which should have been a bit of a brain teaser were simplified by being in stages so you couldn’t actually fail.

There’s a puzzle in the bonus chapter which involves closing off some circuits, and it would have been a great puzzle if you had to work out which wires to block off to close all circuits at the same time, but instead you only have to close 1 circuit then it stays closed and you move on to the next one which makes the puzzle solvable in under a minute because all the wires for each circuit are conveniently right under the circuit!

There were probably a dozen examples of puzzle like that in the game, ie coloured balls you have to get in a row but every time you get one in the right place it stays there so no actual puzzling is required

But even with the puzzles being so easy, the story, setting, sound and graphics elevated this above most HOGs. Interestingly i read a review of the game on gamezebo last night and they said the same sort of things i did.

They also reviewed Spirits of Mystery 2 - Song of the Phoenix, and according to the review where they didn’t say a single negative thing, it’s probably one of the best hybrid HOGs ever, so i’ll be checking that one out once i finish Malice - Two Sisters which i started last night.

     
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marcd2011 - 29 May 2012 09:55 AM

I don’t think any puzzle here gave me cause to even use my brain much though so skipping wasn’t necessary. The thing for me was that puzzles which should have been a bit of a brain teaser were simplified by being in stages so you couldn’t actually fail.

I was probably unclear. There were one or two puzzles that required 50+ moves to complete, the logic behind them was simple. I knew how to solve the puzzle. It’s just that it would take about 10 minutes to actually make all the moves. The SKIP button resets in one minute. Hmmmm! Go through the drudgery of making the moves for some sense of satisfaction that isn’t going to be there because I know how to solve it? Maybe not.

There is one major complaint I have about the puzzles though. That is the explanation of purpose, i.e., what you are supposed to do to solve it, was, in many instances, totally unsatisfactory. In several occasions I clicked on the Strategy Guide because it gave a better explanation of what you are supposed to do than the game did. This isn’t the only game that has that problem. Something gets lost in translation to the English version.

     

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I received a request from BFG for more information today. That’s not necessarily a good thing. But it means we are still in contact.

     

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Latest news from BFG is pretty much no news. My contact asked a bundle of questions. One of which is had we approached other affiliates, eg GameBoomers, with the review offer, and I said NO. I told the contact that there is a reason why we are here on AG, and that the Casual Games section on GameBoomers is worthless. (If you sneak in for a quick peek, I am sure you will agree.)

So I am still waiting for a final resolution.

In the meantime I’ll be starting a June Casual Game Thread in the next day or two. Although not current games, I will comment on Return to Joyville.

     

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marcd2011 - 26 May 2012 11:47 AM

Playing one called Final Cut - Death on the Silver Screen at the moment in fact, which I would highly recommend.

I just completed this one. I agree with most of your review, the game is beautiful, the HoGs have period-appropriate items (it always annoys me when games don’t follow the time period they’re set in in the HOG scenes), the production values are high and it is a big game.
Also agree that most of the puzzles are on the easy side, completed many in under a minute, and often without bothering to check info on how to solve it. Also several times the game solved puzzles for you; code-lock, wire cutting, etc, when it could easily have been made into a interactive puzzle.

The map helped a lot when I was either stuck or didn’t remember where an item went, and the diary was helpful (a bit too much sometimes), though I wish it had sorted things a bit more logically; I had to flip 50+ pages for the pirate puzzle and the drawer code.

Story-wise I have to say I hated the ending. I realized where it was going for a while, but I absolutely hated to have to do it. By the end I ended up being more compassionate towards her fate than that of the siblings. I don’t care that she tried to kill them, she didn’t deserve to have her mother’s fate, the thing that destroyed their whole life, happen to her too.

Sort of felt sorry for the brother, who was an absolute idiot, and the worst voiced character in the game, but when told his entire life his sister is the smart one, it’s not that strange that he ended up like he did.. For a game so clearly bridging into a sequel, they should probably have gone for a family dynamic that would make me a bit more sympathetic towards the protagonist..

Also, they left the care taker in the studio when they left!

