#hidden objects reviews

[tiredgamergirl]

A ball amidst the Maltese Mountains hosted in a mysterious mansion with a unknown benefactor, a very exciting and curious prospect for some that turned horribly when the clock stuck midnight and three girls were turned into glass statues. The Fairytale Detective is called once again for the 5th adventure in the Dark Parables series to investigate the possibility of the involvement of the Godmother, a witch that is said to be over a thousand years old and seeks for “Cinderella”, pure-hearted maidens, in order to sacrifice their souls for nefarious goals. Once inside the mansion, a giant beast snatched one of the glass statues by breaking through a solid wall and the Detective meets up with Katherine, a girl that attended the ball and her stepsister was one of the unfortunate maidens that got cursed and offers to assist in the investigation. What is the Godmother’s goal? And how come someone who has helped so many girls before, like Prince James’ second wife, started to hurt them?

Once again there aren’t many new mechanics, only that the stories feels somewhat longer than the previous title as it covers two different fairy tales this time: Cinderella and Pinocchio. The graphics are beautiful as usual, although some transparency and colors can make some objects harder to spot in the HoD scenes. The locations are varied, going from the mysterious mansion, to lush natural landscape to near nightmarish cursed locations with many environmental storytelling. The pacing makes the player go back and forth in different areas, circling back to areas previously explored under new light.  

The bonus game showcases the oriental Cinderella, which shows the Godmother before her descent to despair. It is rather uncanny how the cottage has the exact same layout as the one in Europe, and compared to the previous' title bonus adventure and the overall story it is rather short.

Another solid title to the series, The Final Cinderella might occasionally suffer with some funny voice acting that, given the nature of the budget, is charming. Another solid release from the series.

[blkkizzat]

i just wanna say tysm for all the sweet comments, reblogs, likes and new followers. literally have been dealing with some bs from school where i have to file a bias report and contest my grade because my professor is a bitch (tea in the tags). But you all really cheered me up and kept me going over the past few days!!! 🩵🩵

im off from work today for summer fridays! so hope i can write more today.

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes Casual Games

The Mystery of the Persian Carpet was Frogwares first attempt at getting into the casual adventure and hidden object game market, even getting Big Fish Games as a publisher. For those unaware, Big Fish Games are the undisputed kings of the market, even to this day, and were major players in the huge casual game explosion on PC and mobile. Frogwares getting in on the scene makes sense, and they’d make two games under Big Fish Games’ banner. The first of them is…quite bad.

Read more...

[hiddenobject-fanblog]

I've been reading some old reviews on the Big Fish Games site for Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome, and I found a few recurring points that I...disagree with?

A common complaint was that (spoilers ahead, here) the protagonist loses to the villain, and people want to play games that have 'good endings', and not 'disappointments'. Call me a Villain Sympathizer or whatever (because I am), but I find it's much rarer to have a story where the villain actually wins, and to see that in a Hidden Object game of all things is extremely hard to come by.

-There is a plot hole worth mentioning in Oscar's framing of Sam that's been pointed out before -- the fact that Sam is actively carrying and using a voice recorder on his person, which you can revisit all of Oscar's dialogue with. All he would have to do is play the recordings to the authorities where Oscar confesses to the crimes, and he would be free to go, wouldn't he?

...Still, I love the surprise ending where Oscar frames Sam and succeeds in doing it. It's a complete turnaround from typical HOPAs where you're the hero and you effortlessly save a town/people/etc. But in Dorian Gray Syndrome, you get to see the protagonist face an unjustly ending despite doing everything right. It really is a 'Villain wins in the end' story, and I wish there were more like it, just to break from the usual story cliches of Hidden Object games.

[madmardybobshaw]

Trailer 2 of "Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome" available on my YouTube channel.

[fridge-reviews]

Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective - Blast Review

Developer: Darjeeling Rrp: £10.79 (Steam)

Every so often I find a game that reminds me of some aspect of my childhood, be it a tv show, movie or (as is the case this time) a book series. Now, I will say that the book series this game is based from is not one I'm familiar with but I can't help but compare it to the Where's Wally series, or Wheres Waldo to those of you in the USA.

The art style is very whimical and colourful really catching the feel of those Where's Wally books (again having not read this particular series I have to compare it to what is closest). The animations you get from the various interactive objects that are scattered are always fun to find.

I won't claim that this game is challenging, it's really not, but that isn't the reason to play it. You should be playing this for the experience. The closest game to this I can remember is The Hidden People' which while having its own charms doesn't quite capture the feel of those old books like this game does.

