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Tag: Hidden Object

  • Hotel Enigma Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Hotel Enigma Review

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    Hotels are weird places. Whether it's a scream-worthy shower at the Bates or an extended stay at The Overlook, something strange is always bound to happen. Before you arrived at Hotel Enigma, one of the guests disappeared. Literally disappeared. Everyone is a suspect, so the hotel has been put on lockdown. Room by room you'll carry out your investigation, searching high and low for the items you need to solve the case!At Hotel Enigma, things are a little less murderey than most fictional hotels, though don't think there's an ounce less intrigue packed behind these cherry-stained doors. You'll move between areas completing round after round of hidden object scenes as you gather clues and learn about the guests currently lurking inside the hotel's walls. Eventually you'll find out what happened to your room's previous occupant, but you can bet your polyester necktie it won't be a simple whodunit."Things are pretty basic in Hotel Enigma as far as gameplay goes, with a heavy emphasis on replaying scenes to find new lists of items, often switching between silhouette hunts and typical laundry list scenes. Tap items to gather them, and use the menu bar to activate hints that range from vague item locators to straight-up indicators that show you right where the item is. There's always a helpful nudge there if you need it, but most of the scenes aren't so difficult that you'll resort to spamming hint buttons.
  • Time Gap Preview
    Upcoming
    • iOS
    Time Gap Preview

    By

    If there's one thing I've learned after countless hours of hunting for hidden objects in the shadowy recesses of the world, it's that HOGs and history just seem to go hand in hand. To that end, Absolutist is hard at work on a brand new social hidden object game for mobile devices, and this time around, the free-to-play adventure is so ambitious that even all of space and time won't be able to contain it. Featuring a cool science-fiction theme, tons of real-life historical figures to help you along the way, and lots of variety in terms of the gameplay, playing Time Gap: The Mysteries of the Lost Civilization will quickly start to put huge gaps in your own free time as well!The story of Time Gap begins when your player-character suddenly realizes that everyone else in the world has vanished without a trace while you were spending some time down at the café. Your character is then promptly confronted by the ghosts of several of history's greatest figures, such as Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, and even Cleopatra, who all try to help you investigate where exactly everybody in the world has disappeared to. The narrative and dialogue are both lighthearted and fun, and the story sets the stage for some great hidden object searching throughout all sorts of environments across the world, as well as time and space."Earlier this week I had a chance to get some hands-on time with an early build of Time Gap, and it's already safe to say that the game's welcoming blend of hidden object and social gameplay will be a real treat for gamers in search of their next engrossing HOG fix. The hidden object scenes themselves have a nice amount of variety and challenge to them, with rotating parameters that regulate the different ways you'll need to play: from night scenes and mirrored scenes, to searching through fog and quickly dealing with an item list that suffers from vanishing letters over time.
  • Mystery Case Files: Fate’s Carnival Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Mystery Case Files: Fate’s Carnival Review

    By

    Despite being the tenth game in the long-running and hugely successful HOG series, Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival is actually a sequel of sorts to the fourth game in the franchise, 2007's Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate, as it marks the player detective's return to Madame Fate's carnival and all of the mystery and wonder that is swirling around inside. But while the carnival setting itself might seem rehashed on paper, this time around everything in Madam Fate's world just seems so much livelier, and Elephant Games packs on the content and inventive puzzles to match. I hope you picked up a carnival day pass and have your pockets lined with tickets, because you're going to be enjoying your time at this spooky fair for quite a while!Truth be told, I didn't feel like there was much of a story to accompany the action of Fate's Carnival at first. The player detective simply shows up at the titular carnival and references repeatedly through the dialogue that you had been there once before on a previous case. The majority of the game will simply involve your silent character moving through the carnival, and saving various carnies in distress: like the Amazing Larry, who's somehow found himself irreplaceably sawn in half, or the Strong Man, who's found his muscles being pushed to their limit in a hellish gauntlet of sorts. There's also the occasional scare or two, which actually made me jump in both their sounds and execution."However, that's certainly not to say the story never heats up as more mysteries and evil forces gradually get introduced, and that it doesn't lay the foundation for all sorts of carnival magic and wonder to crop up along the way. You'll also be given a spooky ghost cat by Madame Fate at the start of the game, who will help by reaching certain items that are well out of your reach, or scaring bats and attacking fish for your own personal gain: just like any good ghost cat would do. This adds a unique component to the exploration segments of the game, as you'll often forget that the ghost cat is exactly what you need to solve a puzzle when you've exhausted all other options in your inventory.
  • Haunted House Mysteries Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    Haunted House Mysteries Review