     

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I wanted to take the time to chime in on casual gaming.  As an adventure game fan, to tell you the truth, I had no intention of getting involved in casual gaming.  As a video game fan, I have so many games in my backlog for the PC, console gaming, portable gaming, etc.  I figured I would be busy forever just playing these games.

But as I had a 64GB iPad, I started to play casual games such as “Angry Birds” and “Plants vs. Zombies” to name a few.

But my life somewhat changed when I first saw how Alzheimer’s has hit our family, specifically my grandfather.  My wife with the same situation with her mother.  So, it was a double whammy. 

One of things that I was told (and not sure if there is any proof), was that my father-in-law’s memory was good because he would partake in a puzzle game everyday of his life. 

He was always good at training his brain when he got older, may it be learning a new language but he was always into puzzles right to the day he died (of colon cancer).

But when I saw my grandfather, Alzheimer’s and the fact that we have it on our family had set in.  I never thought it would happen to my side of the family, because I’ve never heard of Asian seniors suffering from it (ignorant thinking on my part).

And so as my wife focused on sudoku and other puzzle games, I decided to take up casual games and play them daily.  The casual games I am playing mostly are hidden objects games (Story-based ones…I get tired with straight-up HoG).  Games that can be beaten in a short amount of time and my wife has since followed.  And we both enjoy it.

While I still play adventure games and many games on my console, I love the challenge of these casual games and love the fact that they are not too long, nor are they expensive.

Also, not only have I been able to get my wife involved (who does not have the patience to play adventure games), I also got my 9-year-old involved (who loves casual games on the iPad but surprisingly is not into console gaming, also tried to get him involved in adventure games but he would rather watch than play them). 

I began by purchasing the Viva Media packs online, then the Big Fish game packs and started growing my collection by buying the multi-game packs.  And while I’m not to the point where I want to download games online yet (yes, my mindset is still owning the physical product), I am enjoying casual gaming a lot.

I’ve seen how others respond to these games on the older AG forum and how more become defensive when they are classified as “adventure” games or “adventure-lite” games.  And while Big Fish or other casual gaming sites do exist, where people can give reviews and so forth, while I do enjoy a casual gaming thread, I don’t see it as a significant part of AG, not because of how some people react.  But it’s because there are so many other sites and forums that cater to that certain demographic.

With that being said, adventure gaming will always be with me and I will keep playing it.  But I’m now a hardcore casual game fan.  And if casual games will or will not be part of AG, I will support this thread. 

Anyway, just wanted to chime in! Smile

     
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I think these casual threads here cater very nicely to adventure gamers that enjoy some casual games but aren’t hardcore fans - like myself. Here I can easily check up which games other adventure fans found enjoyable - which is a lot easier than trying to actually follow the casual game scenery. So far I have liked the few games I tried after they were recommended and praised here, like the 3 Card and WMC games.

Just finished that WMC2 and I’m gonna grab the third on next sale Smile.

     

Currently Playing: Dragon Age Origins: Awakening
Recently Played: Red Embrace: Hollywood, Dorfromantik, Heirs & Graces, AI: The Somnium Files, PRICE, Frostpunk, The Shapeshifting Detective (CPT), Disco Elysium, Dream Daddy, Four Last Things, Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, The Signifier

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millenia - 03 June 2012 11:00 AM

I think these casual threads here cater very nicely to adventure gamers that enjoy some casual games but aren’t hardcore fans - like myself. Here I can easily check up which games other adventure fans found enjoyable - which is a lot easier than trying to actually follow the casual game scenery. So far I have liked the few games I tried after they were recommended and praised here, like the 3 Card and WMC games.

Just finished that WMC2 and I’m gonna grab the third on next sale Smile.

Hi Millenia,

I just finished the trilogy of James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club and third game, you will definitely love.  Just finished “Games of Passion”, the fourth game on the Nintendo DS today…which was fairly easy. 

But you may find the trilogy much more cheaper than buying the games separately.

But so far I’m really getting into the Mystery Case Files games.

     
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Thank you, Kindy for your post. I’m not sure that games are of much help with Alzheimers, but there is indisputable evidence that games and puzzles help sharpen the mental skills of an aging population. My father, who passed away last year at age 94, was mentally as sharp as a tack. He played various types of word games literally up to the day he died.

     

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