Dark Arcana: The Carnival (XB1 Edition)

Artifex Mundi is continuing to release its early games on consoles, which gives me a chance to finally catch up on them! This time, it's Dark Arcana, the story of a tormented knife-thrower with an evil scheme!

Adam Wolfe - Season 1

This is, by leagues, the most intricate and deep HOG I've ever encountered. Partially that's due to its remarkable running time - the game's 'season' is broken up into four hour-long 'episodes' - although simple running time has little to do with the game's successes. After all, Evil Pumpkin dragged on for hours and hours with almost no content to it at all. What so impresses about Adam Wolfe is the fact that each one of its chapters is a fully fleshed-out story with its own cast of characters, as well as a beginning, middle, and end.

Players take on the role of Wolfe, a supernatural detective determined to solve the mystery of his sister's disappearance - as well as help out the other three people who need his expertise in their own storylines. Each one of the stories is a fully satisfying experience, and had the developers been interested in doing so, they could have tacked a few extra puzzles and HOGS into each and sold this as four different games. Instead, they've released one of the most dramatically satisfying HOGs ever made.

Now, on to the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Not at all. Mad Head Games have gone above and beyond to create HOSs that look completely believable. Obviously aware that this is an issue in poorly-produced HOGs, they set all of the hidden object scenes in plausibly cluttered locations. Adam goes digging through an old box of personal effects, a bartender has the player searching through a packed shelf, there's even a child's treehouse absolutely stuffed with toys. All of the screens are beautifully drawn, with items hidden completely naturally. There's no cheating of any kind, yet the screens are never pushovers - great care was obviously taken to ensure that the items to be located match the art style of their surroundings. This is as good as hidden object scenes get from a presentation standpoint.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Again, this is a perfect example of developers going the extra mile and showing how much they respect their audience's suspension of belief. While the game doesn't have a ton of HOSs - there are just a few in each episode - the majority of them are fully integrated into the plot. There are some narrative screens, in which the player is asked to find a series of items as part of a story being told, justified lists, where they have to find puzzle pieces under a series of items, and plenty of mini-puzzles, that have them finding and using a series of items all within and intricately-designed screen. There are a couple of basic 12:1 screens as well, but by and large Adam Wolfe's HOSs are some of the best-integrated ones around.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Incredibly well. Adam Wolfe offers a huge variety of environmental interaction, standard puzzles, and action sequences, all of which fit perfectly within the game world. The main character operates in a strata of society full of ancient secret orders, scheming demons, and otherworldly threats - of course he's going to have to open a few puzzle boxes here and there. Beyond the standard puzzles, however, the game has a few interesting mechanics of its own to offer. Most notable is the 'time rewind' mechanic, in which Adam arrives at the scene of a crime and has the ability to look backwards to the moment of tragedy - simply move a few items so that the the physical space has been reset, and the player is treated to a rotoscoped re-enactment of the action.

What truly impressed me, though, was how well the game managed to integrate action sequences into the gameplay. So many games stumble with fistfights and gunplay, but Adam Wolfe pulls it off with aplomb. There's frantic tapping, some symbol matching, and even a two-axis aiming sequence - and they all work just fine. This is a more intense, action-packed HOG than I'm used to, but it never asks too much from its player, managing to remain an accessible casual experience even when things get violent. And get violent they do - Adam shoots a surprisingly large number of people over the course of the game, yet another one of its standout points. The game is so well-built that I even enjoyed the card game I played against a supernatural foe at one point - and I tend to skip adversarial puzzles because of my well-established history of being terrible at them.

From beginning to end, Adam Wolfe is operating at the absolute peak of the art of HOG design. Compelling stories, great gameplay, challenging yet fair puzzles - this is as good as casual adventures get, and is an absolute must-play for any fan of the genre. If I was forced to find a single complaint about Adam Wolfe, it's that at the end of the game the story isn't completely over. All of the mysteries have been solved, but there's a fairly substantial dangling plot threat that might frustrate some. I tend to look at it as a good sign - it suggests that the developers intend to make more Adam Wolfe games - which, if this one is anything to go by, would be a fantastic result.

Curious about the playthrough which led to this review? Check out the first part below!

Demon Hunter 3: Revelation

Demon Hunter 3 has a proud pedigree to live up to. While the first two games in the series weren't the best HOGs I've ever played, they were by far the most endearingly strange. The first game will always hold a place in my heart due to its use of a photo of Jeffrey Combs as one of its villains, as well as introducing me to my spirit animal, Scarecrow Dentist. The second game will be remembered forever as having perhaps the most proactive villain in the history of HOGs, who had a penchant for both poison and rocket launchers, which exist at the exact opposite ends of the spectrum of possible murder weapons. While DH3 may not be able to compete with its predecessors in terms of raw oddness, it's a better game than either of them, with great puzzles and a plethora of HOSs.

Also the picture of Jeffrey Combs makes a brief cameo.

