Lost Secrets: November 1963 Review

They say that you always remember where you were and what you were doing when important events like the Kennedy assassination take place. Unless you weren’t born then, in which case remembering anything at all about that day is probably unlikely.

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Travel back to Dallas to discover what ties you had to that fateful day

They say that you always remember where you were and what you were doing when important events like the Kennedy assassination take place. Unless you weren’t born then, in which case remembering anything at all about that day is probably unlikely.

Lainey Wells, the heroine of Lost Secrets: November 1963 wasn’t alive then, but her mother was. She was just a little girl when she saw the news on a television in a shop window. In the ensuing chaos and panic, she lost her favorite pink teddy bear.

Lost Secrets: November 1963

Since her mother’s death, Lainey has been haunted by strange visions of the day of Kennedy’s assassination. They are so vivid that it almost feels as if she’s there and they’re beginning to drive her a little bit crazy. So she decides to fly to Dallas to try to find out more about the event and if she’s somehow connected to it in any way.

The game switches between the present and that fateful day in November 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated. You’ll explore important locations including the Oval Office, the police station where Lee Harvey Oswald was shot, and Parkland Memorial Hospital, where both John F. Kennedy and his alleged assassin were pronounced dead. The historical details and film footage you see in the game make the story a little more interesting, without straying into the dreaded ‘educational game’ territory.

There are plenty of hidden object scenes to keep you busy, as well as items to find and puzzles to solve. A couple of the puzzles are a little frustrating, but when you find an item it will be obvious where you need to use it, providing you’ve explored all the places you can. There are two levels of difficulty to choose from – Casual, where all interactive areas sparkle and hints and skip charge quickly, and Expert, which has fewer sparklers and slower recharges.

Lost Secrets: November 1963

The fact that whichever level you pick you can’t turn off the sparkles completely may frustrate expert players who prefer a bit more of a challenge. And some of the locations aren’t all that interesting – although that’s understandable since they are historic, real locations and can’t be changed. There’s not really much you can do with a grassy knoll, for example. It would have been nice if some of the locations that had a bit more potential, like the hospital and an abandoned department store, could have been drawn in a bit more detail.

The hidden object scenes themselves, however, are all well done, with plenty of objects to find and just enough difficulty without too much frustration. The gameplay in the seek and find parts is basic; you won’t find any ‘trick’ objects, or any animations. The music is great, making the atmosphere quite eerie, although there are no voice overs for the characters, which is disappointing.

Compared to some of the other games that are being released in the run up to this year’s holiday season, it may seem a little old-school. You’re not going to see anything ground-breaking in Lost Secrets: November 1963. However, if you don’t mind your hidden object games to focus on basic gameplay, there’s really not much that the game does wrong.

The good

    The bad

      70 out of 100