[azazel-dreams]

Nintendo DS Game: Hidden Objects - Mystery Stories

gameplay ❤️❤️❤❤❤

aesthetics ❤️❤️❤❤❤

story ❤️❤❤❤❤

Replayable ❤️❤❤❤❤

Overall Review: ❤️❤️❤❤❤

[elitheaceofalltrades]

Crime O'clock - Demo Review

After a lovely day, I was having a terrible evening thanks to a letter from my local city council. I decided to sit down and play the Crime O'clock demo cause it seemed like it would lift my spirits. I think this game was a recommendation from Payton's Corner?? I'd have to go through my youtube and check. I'm pretty sure it was a rec though, as this is not the kind of game I would usually demo. It's marked as a hidden object and time travel game and I would not have looked twice at it if it wasn't recommended. But oh my goodness, I had so much fun and I absolutely adored it.

So the premise of the game is that there exist a True Timeline and occasionally, people try to disrupt this timeline through crime. As a time detective, your job is to solve these crimes in order to preserve the True Timeline. In the game, some mysterious force seems to be trying to disrupt the timeline by doing a lot of little crimes over a spread of time as opposed to one big crime. You have to figure out who they are, foil their plans and save the time as we know it. The demo only scratched the surface of the plot but it explained it very well in the short time and leaves you excited for more. Now, onto my thoughts.

First of all, I want to point out that this is a genuinely unique premise, like I've heard of nothing else like it. I feel like sometimes in gaming (in everything really), things are starting to feel more and more like a rift off an existing idea as opposed to something new and fresh. Crime O'clock is a true one of a kind story that feels like it's breathing a breath of fresh air into my gaming catalogue(or more realistically, my wishlist).

On the technical side, the music was fun and upbeat and matched the mood of the game well. The graphics were very pretty, despite being mostly in greyscale, and the points that used colour were so distinct that it almost feels like each colour palette is distinctly for a certain part of the game. Mechanically, it was a point and click game, so not much there to mess up I don't think.

The actual game is excellent. In the game, you work with your AI, EVE, who helps you, provides guidance, tools, and if you ask, hints. The dialogue from EVE is funny (in my opinion at least) and is a perfect balance of informative and entertaining. The plot is fun and makes you think but it isn't overwhelming. The setting is so out there, and combined with the cute art, animal characters, and combination of past & present with outrageous technology like teleportation portals (yes it sounds wild, but it fits so well), it all makes it just silly enough that you don't take it too serious and use too many braincells.

The puzzles aren't easy but they aren't overly complex. I only had to use the hint system once and there's no punishment for using a hint. Despite it technically being a hidden object game, it didn't feel like one as I was playing, mostly because it's so unlike any hidden object game I've played before.

I feel like, the length of this review tells you how much I loved this game and this was only the demo.  I will definitely get this game once my employment status has been sorted. I feel like the last couple of demo reviews I posted have been "will buy when I have money" like Another Code and Wylde Flowers but that's mainly cause they've been the ones that excite me enough that I have the energy to write a review. I am working on a post called "Games I demoed and did not like" that's currently 6 games and counting, so it's not all 5 stars over here, that's just what excited me right now.

Overall, I definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzle-ly or detective cosy games and is looking for something new.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

~Eli

Ace of All Trades, Pro at None😆

[purpleillusn]

New video up on my YouTube!!

[ageekgirlsguide]

Hidden Through Time 2: Myths & Magic Review

Hidden Through Time 2: Myths & Magic is a hidden object game by Rogueside that takes the time travel from the first game and brings in the many magical myths to the different time periods in the game.

[myjoygaming]

Lunar Axe review

Το Adventure με τους Point and Click μηχανισμούς, τους γρίφους και τις μετρημένες στα δάχτυλα του ενός χεριού Hidden Object σκηνές διαδραματίζεται σε πραγματικές τοποθεσίες της Βραζιλίας, την πατρίδα των μελών της ολιγομελούς εταιρείας Ops Game Studio. Η ιστορία του Lunar Axe βασίζεται σε μύθους και παραδόσεις της χώρας. Δε λείπουν και οι υπερφυσικές διαστάσεις!

Διαβάστε το review στο My Joy Gaming!