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Barely at all. The developers at Brave Giant have found themselves a perfect setting for object searches - a crumbling house situated just above a decrepit church that hides the entrance to a secret underground kingdom. I seriously don't have the slightest idea where this game is set. The previous two took place in America, but this title just goes full-on fantasy with its setting, having the player traipse from a modern setting where cops are investigating a murder all the way to a pseudo-medieval village. This wouldn't necessarily be so peculiar if the main character's adventure was taking her to some bizarre and far-off location - Demon Hunters can go where they like, of course - but she's called in by the police officer from the first game, which suggests that things are once again taking place in America. Perhaps I was a little hasty when I suggested this game wasn't as odd as the previous entries in the series.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Demon Hunter 3 runs the full gamut of HOS types. There are construction scenes, 12:1 scenes, silhouettes, even uncovering screens! While I'm fine with the genre-wide move towards HOPAs, in which developers focus more on the graphic adventure portions of their games, and backburner the hidden object scenes to a certain extent, it's nice to see a game really focus on its hidden object scenes, throwing more than a dozen at the player, with never more than a few minutes of gameplay separating each new HOS. They're all extremely well-designed, and a pleasure to play. Other than a single technical issue, that is. The 12:1 screens have the traditional 'white text for visible items, blue text for items which need to be found or made' structure. This generally accurate and well-handled - even the morphing items have their names change colour when they transform. The problem comes with the silhouette screens - they also feature hidden and transforming items, but there's no signal offered to let the player know which items can simply be found, and which are double-hidden. This adds a needless level of frustration to what was otherwise a perfectly-constructed set of puzzles.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Again, setting is king here - the ruined church and ancient village are perfect places to find elaborate locks, statues that need to be reassembled, and piles of items to search through. A lot of the standards show up - spinning triangle mosaic, gear strings, and marble sorting all make an appearance. The most interesting and notable puzzles are two imports from the Grim Legends series - the first are the storybook puzzles that do such a great job of offering backstory while keeping the player engaged and searching for mysterious symbols.

The second, and far more intriguing borrowed puzzle is the 'psychic battle' from The Dark City. From time to time the game's main character will come across a demonic force, and she'll have to break through their mystical barriers by finding symbols they're incapable of defending against. It's a great little minigame, and I was happy to see it, but its inclusion is more meaningful than developers reusing a successful invention. It, along with some plot details I won't divulge here, suggest that Demon Hunter and Grim Legends are set in the same universe, and fans of both can likely expect a crossover soon.

Speaking as one of those fans, this is incredible news.

Demon Hunter 3 may not be a bubbling cauldron of madness the way the first two games in the series were, but it's a bona fide success, with great puzzles, beautiful HOSs, and a story that ties up all of the last two games' loose ends, while promising more intrigue to come. Demon Hunter really feels like a Brave Giant game, and deserves its place alongside that developer's best titles.

I just realized that I made it through the entire review without mentioning the huge improvement they've made - there's now an indicator onscreen to let players know if there are collectibles to be found on a given screen. If it wasn't a solid enough game already, DH3 goes out of its way to strip all frustration out of trophy hunting!

Demon Hunter 3 can be purchased here!

Want to see the playthrough which led to this review? The first video is below!

A review copy of this game was provided by the publisher!

Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood

Enigmatis ended on something of a cliffhanger - the evil Preacher escaped, leaving the detective to chase him to another town, where he would doubtless to use his hypnotic church bell to restart his serial killing. To be honest, it wasn't a fantastic ending. Enigmatis had been primarily notable for a super solid and surprisingly dark narratives, but I didn't see any logic or value in playing the same story over again. So i was understandably delighted to discover that Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood had something entirely different in store. Picking up two years after the first game, E2 offers a whole new setting, and entirely new villain, and the return of a familiar threat. More importantly, it explores and expands the mythology of the first game in some of the most interesting ways I've seen in a hidden object game.

Now, on to the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Almost not at all. The game is set in a long-abandoned tourist park (shades of Eventide!), a territory long-since reclaimed by nature. Every time a HOS pops up, it's in the ruins of a tableau or deep in a lost catacomb. The developers have strewn logical items in sane locations, and the result are beautifully crafted HOSs. There's a total of one questionable screen in the entire game - a single desk location near endgame that has a little bit of size and gravity cheating, but this one flaw is overwhelmed by how massively right the developers get the rest of the hidden object screens.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

It's a solid mix here. There are some 12:1 screens, a number of assembly screens, and even a couple of mini-puzzles. There's a good balance between logical and illogical, and the assembly screens are some of the best I've ever encountered. By far the most impressive is one sequence in which the player is asked to use a black light to find invisible ink symbols on scattered pieces of paper, then use those glowing symbols as a guide to reassemble the code-sheet they're drawn on. I can easily overlook a couple of generic 12:1 screens if the rest are going to be this detailed and inspired.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

It's not just coherent - this is one of the strongest stories I've ever encountered in a hidden object game. The various elaborate locks and hidden codes make perfect sense in the context of a holiday park that has been redesigned by a murderous madman, and even the beyond objects that the player can seek out for an achievement make perfect sense as part of the narrative - instead of just looking for a bonus transforming item with no connection to the story, the player is tasked with catching glimpses of the illusions that the villain has been using to lure people to their deaths. It's rare to see a developer put this level of care into every aspect of gameplay, and Artifex Mundi should be lauded for their accomplishment.

Enigmatis' great addition to the traditional HOG structure makes a return appearance here, and the developers have outdone themselves in improving it. Digging out pieces of evidence and figuring out how they fit into the big picture of the case is always going to be a satisfying experience, and this is one of the best examples of that mechanic I've ever seen. Enigmatis 2 also swipes a key element from Nightmares From the Deep - a door that has to be unlocked by finding metal tokens, and a mysterious figure who offers a bit of backstory with every piece of the lock the player turns over.

This is one of the thematically darkest HOGs I've ever played. There's mass-murder, demon worship, psychological torture... It goes even further than the previous game in the series, and that was already a flat-out horror title. Really, Enigmatis 2 improves on the first game in every way - the graphics are gorgeous, the story has a number of big surprises, and the presentation is top-notch. This is the third Artifex Mundi hidden object game I've played on the Xbox One, and I'm still impressed by how natural it is to use a controller for what had previously been a mouse-focused genre. Navigation is a breeze, the inventory control is better, and puzzles have all been tweaked to ensure they take full advantage of the thumbsticks and buttons to create more natural interfaces. If a slight drop in hidden object scene precision is the price I have to pay for better controls in every other respect, that's a deal I'm happy to make.

