Nothing like a little classical music to calm the soul. Your daughters are part of a children’s orchestra putting on their latest performance. Midway through the first piece a fire breaks out in the concert hall, sending everyone screaming to …
Nothing like a little classical music to calm the soul. Your daughters are part of a children’s orchestra putting on their latest performance. Midway through the first piece a fire breaks out in the concert hall, sending everyone screaming to the nearest door. You can’t make it to your kids, but don’t worry, a creepy guy is leading them through the back curtain. And also, he promises they’ll help fulfill your family’s legacy. Sounds like a great deal, right?!
Silent Nights: Children’s Orchestra is a casual hidden object game that tells the tale of a musical family and the ancient troubles they once got themselves into. You’ll follow the mysterious masked man throughout northern Italy in your search for your kids, solving all sorts of odd puzzles and picking up every item you can get your hands on. Silent Nights feels a little more like an adventure game than a straight up hidden object title. You get a lot of room to explore and experiment, all without fear of messing something up.
Although you’ll spend most of your time in Children’s Orchestra lugging around items and trying them in various places, the occasional hidden object scene does make an appearance. These feel like a throwback to the early days of the genre, but in a good way. A text list of items, a crowded screen of junk, a few interactive objects, and that’s it. No crazy gimmicks to get in the way, just an old fashioned item hunt.
Mini-games play a pretty big role in the Silent Nights experience. You’ll find tons of little diversions scattered throughout the game, everything from quick two click puzzles to the more standard mini-games that take a few minutes to figure out. All of them employ familiar mechanics you won’t have a hard time identifying. That usually works in the game’s favor, but a few times the mini-games will feel like a chore.
Since the game is about music, Silent Nights: Children’s Orchestra had to have a good soundtrack. The scores in this game are pretty epic and play nicely with the high levels of exploration and intrigue. They also help along the cutscenes, which do a great job of spicing things up with action but don’t really provide a lot of interesting story development.
Silent Nights: Children’s Orchestra finds its footing almost immediately and keeps things going through the end. You won’t uncover a lot of unique features or character depth, but the core game fills things out really well with smart puzzles and simple but extremely entertaining mini-games.