[tiredgamergirl]

Somewhere in Greece, a strange Purple Tide rose, approaching the coastline leaving a path of destruction in its wake, along with reports of mermaids and a giant eel. Of course, once again, it is a case for the Fairytale Detective in this new installment of the Dark Parables series, the 8th and the first under a new developer, Eipix, although the old ones are still credited.  Along with the detective, another familiar face from the past also joins the investigation, similar to how Ballad of Rapunzel had Greta tagging along. However, this time, the character feels somewhat underused and the ties to some previous titles were underused at best, how they barely touched upon Prince Eric’s wife or Theresa. The story behind the machine itself is somewhat nonsensical as well if one stops to think for a moment, it was one of those plots for the sake of having a plot device to culminate with something exciting.

The biggest innovation are the fragmented inventory pieces, objects that need to either be examined or put together before using, which leads to a slightly heavier item-based tasks and a lot of backtracking, the later made easier thanks to the implementation of a fast travel system. Your mileage might vary on the enjoyment of this, but sometimes it feels a lot of busywork. The hidden objects scenes can be downright unfair with transparent objects, obscured placements and even flipped images. And compared to the previous titles, the resulting items look amateurish collages with a bombastic sound effect and cue that should feel a nice accomplishment but it feels a little out of place.

The graphic in itself feels a little uncanny too, it is clear that Eipix was trying to keep the style from Blue Tea with mixed results. Some locations feels somewhat uninspired or with strange shading, and the proportions can also be something that takes a while to get used to. There is also many mini-animations and special scenes that tries to showcase how even opening a door is such a big deal that eventually everything loses the impact.

The bonus game takes place right before the curse that affects the antagonists of the title and gives some insight into one of the non-playable characters that you meet in the main story. Sadly it is riffled with bugs and sometimes it feels that a chunk of it may be missing.

With an interesting concept for a story but somewhat poor execution and an ending that amounts to not much, the game counts with many extras like locating all the hidden crescent moons and in-game achievements that make for some replay, but it is a rather short game. It might be best to buy in a sale.

[colormp]

My Hidden Epee Review (August 7, 2023)

I don’t know how many people reading this (if anyone) waste their time with free-to-play games, but I do.

Over the years, I have played a bunch of G5 games, and Hidden City is my favorite. It was the first G5 game I had installed on the computer I purchased in 2018, and I’ve played it everyday since. The game isn’t perfect, but it updates regularly, the in-game costs are generally low, and it’s easy for low-level players to advance. I’ve quit most of the G5 games I installed the past five years, but Hidden City is one of the few games I still play.

Recently, I started playing Hidden Epee, too. And it has become part of my daily rotation. I only started playing this game because a G5 “friend” incessantly sent me invites despite me declining them every time. So, I relented. At first, I was pleasantly surprised by the early gameplay and the interesting storyline(s). But the game’s issues have compelled me to make this writeup.

I’ve decided to leave this review on Tumblr because I don’t believe I can leave a long review on the game page in the app store. Also, Hidden Epee doesn’t have a wiki or a Facebook page.

What Do I Like About Hidden Epee?

I’ve been playing Hidden Epee for close to a month (since July 2023), so there must be a few things that brought me back to it day after day. Here are the things I like about this game:

1. I like the dialogue.

For now, the dialogue is clean, and the game has clearly defined characters. Of course, I like some characters more than others, but that’s to be expected.

2. I like the general story.

Hidden Epee takes place in 17th century France. The player needs to find the Silver Epee and solve the mystery of the eclipses that have caused several residents to disappear. There are also many interesting side stories involving characters you meet along the way.

3. I like the game’s music.

I don’t think I have a problem with any tracks, but some are more relaxing than others.

4. Many of the graphics are beautiful.

The daytime scenes look the best, and the faces of characters are realistic.

5. It’s easy to earn special items to enter the event scene or Other World.

Most locations reward me about 7 items to enter the special event scenes, while faction locations reward me about 10 items to enter the special event. I can earn candles to explore Other World locations by helping villagers, exploring some regular locations, completing contracts, or meeting other objectives.

6. Some actions in the game yield generous rewards.

Opening chests can give you important tools, keys to enter faction locations, and gems to fight monsters. Fighting monsters and successfully searching locations in the Other World can reward energy.

7. You can choose a faction.

The game has six factions: King, City Guard, Aristocracy, Cardinal, Citizens, and Sea Brotherhood.

In Hidden City, you can’t decide which profession you have, but you can choose your alignment in Hidden Epee.