I can't say enough good things about Enigmatis 2's story, though. From its creepy opening to the thrilling conclusion (and satisfying epilogue), it impressed me more than anything else out there in the HOG genre. There are horrific discoveries, dramatic battles, tense setpiece puzzles - basically everything anyone could want from a graphic adventure. I'd recommend this HOG to anyone, and I'm eagerly looking forward to playing the next game in the series.

Curious about the playthrough that led to this review? Check out the first part below!

A review copy of this game was provided by the developer!

Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom

I just can't get enough of Alchemy-themed games, it would seem. In addition to my well-established love of the Atelier series of games - JRPGs in which an alchemist has to create her way out of troublesome situations - I've enjoyed every one of the botany/alchemy games that Artifex Mundi has put out. Lost Grimoires is the newest addition to that miniseries, joining the first two Grim Legends titles and the Eventide series by putting the player in control of a woman who uses her expert knowledge of the natural world to craft the potions and poultices that allow her to overcome every obstacle in her path.

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

To the most minor degree. This is the first title I've played from World Loom Games, but they're obviously extremely skilled at the fundamentals of HOG design. The game isn't exactly packed with hidden object scenes, but the ones it offers are - with a single exception - utterly gorgeous. The developers have created natural locations for hidden objects to appear in, and play extremely fair with item sizing and placement. I come to Artifex Mundi games for stellar HOS construction, and this title does their track record proud. Only one screen is badly-drawn, with an assortment of giant thimbles and objects that don't match the lighting or geography very well. Honestly, it's not even that bad a screen - and I'd probably give a pass to a game made entirely out of screens like it - but since the rest of the game's HOS are so beautifully drawn, this single mediocre one stands out like a sore thumb.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

There are a good mix of HOS types here, with most of them completely justified within the plot. Sure, there are a couple of 12:1 scenes, but by and large the developers have gone the extra mile and come up with ways to ensure the HOSs feel like part of the world. There are mini-puzzle screens and integrated screens, but by far the most impressive are the construction screens. I've always been partial to HOSs in which the player is asked to grab all of the parts of an object they need, and Lost Grimoires offers some of the best I've ever seen. The key to their success is a wonderful presentation flourish, where all of the pieces the player has found appear on the screen as parts of an exploded diagram, which then flies together, forming the object they've created. It's a small detail, but it really makes the player feel like they've accomplished something at the end of a HOS.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Lost Grimoires features one of the best-structured stories I've seen in a hidden object game. It hits a lot of familiar beats - an orphaned child, family secrets, royal conspiracies - honestly, with the alchemist main character this winds up feeling more like Grim Legends 3 than The Dark City did. While the story may be familiar, the execution is anything but. The game is broken up into a series of three-screen areas, each one with a number of puzzles to solve and HOSs to complete before the player moves onto the next one. This keeps the story moving along at a great clip, with never more than ten minutes or so going by before the next plot revelation. This means that the player will never have to do much backtracking, or suffer from a bloated inventory which had them trying to figure out which of fifteen items they're supposed to use in order to solve a given puzzle.

Most puzzle solving is done through the alchemy mechanic, which is a fantastic creation. Rather than having the player return to crafting stations over and over to assemble the game's dozen-plus recipes, they simply collect reagents and then transmute them into a useful item through a standardized puzzle interface. In each one the player is shown a set of interlocking rings with spheres on them representing the five key elemental forces - every alchemical product requires that the elements be arranged in a certain order to be completed, and it's up to the player to spin the rings and swap the spheres until the puzzle matches the hint image. It's not a completely original puzzle - I've played version of it in plenty of other games. The genius of Lost Grimoires, though, is the decision to assign a specific puzzle to represent a repeated action, and then present the player with increasingly difficult iterations of that puzzle for the entirety of the game. It makes the player feel like they're using a real skill to interact with the game's world, one that improves as they make their way through the game.

Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom is a great game. The art is universally high-quality, the puzzles fit perfectly into the world the developers have created, and the story kept me intrigued all the way through. I don't know if this is going to be the first title in a new series, or just a one-off adventure, but I look forward to whatever the developers have planned next, since they've shown that they can put out a top-notch hidden object game.

Disclaimer - A review copy of this game was provided by the publisher.

Eventide 2: The Sorcerer's Mirror

After the Botanist hero's success in saving the Slavic theme park and saving a rare plant in Eventide, it's time for a mountain-climbing vacation with her niece. Her mistake - going mountain climbing in the same region where the first game took place, an area she knows full well is packed with goblins, imps, and villainous magic. Naturally, they're attacked by an evil sorcerer, the niece is kidnapped, and it's up to the heroic Botantist to rescue her, defeat the villain, and save a town all before an evil ritual can be completed!

But how did the hidden object criteria turn out?

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Not in the least. House of fables can be relied upon to generate some of the most attractive and naturalistic HOSs in the genre. With Eventide 2, they keep that reputation alive, offering screens that make perfect sense in context, yet provide considerable challenge. As with all botany and herbalist-themed titles, the developers have an almost unfair advantage, as looking for a certain type of plant in a field of wildflowers is always going to be a fantastic looking HOS. Whether players are combing through bushes for a few flowers, searching desks for keys, or digging into piles of equipment, everything looks gorgeous and completely believable.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

It's a roughly 50/50 split this time. The game is half 12:1 screens, with players grabbing a single key item and a bunch of nonsense, and half integrated screens, with a mixture of assembly and botany screens. Using the botany theme gives the developers a head start in logical puzzle design, as it's almost impossible to hide a particular flower in a screen full of foliage in a way that seems contrived or unnatural. Likewise, the assembly screens are a lovely sight to behold, with each random fragment slotted naturally into the environment. Even the 12:1 screens are well-built, with the developers managing to create challenging puzzles without resorting to any kind of cheating.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

For the second time, the developers have put together a solid story which allows for plenty of HOSs and puzzles to be logically included. Many of the doors are locked with House of Fables' well-known narrative puzzle scenes, where character backstories are explored through pictorial puzzles - they're never particularly challenging, but they do a great job of offering exposition through gameplay rather than cutscenes, which is always welcome. The game's setting offers perfect justification for strange keys, secret passages, and ornate locks, just as the focus on using herbal concoctions to help people offers good reason to go looking for hidden objects. The House of Fables obviously cares quite a bit about making their games as logical as possible to keep players from ever getting disconnected from the story - and once again, they've succeeded.