    By

    Hidden object games are best-suited for desktop computers, mainly because a large part of the gameplay involves searching densely-packed, highly-detailed scenes - a task that's clumsy to perform on a smaller screen. Moreover, the complex puzzles of adventure games are also better-solved with a mouse than with touchscreen controls. Haunted House Mysteries for iPad is a nice-looking game that suffers by appearing on an inappropriate platform.As so many hidden object adventures do, Haunted House Mysteries begins with a terrible tragedy. A famous archaeologist and his family are murdered in their New England vacation home, presumably because of a rare artifact being kept there. Years later, Nancy, a young graduate student writing a thesis on modern-day superstition, is called to the home by her elderly aunt. On the surface, the invitation is for Nancy to enjoy a few days' R&R, but she soon discovers her aunt's true intention is for her to investigate the site's alleged paranormal activity."Haunted House Mysteries was obviously made by a team of talented artists, since from the first spooky scene it makes a good impression. Nancy and her aunt are sharp and attractive by design, and so are all of the game's locations. (I'm fairly sure the exterior of the main house is the Norman Bates Psycho house.) The game also sounds pretty good thanks to a nice music score that effectively augments the lugubrious Victorian interiors.
  • Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood Review

    By

    A direct sequel to Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek, Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood lets us put on the detective badge once again in a wonderful tale of intrigue and hidden object adventuring. On her continued search for the demonic preacher who eluded her at the end of the last game, our fearless detective comes across a frightened young girl named Becky at the edge of a campground. The detective's search for the little girl's parents ultimately leads her into the happy and idyllic campgrounds of Ravenwood, although everything is certainly not as it seems before long: from the oh-so-cheery camp workers, to the way the world seems to shift into darkness at regular turns, and of course, let's not forget the barrels of dead bodies and giant shadowy raven that tends to stop by from time to time.The game's presentation is particularly top-notch, with wonderfully painted visuals and smooth animations, not to mention impressive 3D character models that work like magic in the many engrossing cutscenes. What's great about this game is that The Mists of Ravenwood completely owns up to its rustic campground setting, and everything beyond it makes logical sense within the overall constraints of its own uniquely crafted world. Areas like the logging cabins, a giant tree that you can walk inside of, and even a short detour to the rocky beach below all feel realistic and connected, and you'll never veer off into that oversaturated futuristic temple that seems to make an appearance at the end of almost every hidden object adventure game these days."The Mists of Ravenwood does a lot of things that go the extra mile towards making the overall experience feel like so much more than your typical hidden object adventure. The most welcome of these features are in the deductions that your character can make by strategically placing found pieces of evidence on an investigative bulletin board of sorts (you are a detective after all!). While it's really just a matter of dragging the different evidence items over one of the various plot point circles until you find a match, it's still an extremely nice way of advancing the plot and giving players a nice refresher course at regular intervals as to what the underlying mysteries are.
  • Surface: The Pantheon Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Surface: The Pantheon Review