8. It’s easier to replenish your energy with time.

In most games that have energy limits, it will take 3 minutes to gain back one unit of energy or power (you need the former to search a location and the latter to charge a friend’s location). In Hidden Epee, it takes 2 minutes.

What Don’t I Like About Hidden Epee?

Here’s everything that’s wrong with Hidden Epee:

1. The game crashes or freezes at least once a day, especially if you play it for more than 30 minutes at a time.

For example, if you click “Play” on a location or minigame and experience a crash before entering the scene, the game takes your energy and any special items you use to enter the location without giving you anything back. Other times, the game might freeze after certain ads appear. For me, I often see problems when an ad for the Sherlock Holmes hidden items game appears. One ad just won’t start, nor will it let me click out of it. I’ll have to close the game and start it up again.

The game crashing is perhaps its biggest issue. And it’s especially infuriating when that happens after I successfully search a location or defeat a monster but before I can click “OK” to collect my prizes.

2. You might not be able to visit all your G5 friends who have the game installed.

I can only visit a few friends (and perhaps only two are still playing this game). When I try to visit the rest, I get a message that those friends have a different update of the game installed.

How is that possible? With other games with a visiting feature, it doesn’t matter which update they have because I can still visit them. I contacted the support team about this issue, and they’ve done nothing about it.

3. The music is too quiet.

Above, I said I like the music. However, I can barely hear it unless I turn up my volume to an uncomfortable level. This isn’t a problem with other G5 games.

4. The game scenes are too large.

Searching a location can be harder and take more time because of how large each scene is. And the game doesn’t zoom in that much. If you were to take screenshots of a location, you would need to take three at a time to capture the whole scene.

And you can forget about using screenshots for Past and Reflection modes (that would require 9 screen captures at a time).

5. Some items are too small or otherwise hard to see.

This problem also makes it easier to waste time during a search.

Some items might be nearly transparent, so you will need to use tools to find those items initially. Other times, some parts of the scenery can completely obscure items. Listed items should be possible to find without the use of tools.

6. During special events, the game asks you to find (too) many extra items.

You can see the extra items (by silhouette) in the upper right corner of the scene, and they appear one at a time. At most, you can get five tickets that you can use to earn up to 50 items during the designated period (40 or so days), but to earn a ticket, you need to find 2-3 items. Why not just require players to find five extra items?

7. The game’s responsiveness is unbalanced.

It can be harder to move about the scenes in a timely manner, especially with Night mode. You must hold down your left mouse button to move down in Hidden Epee, whereas in most hidden object games, just moving your mouse is enough to move your area of vision.

Also, it takes more than a second to charge friends’ locations or flags or to get rewards from your flags. For example, if you click on a flag, you need to wait for any items you receive to reach your inventory before you can click on another flag. A quick double click might speed up the process, but I don’t have this issue with most G5 games.

On the other hand, Hidden Epee is too sensitive to the input from my mouse when I’m searching for items on the list. That’s a double-edged sword, no pun intended. While the game’s sensitivity helps during a search (when I can’t find specific items), it can lead to inadvertent double-clicking and time penalties.

8. I don’t like the match-3 game mechanics.

Specifically, it’s hard to create bombs, fireworks, and scepters for the Market (where you play the main match-3 game), and the scepter will only take away pieces of the same color or merge with bombs and fireworks. In other match-3 games I’ve played, boosters that function like the scepter will only take away pieces of a color based on which piece I select. Ultimately, it can be extremely difficult to create boosters and cascades in Hidden Epee that make it more likely to win the game. Often, it requires a few plays just to beat one level of the Market.

9. Leveling up isn’t that rewarding.

Since it’s easier to replenish your energy, you’re unlikely to use it all up before you reach the next level. Also, you’ll only get 3-4 extra points of energy with each level up. I think 5 extra points is better than that.

10. Not all assemblers are free.

In a game like Hidden City, you can give any assembler (except the newly introduced one for the current event) to each of your friends once per day. In Hidden Epee, some important assemblers will come out of your inventory if you want to give them to friends.

11. The game’s items are too expensive, even if you don’t pay actual money.

The game doesn’t drop enough of the tools you need to progress during some searches, and you can’t purchase some important tools with coins. Even coin purchases can be too steep. I believe all the basic tools should have a coin purchase option (1, 5, and 10), and buying 10 of those items should cost no more than 45,000-90,000 coins.