There is one wholly new addition that the developers make to this game - a simple morality system that affects the outcome of the story. This isn't a new thing in games, of course, but it's the first time I've seen it employed in a HOG adventure. There are five decision points, in the game, and while none of them are exactly difficult moral choices, it's certainly satisfying to see how each of them pay off when the various characters return for the final showdown with the game's villain.

Eventide 2 is a darker and more serious game than the previous entry in the series. There are still adorable imps, of course, but the game's plot revolves around a man attempting to bring back his dead wife, and manipulating the townspeople of his village by offering them contact with their own lost loved ones. The solid gameplay never undercuts the great story, making this the perfect example of a sequel that completely surpasses its predecessor. Eventide was already a great game, and Eventide 2 is an improvement in every way.

Curious about the playthrough that led to this review? Check out the playlist starting below!

Criminal Minds

This is kind of a crossover, as in one of my non-HOGuru lives I run the internet's most popular destination for Criminal Minds reviews. Worlds are colliding, though, and it's time for me to put aside my knowledge of (and fondness for) the show and focus on how well it works as a HOG. So, let's join Greg and the gang as they attempt to solve some serial murders! But first, the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

It's a complete disaster. Every HOS in the game is a pile of random garbage dumped on a generic backrgound. It defies realism, logic, or even basic professionalism. There's size, gravity and colour cheating - plenty of pictures that need to be found instead of the items they represent. Every screen is amateurish - with the only interesting aspect being the fact that a few of the items on every screen are anagrammed. Most words will be in black, but some will a mess of blue letters, and it's up to the player to either decode the anagram and figure out what they're looking for or just track down and click on a question mark hidden somewhere on the screen. It's not a revolutionary feature or anything like that, but it certainly does help spice up the otherwise mediocre HOSs.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Marginally. Sometimes players are asked to find 1-3 pieces of evidence amidst a 12-item list, but by and large this is all standard HOG stuff, with players needing to track down an item to open up access to another or get information from a witness/suspect/janitor. These types of searches and results clash badly with the subject matter - these are FBI agents the player is controlling. In the first episode, they're looking for a serial killer who's killed two people in less than a day, in the second episode they're looking for a dirty bomb. Why, in either case, aren't they just taking the things they need, going wherever they want, and demanding help from everyone while threatening them with arrest for obstruction - the way they do on the show? No, it's here in the random item-grabbing that the game feels least like a Criminal Minds experience.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

While the HOSs don't really fit with Criminal Minds world, the developers have managed to come up with a number of puzzles that manage to fit the investigative model quite well. Whether players are asked to identify fingerprints, organize evidence, or psychologically interpret art by ferreting out details in it, all of the game's puzzles managed to recreate the feel of simplified policework depicted in the show - and as such, are very successful. The developers have even managed to put together decent substitutes for interviewing and profiling sequences. The former is depicted as a game of taipei, with the removal of certain pieces equating to the opening of a conversational onion, and the latter is a tile-swapping game built around assembling a line of uninterrupted thought - the game even lets players know that they're doing well by having the conversations between the profilers proceed as pieces are snapped into the correct slots.

While the game may drop the ball from time to time as a HOG, looked at as a Criminal Minds game it's everything a fan of the series would hope for. There's a gruesome murder, a lot of nonsensical psychobabble and ridiculous leaps of logic - what more could one hope for? Even all of the actors allowed their likenesses to be used in the game, if not their voices. As a Criminal Minds graphic adventure, it's probably that anyone has a right to expect, I just wish that the HOSs were up to the level of the puzzles, so I could recommend it without  reservation.

Want to check out the playthrough that led to this review? Check out the video below for the first part!

Riddles of the Past

A woman with amnesia gets a clue to her past and heads to a mysterious town populated only by robots... and secrets! That's the intriguing premise behind Riddles of the Past, which is one of the cleanest and most focused HOGs I've ever encountered. There's a great location, some creepy robot designs, and a genuinely solid story that tracks all the way through. Before I get lost complimenting the game, though, we should get to the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Not in the least. An innovate type of fully integrated HOG, Riddles of the Past has no distinct and separate hidden object screens. Instead of being taken to a zoomed-in version area of some location and being forced to sift through a pile of trash, all of the game's hidden object scenes take place within the game's natural environments. Every location is a plausibly distressed depiction of a town left to rot for a decade, and within each one the items that need to be found are fairly hidden. No size or transparency cheating here - the developers even go so far as to give the player a picture of each item they need to find. It will be sized differently on the screen, naturally, and probably turned to a different angle, but it works far better than silhouettes in giving players the leg up they'll need when they have the possibility of looking anywhere in the game's locations for the next item.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Entirely! In each of the game's screens there will be from 1-3 items which need to be repaired or rebuilt, using from 3-5 items. While the game might not have distinct HOSs, there's no shortage of searching to be done for fans of the genre. As with all true fully integrated hidden object games, the player will never be asked to pick up an item that doesn't directly relate to them solving a puzzle - and the game is all the better for it. This is as justified as hidden object searches get, folks.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Riddles of the Past's greatest strength is the way it uses the hidden object searches to move the story forward. Rather than pushing them off to the side and having the player track down an item or two here or there, the player is constantly presented with concrete problems that need to be solved, and asked to find the handful of items that will allow them to move forward. Compared to that completely logical HOG design, the puzzles can sometimes come across as a little arbitrary. Yes, this is a town run by a mad scientist, so some peculiar locks and machines aren't completely out of the realm of belief, but there's a weird focus on solving puzzles by doing simple math, which feels a little out of place.