    By

    Elephant Games has rolled out another entry in the Surface series, this time bringing a more noir-flavored approach to storytelling. Surface: The Pantheon follows Gina as she travels through a world that is literally turned inside-out and filled with strange creatures, magical landscapes, and a unique mythology. The game easily lives up to the standards set by previous releases, providing a solid puzzle solving experience with great visuals and inventive hidden object scenes.A fantastic new tunnel has been built leading through the heart of the Ridge of Leviathan, and the Capital Express train is about to make its historic first run through it. Your husband and daughter are already aboard, but someone bumps into you and spills your luggage as you rush across the station. The delay causes you to miss the train, but that's not even the worst part. The Capital Express enters the tunnel but never emerges on the other side, vanishing somewhere in the mountain. For months researchers attempt to determine what happened, but eventually the tunnel is shut down, leaving the disappearance a mystery."Gina never really moves on from the loss of her family. A year later she's at the tunnel entrance when a strange man approaches her from the other side of the gate. Dr. Martin Bors, a somewhat radical sort of scientist, claims he has a way to find out what transpired on that fateful day. He needs your help to recreate the conditions at the time of the train's disappearance. Gina goes along with it, hoping to finally reunite with her long-lost husband and daughter.
  • Legacy of Transylvania Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Legacy of Transylvania Review

    By

    In Legacy of Transylvania, players will embark on a harrowing tale of vampires and hidden objects, as they work their way towards becoming the king or queen of an old Gothic castle. They'll be guided through their adventure by a stubby gargoyle named Dante, as players acquaint themselves with a colorful cast of quirky characters and mysterious environments. The result is a highly stylized hidden object and social experiment, with a sense of depth and intrigue that is matched by few others, and an ease of accessibility that would even allow Dracula himself to pick it up and play.The game starts out with your fairly typical hidden object and social hybrid tropes, like replaying the same scenes over and over again in order to level up and add new items to your inventory for questing purposing; the use of an energy system (called "Light points" in this game); and the endless pages of "Collections" to complete, a concept I still just can't seem to grasp for whatever reason, no matter how many times I've seen it in action before. However, once the quests start rolling in (and trust me, you'll quickly have upwards of 10 to tackle in your Questlog at any one time), and the hidden object mastery requirements start stacking up, you're going to need to sacrifice plenty of precious real-world sunlight just to stay on top of it all."You'll also begin unlocking larger "Chronicles" the further you progress in the game, which encompass a string of 6 or 7 related main quests that serve a larger purpose like expanding the overall story, or introducing a bigger concept that might take a few different steps in order to fully comprehend. For instance, one of the earliest Chronicles is focused on the biggest social component in Legacy of Transylvania: visiting your friends' castles and biting them to get them to help you in your own hidden object endeavors.
  • Flights of Fancy: Two Doves Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Flights of Fancy: Two Doves Review

    By

    Having had some development ups and downs over the last year, ERS Game Studio fights its way back to the top of the genre with Flights of Fancy: Two Doves. This high-class, high-fantasy hidden object adventure offers beauty, magic, wonder, and best of all, surprises—all of which (despite one sizeable flaw) remind us why the name ERS is synonymous with adventure game excellence.Two Doves won me over from the start by casting me as a countess: an unusual choice of heroine that veers from the usual princess/detective/reporter/psychic idea. The narrative ball gets rolling when the countess is away from home, attending an engagement party for the king. She gets back and finds that her castle's been violated by persons unknown. It appears they've stolen a magical dove (a twin to one owned by the king) necessary to protect the kingdom, and have turned her vassals into shiny little figurines. With the help of her last remaining servant, she combs the castle for clues and what she uncovers is deeply unsettling.Considering the doom hanging over the countess and the kingdom, Two Doves' astonishing beauty is something of a paradox. It's clear thatERS let the art team go full throttle here and gave them free rein to add as much creativity, color, and detail as their hearts desired. Amazing attention is paid to the game's interface (the animated inventory items and unique scroll journal for instance) and overused fantasy themes are freshened up by extraordinary inventiveness (two words -"Viking plant"). Playing Two Doves brings to mind the magic you felt as a kid reading fairy tales for the first time: the feeling that around every corner will be something new, strange, and possibly dangerous.