Making matters worse, some tools are only available at the end of a search. I wasted tens of crystals buying extra moves while trying to defeat monsters (I know, I know), but now I will avoid those monsters until I have enough gems to fight them. Speaking of the monsters …

12. Fighting monsters is more difficult than it needs to be.

And it requires you to play match-3 games, and the top-level monster needs you to create boosters to take amulets off the board. That can be next to impossible without boosters or losing a few times. I prefer fights that only require you to use a few items to repel the threat. Why should you need 2-3 amulets to fight a monster, only to lose the fight because you ran out of moves?

13. Some of the contracts are too punishing.

Some days, the daily contracts (there are five a day) require me to do 10 or more searches in the Other World or receive 10 or more Amulets of Courage. That can be impossible for players who don’t have enough Babylonian Candles. I also hate it when the contract calls for me to use tools or activate bonuses from my inventory. I want to stockpile those items for emergencies.

14. The game doesn’t allow you to keep more than 100 gifts at a time.

It only allows 60, and it’s easier for gifts to quickly accumulate on the map. Ideally, only 2 or 3 gifts should appear after each successful search of the event location.

15. The game doesn’t have a full screen option.

When I play a PC game, I want to see the clock and my app taskbar. With Hidden Epee, I need to set the screen ratio before the game loads, or the display will be messed up. This doesn’t happen with other G5 games.

Why Am I Still Playing Hidden Epee?

For now, I’m playing the game to finish the current event. Unfortunately, I believe that the problems with Hidden Epee are more numerous than the positive aspects. Ultimately, I might quit the game because of its negative aspects. Let’s see if the development team fixes these issues in the future — or decides to stop updating the game altogether. The latter problem has happened in some games I’m still playing, and I might just quit those, too.

[kabannoneko]

Game Thoughts: I commissioned some bees 0 by Follow The Fun

So, we watched someone play A Building Full of Cats quite a while back, and we kinda wanted to play something similar. Searched on Steam and found this free game! With 1000+ bees to find, what could possibly go wrong?! - Gure

What’s It About?

Well, it’s not really a story-based game, so I have almost nothing to say about what it’s about… But if ya gotta know, it’s a hidden object game where you gotta find bees hidden in various illustrations which were commissioned by the dev. That’s pretty much the whole premise, hence the title.

And this is only one of a whole series of (really affordable) games!

Art

I would consider the art the main draw of this game. After all, they did commission some art with bees, right?

The art looks like what you would expect in hidden object games, and in a good way! All of them get pretty surreal, and that’s cool. There’s so many little details that I can’t help but take a good look at. Definitely a must if you’re gonna be searching for little bees in them.

Music

Not really much to say when it comes to the background music, since they did purchase it from a stock music website and I couldn’t play it on stream as a result… (Although I did play some music that’s also pretty much not in the VOD lol) But the ambient sounds that they used did fit the images, at least. Liked the spoopy one a lot in particular.

Also liked the little bee sounds that played whenever you clicked on the bees. It’s cute, hehe.

Gameplay

It’s what you would expect for pretty much any hidden object game. You simply click on the left mouse button to get any bees you see on the artwork. Additionally, you can use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out, click and drag the left mouse button to move the image around, and press H to momentarily show an arrow pointing to an area with a bee in it.

Aside from the bees, there are also other bee-related items that you can find and click on per stage.

From my experience, it all flows smoothly, nothing complicated, except for the times when I meant to click but dragged instead (that’s pretty much my fault lol). I thought it would take me a really long time to find all the bees and items, but it’s pretty quick, in my opinion. And it looks like you can replay the whole thing again just to challenge yourself to get better times, since the game does take note of how long you took to find everything.

I wonder if it would be a better choice if it was the right mouse button to pan instead…?

Overall

It’s a nice, short game that you can play if you’re bored and don’t have that much cash on you. Not to mention that you can get to appreciate some art that really talented people made! Not sure if I just didn’t look for it, they didn’t do it, or I didn’t remember, but it would be nice if I could see who made the nice art.

Either way, you can find it on Steam.

[hiddenobject-fanblog]

gloomy tales horrific show is a halloween carnival themed hopa. it had some minor bugs when I played a while ago but maybe they’re fixed now… my favourite parts were the werewolf guy with the hot voice and the main character’s halloween sweater

This looks like a good one!!! Thanks for the recommendation, anon, looks like it's on Steam, and on sale right now! Will try it out soon.

[madmardybobshaw]

Second trailer of "Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome". Review of this game now available on my channel: https://youtu.be/nyu6LTymvqQ