It has great hidden object integration, good puzzles, and an above-average story. For anyone looking for a title that has the fundamentals of HOG design down pat, they won't do much better than Riddles of the Past. While it may not have the presentation bells and whistles of more recent games, it's a great experience from beginning to end, with enough gamplay variety and story turns to keep players hooked right to the end.

Curious about the playthrough which led to this review? Check it out below - with special guest DM!

Bathory: The Bloody Countess

Wow, does this game look good. That's its main selling point, and it really is a strong foot to put forward. Every character, location, and HOS in the game is drawn in a distinctively soft pastel-influenced style that makes it stand out from the strict realism that so many other titles are shooting for. I'd say that the art was the only thing the game had going for it, but that wouldn't be exactly fair, as the story, short though it may be, actually does have its nice moments.

On to the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

To a moderate degree. There aren't many HOSs in the game, and the vary wildly in quality. While a kitchen and tool stand may be perfect examples of realistic yet complex and challenging HOS design, a few of the other screens - like a greenhouse or the garden in front of a gypsy's house - are mediocre messes. Good or bad, though, the game's problem with its HOSs is that players are asked to return to each of the small number of screens an unacceptable number of times. I've been fairly open about my love of returning to HOSs for second and third trips in the past - on two conditions: 1 - All of the quest items must appear when the player arrives at the scene the first time, so they get a teaser for what they'll be looking for later; 2 - Any item the player picks up must not be returned for the second visit, allowing the player the rare pleasure of actually 'cleaning up' the screen over two, or at a maximum three, visits. That second item is vitally important, since players never want to be put in the position of having to find the same item in the same place more than once - the act that breaks all suspension of disbelief and pulls players out of the game.

Care to guess my objection to Bathory's HOSs?

That's right - not only does is the player asked to return to most of the screens 5-10 times only to find all the items reset, but adding insult to injury, each time they're asked to find 12 items, but each screen has a pool of around 16 items to draw from, meaning that players will spend the game picking up the exact same items over and over again. It's inexcusable and frustrating and by the end of the game I'd nearly reached the point where I could grab all of the first screen's items blindfolded.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

A small percentage of the time, yes, the game offers the thinnest justification possible - the 12:1 screen. Most of the time, though, players are asked to complete a hidden object scene over and over again in the hopes of being rewarded with money. Money which is used to buy quest items from the town store. Where most games will hide those items inside HOSs, giving the player the chance to find them for themselves, the developers of Bathory didn't bother. Instead, players are forced to perform the same rote screens over and over again until they earn enough money to but everything at the store with a price tag on it. Why is the main character receiving coins for collecting the same items over and over again? Who can say! The developers couldn't even provide the barest figleaf of justification by hiding coins in the various HOSs. It's just a disaster.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

While the HOSs are a nearly complete wash, the game at least has puzzles that fit well in the world. This is a haunted village in Slovakia, with the main character investigating an evil castle, a museum, and her sister's cottage. All of them are filled with elaborate puzzles to be solved, either in the form of mini-games or item use. The puzzles aren't anything special - just a standard assortment of card-matching, ring alignment, sliding block puzzles and the like. The only standout is the fetch-quest to find all of the ingredients to a potion which is then brewed via a game of pipe dreams. No, the puzzles aren't particularly innovative, but at least they're almost entirely competent in a way the HOSs just aren't. The only problem they have is that a few of the puzzles don't have the clearest rules, and the game doesn't explain how puzzles are meant to be played when the character first finds them. No, if players want instructions, they'll have to click on the HINT button. Which is just strange. Especially since the game's oft-times spotty translation means that occasionally the instructions raise more questions than they answer.

It's too bad that the HOSs are such a mess and the puzzles are just okay, since Bathory's presentation really is top-notch. It has some of the most beautifully-drawn art I've ever seen in a HOG, but it's in service of a sub-par experience. The story of a woman searching for her sister and uncovering the terrifying true story of Elizabeth Bathory is an entertaining one - but the developers didn't find a good way of telling it, and I spend more of the game frustrated than I did intrigued.

Want to see the playthrough that led to this review? Check out the first part below!

HOGuru Previews - Adam Wolfe

So I was contacted about covering an upcoming Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (too good to make a HOG, huh?) from Mad Head Games - I'm always interested in trying out new Hidden Object-related games, so naturally I said yes - and these are the screenshots they sent along - obviously you can click to bigafy them.

Chronicles of The Witches and Warlocks

Yeah, that's an awkward title, to be sure, but let's not dwell on it. Especially when the game turns out to be suspiciously light on the two titular figures. Here's the premise - an adventurer has been accused of murdering a mountaineer with an ice axe! This happened in a residential hotel, and no body was found, so I'm not sure how they made the charge stick, but let's move on - the player is controlling the adventurer's girlfriend, a prominent lawyer, who'll use every legal trick she knows to clear her man! I'm kidding, of course, what she'll actually do is use magical portals in a hotel room to jump do various eras, solving puzzles and finding hidden objects! It's never entirely clear how any of this is meant to help clear the adventurer's name, but is that really the most important thing? Of course not - so let's move on to the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

More than a little. Every screen is made up of a flood of nonsense dumped in the corner of some room or another - various types of cheating abound. Items are randomly stuck all over screens in entirely illogical places. In addition to the standard nonsense like knives and pens run along edges of desks, the game occasionally pulled some completely nonsensical moves like hiding a vinyl record in the underside of a lamp. What's worse, occasionally the game becomes downright impossible, as a few items are listed by the wrong name. I spent a full minute looking for a 'funnel' before giving up and hitting the hint button, which revealed that the game was asking me to click on an oilcan, of all things. Perhaps the worse example was the game requesting an 'Ostrich Feather' when it really meant 'peacock feather'. How does one even make a mistake like that? Also, couldn't they have just written 'feather'?

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

It's strictly 15:1 screens here - with the small caveat that the player is only ever presented with six named items at a time - the rest sub in as old items are discovered. This certainly has the effect of making the screens a little more engaging, but their poor construction keeps them from ever really being a pleasure to play. The screens themselves are attractively drawn, but too often unclear or generic names are used, making items surprisingly difficult to find. In on case, the game wanted me to click on the 'workshop key', yet gave me no indication that the key in question was a flat disc which fit into an ornate door lock.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Again, this is mostly a mixed bag. Many of the puzzles work within the game world - ornate unlocks, misplaced books, and brewing stations all fit nicely into the game's world. Too often, though, the game messes up the fundamentals of gameplay. Here's a fairly big problem - when there's an item or area that must be activated in order to move the game forward, the cursor changes to a gear, but clicking on it doesn't bring up a bit of text hinting at what the problem that needs to be solved is. So I'll look at an open manhole cover, and the small item floating down in the sewer, but since clicking accomplishes nothing, I'll have no idea what I should be looking for to solve the puzzle. A net? A hook? All that's left to do is visit every screen and click on every item, or just rely on the Hint button - neither is a good option. There are also a number of questionably-built puzzles, with instructions that don't make sense, or controls that aren't precise enough. I didn't skip any of them, but I came awfully close, and would have felt entirely justified in doing so.

Chronicles is such a beautiful game that I want it to be better than it is - the graphics and locations are gorgeously built, but the gameplay which takes place in them just isn't up to snuff. I should love a game that uses Silent Hill 4: The Room as inspiration, but there's just too many rough points to recommend this title. By the end it gets so shoddy that the developers play two hidden object scenes in the wrong order, transforming them into 15:0 screens, and somehow no one noticed. Hopefully this is just one bad effort from developer 8floor, whose 'Portal of Evil' I enjoyed quite a bit.

Although, come to think of it, that had one incredibly buggy puzzle as well...

Want to see the playthrough which led to this review? It starts in the video below!

HOGuru Previews - Persian Nights: Sands of Wonders

It's another game preview from the good folks at Artifex Mundi! This time it's Prince of Persia-themed, as well as being another entry in the unofficial 'herbalist' series of games that give players a chance to make the healing potions that keep adventurers spry and vigorous!

While the game may be a little short on Hidden Object Screens at the moment - there are only two, but both are fully integrated into the story - the art is fantastic, the monsters adorable, and the puzzles clever! Of the hidden object betas I've played, this has edged out Grim Legends 3 to be the most promising one.

Enjoy the preview, and check back here once the game has been released!

(Hopefully they'll drop that last S before it's released, though.)

Agent Walker: Secret Journey

Wartime isn't a particularly popular setting for Hidden Object Games - they are, by their very nature, not particularly combat-intensive - so I was excited to see how the developers at Brave Giant were going to handle the combination. They've made the safest possible choice, deciding to look towards the first name in uncovering mysterious secrets during WWII: Indiana Jones. There are certainly worse places to go looking for inspiration. The game puts players in control of Agent Walker, who is dispatched to retrieve the Spear of Destiny - a relic of unimaginable power - and keep it out of the hands of the Nazis, who would no doubt use it to conquer the entire globe!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

It's not fantastic. The screens tend to be loaded down with huge amounts of random nonsense that don't make a lot of sense for the location in which they're found. About half of the items on any given screen can be trusted to make sense in the ancient temple or French dock they're discovered inside, but the rest will be a tangle of playing cards, origami and children's toys. The items themselves are universally well-drawn, and the art style is consistent, but logic is lost more often than it should be. Especially in the most ludicrously out-of-place hidden object screen I've ever come across (pictured above). Agent Walker smashes open a fallen tree only to discover that it's been stuffed full of rope, coins, a live grenade, and lit candles. That's just madness.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

It's a pretty even split here - while many of the HOSs are traditional 12:1 screens, there are also quite a few integrated screens. These are either well-built mini-puzzle screens, or the much rarer 'clean-up' screens, where the player is given a list of items to find, but within the narrative of the game they're removing them to uncover the puzzle pieces or lock mechanism parts hidden behind. If a game is going to use 12:1 screens, this is one of the best ways to fit them into the story.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Despite a few lacklustre HOSs, Agent Walker manages to deliver a compelling story. The puzzles generally fit the theme quite well, with the resourceful Agent Walker called on to repair shoddy technology, escape from deathtraps, and dodge deadly pursuers. Also, she kills a lot of people. A surprisingly large number, in fact. As a war-themed game, I know this shouldn't come as such a surprise, but I was legitimately surprised at the sheer volume of Nazis that Walker does in, whether by springing deadly traps or simple wielding the eldritch artifact she'd been sent to track down.

Sadly, Walker herself remains the game's weak link. The developers have made the odd choice to go with a silent protagonist, which robs the player of the chance to get to know and like the person they're controlling. Instead of Walker explaining her thought processes and making exciting revelations, whenever the plot needs to move forward the game pauses for stilted narration which lays out what's going on. It's a baffling decision on their part.

While I may have some misgivings about the developers treatment of their main character and facility with hidden object screens, Agent Walker is still a winner. With its unique setting for the genre, breakneck pace, and wonderful art design, it was a joy to spend three hours with. Sure, it may be derivative, but Indiana Jones would fit perfectly in the world of hidden object games, and if Spielberg isn't going to give us an official game, I'm glad developers like Brave Giant have stepped in to make it a reality. I look forward to Agent Walker's next adventure - assuming all of this game's clunky aspects don't make it into the sequel.

Want to see the playthrough that led to this review? Check out the video below!

Haunted Hotel 2: Believe the Lies

No one can say that this isn't a huge improvement over the first Haunted Hotel. Likewise, it would be difficult to give it any compliments beyond 'it cleared an extremely low bar'. If I'm being honest, that bar was buried ten feet underground, so as long as HH2 could manage a crawl - mission accomplished. The game starts a year after the first adventure. The man who escaped the first game with a magical cat in tow apparently mailed the Detective's diary to the FBI, and now an agent has arrived at a related hotel to continue the investigation. Will he finally bring the conspirators to justice? Well, considering that this game is attempting to ape the X-Files in every way possible, I'm going to predict no.

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

It's terrible. Exactly as bad as the previous game in the series. The only difference between this game and the last one is that the player isn't asked to go back to the same room over and over again, finding the same items. No, HH2's innovation is to have the player constantly move to new rooms, where they can find the same items over and over again. And by 'same items', I mean literally the exact same items that were used in the first Haunted Hotel. I recognized huge swaths of the previous game's library of images stacked randomly around this new hotel's common areas and private rooms. Thank god the backdrops are all new and never repeat within the game - otherwise this would hold the record for the least amount of new content put into a HOG ever.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

It's generally 30:1 screens here. No, that wasn't a typo - players will commonly be asked to find 30 items on each HOS. On one level this is refreshing - there isn't much content in the game other than the searches, so at least there's a lot of searching to do. On another level, it's deeply frustrating, because the game's developers weren't up to building a library of objects more than about 120 items big, so players will find themselves searching for the same items over and over again. I would guess that I was asked to find a cork in most of the game's levels, and in one particularly egregious example, I was asked to find a set of binoculars four screens in a row.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

The game doesn't have many puzzle screens, but the developers actually do a decent job of tying everything together. At the end of each HOS the player will have an item that either unlocks the next room or helps them find the next minigame to make the transition. This actually leads to a nice visual effect - a couple of the minigames are jigsaw puzzles that the player has to assemple, and when they've been completed, the player will suddenly notices that they've been building a picture of the next location they're headed towards. The moment the puzzle is finished the image fades from black and white to colour, and the player can immediately start finding objects there. Yes, it's not a brilliant innovation by any means, but in a game as frustratingly repetitive as Haunted Hotel 2, I was happy to find spots of inspiration wherever I could.

Haunted Hotel 2 certainly is less terrible than its predecessor, but that doesn't mean it's worth playing. Only completionists desperate to see every entry in the series should bother. Of course, since I'm one of those, we can all expect to see a review of the third game turn up here in short order. Hopefully the series will continue improve, and the third time will be the charm!

By which I mean, be the first game to actually be worth playing.

List! Of Hidden Object Game Reviews!

That's right, it's an alphabetical list of all the Hidden Object Reviews here at the blog! If you're looking for something specific, hopefully you'll find it below! Or if you're just browsing, alphabetically is a good way to do that!

Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden
Agent Walker: Secret Journey 
Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends
Bathory: The Bloody Countess
Behind the Reflection 2: Witch's Revenge
Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Grey Syndrome
Brink of Consciousness: The Lonely Hearts Killer (coming soon)
Campfire Legends: The Hookman
Campfire Legends: The Babysitter
Campfire Legends: The Last Act
Christmas Adventure: Candy Storm
Chronicles of the Witches and Warlocks
Clockwork Man: The Hidden World
Clockwork Tales of Glass and Ink (Now updated for PS4!)
Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily
Criminal Minds
The Curse of Silent Marshes
Dark Arcana: The Carnival
Dark Strikes: Sins of the Father
Deadly Association
Demon Hunter: Chronicles From Beyond
Demon Hunter 2: New Chapter
Demon Hunter 3: Revelation
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A Strange Case
Elementary, My Dear Majesty
Emerald Maiden: Symphony of Dreams
Endless Fables: The Minotaur's Curse
Enigmatis: Ghosts of Maple Creek (PS4 Version)
Enigmatis 2: Mists of Ravenwood
Eventide: Slavic Fable
Eventide 2: The Sorcerer's Mirror
Evil Pumpkin: The Lost Halloween
Faces of Illusion: The Twin Phantoms
Ferrum Secrets: Where is Grandpa?
Forbidden Secrets: Alien Town
Frankenstein: The Dismembered Bride
Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride
Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan
Grim Legends 3: The Dark City
Haunted Hotel
Haunted Hotel 2: Believe the Lies
Haunted Hotel 3: Lonely Dream
Haunted Hotel 4: Charles Dexter Ward
Haunted Hotel 5: Eclipse
Haunted Hotel 6: Ancient Bane
Haunted Hotel 7: Death Sentence
Haunted Hotel 8: Eternity
Haunted Hotel 9: PhoenIX
Haunted Hotel 10: The X (Video)
Haunted Hotel 11: The aXIom Butcher
Haunted Hotel 12: Silent Waters (Coming Soon)
Haunting Mysteries: The Island of Lost Souls
Hidden Files: Echoes of JFK
Hidden Mysteries: Civil War
Hope Lake
House of a Thousand Doors: Family Secrets
Insane Cold: Back ot the Ice Age
Jack the Ripper: Letters From Hell (Video)
Lost Civilization
Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom
Lost Grimoires 2: Shard of Mystery
Margrave: Curse of the Severed Heart
Mystery Stories: Mountains of Madness
Mystery Trackers: The Paxton Creek Avenger
Natural Threat: Ominous Shores
New York Mysteries: Secrets of the Mafia
Nightmares From The Deep 2: The Siren's Call (Video)
Petrodollars
Portal of Evil: Stolen Runes
Pretty In Pink
Queen's Quest: Tower of Darkness
Queen's Quest 2: Stories of Forgotten Past
Questerium: Sinister Trinity
Riddles of the Past
Robin's Quest
Sinister City
Small Town Terrors: Livingston
Space Legends: At the Edge of the Universe
Statue of Liberty: The Lost Symbol
Time Mysteries: Inheritance
True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 1
Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova
Vampire Legends: The Untold Story of Elizabeth Bathory
Voodoo Chronicles: The First Sign

Haunted Hotel

With this game, I delve back into the history of HOGs, to a time when players were expected to just be happy that they were faced with a screen full of random garbage and a list of specific things to click on. A time before narrative coherence, integrated puzzles, or any conception of fairness in HOS design. I've been here before, when covering Civil War Mysteries, and while Haunted Hotel is nowhere near that dire, it's a little shocking to see a genre which would one day lead to such high points as The AXIom Butcher start out in such a rough state.

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

This may as well be the definition I use for 'worst possible example' of this problem. Every screen is cluttered with nonsense arrange with little to no care or logic. Items are presented with no thought given to their logical size or gravity's effect on them. Colours are changed for no logical reason - even transparency cheating is used, and that's essentially the lowest rung to which a developer can sink. Additionally, the game is wildly inconsistent about what items are called - I'd seen 'lighter' appear on the list of items a number of times, and had found both zippos and little plastic disposable items to check them off the list. Then, towards the end of the game, I spent three minutes searching for a lighter on a set of stairs, only to finally give up and hit the hint button - what had the game wanted me to click on that whole time? A flashlight.

Inexcusable.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Not in the least. As the player moves to each new floor of the titular Haunted Hotel, they're presented with anywhere from 1-6 rooms where they need to find items. Their reason for doing so is never hinted at or suggested even obliquely, and while the story segments do mention a few of the rooms they visit, collecting random junk doesn't feature in the narrative. At first the game seems to be going a little easy on the player - they'll have two rooms with 8 items to find in each, but the game will only actually require them to find 14 to move on to the next floor. This ceases feeling like a favour or help in the second half of the game, by which point the player is being asked to turn up 40-something items from five different rooms, and still they only have a one or two item margin for error.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

There is no whole. There are text-based story segments which have nothing to do with the gameplay. No matter how disconnected the HOSs may seem, the puzzles are considerably worse. After finding all the items on a level, the player is forced to 'power up' the elevator to the next floor. This is accomplished by completing puzzles wholly unrelated to anything else in the game. There's something called 'Energy', which is just clicking on sparks as they fly by - the rest are generic rejects from other titles - untangling cat's cradles, playing bejewelled, Simon Says... it's all random and somewhat annoying.

It's too bad the main game is such a mess since the story - which, as mentioned above, is told wholly through interstitial blocks of text (in a weirdly meta touch, the main character spends much of the adventure reading the diary entries of a detective who previously explored the hotel) which suggest an interesting adventure the game is incapable of showing. Time travel, weather machines, possibly magical totem cats - there's a lot of fun stuff in the story, but by no means is any of it entertaining enough to warrant the frustrating grind that is the game that surrounds it. It just goes to show how terrible most HOGs were at the birth of the genre that this was considered to be good enough to warrant a sequel, let alone a long-running franchise. Still, despite how much I disliked the game, I will be checking out the next one in the series, as it will be interesting to see how developers got from this low point here to something amazing like AXIom Butcher.

Nightmares From The Deep 2: The Siren's Call

I'd played the last game in the Nightmares From The Deep series, and enjoyed it thoroughly, so my expectations were high going into this game. I'll start off the review by saying that yes, they were met, and this is another high-quality game published by Artifex Mundi, but in addition to general production excellence, the game had something of a huge surprise for me. When I first booted up the game, the last thing I expected to find was another addition to my list of hidden object games adapted from HP Lovecraft stories, yet that's exactly what I got. Surprisingly, The Siren's Call is a fairly faithful adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth - just less bleak, and without a troubling anti-miscegenation message. The developers have taken the thrilling plot, creepy backstory, and great monster design of the original tale and reworked it so completely that it becomes almost entirely their own - making this quite an accomplishment even before gameplay elements are taken into account.

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Barely at all. As is frequently the case, the game is set in a town that's gone through a destructive event - here it's riots and social protest against a terrible mayor. As a result, the streets are a mess, and hidden objects are understandably difficult to find amongst all of the clutter. The screens themselves are beautifully drawn, with the items almost universally fitting the location in which they're found. The developers have even been mindful to avoid the various types of cheating so many games use to ramp up the difficulty level. Here only a few items have been shifted to an unrealistic size, and every time they want to hide an item by changing its colour from the expected they're always careful to establish a light source explaining the change in hue.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

The game is split pretty evenly between 12:1 and fully integrated, with the fully integrated scenes consisting of bother mini-puzzles and construction screens. The game offers a healthy amount of hidden object games - with the only real drawback being how heavily the game relies on the map's ability to let players know when the next screen is available. This can be a little daunting from a design standpoint at the best of times - give players a map that allows them to fast travel and they're going to use it, but it's generally better to let them find a hidden object scene organically through travel, rather than just looking for a new exclamation point on a map. The Siren's Call has a habit of putting new hidden scenes a good 8-10 screens back from wherever a puzzle is being solved, which more often than not leads to a player getting stumped because they can't crack a particular door, then checking out the map and discovering that way back in the starting village there are two new HOSs to solve.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

With its setting rife with magical pirates and ancient curses, The Siren's Call earns a pass on contrived locks and elaborate puzzles. These are evil fish-people who've been trapped in time for hundreds of years - of course they're going to get playful when it comes to sealing chests. The game especially impresses with the variety of locations it offers - starting in a Carribean island village, the game moves through a few locations seemingly set in different time periods using a clever and entirely believable conceit which I won't spoil here. The non-HOS puzzles are all especially well-grounded and fit the world - whether I was decoding a parchment, cracking a safe, or just repairing a set of clocks, all of the activities logically grew out of the story which contained them.

I was a big fan of the first Nightmares From The Deep, and The Siren's Call improves on it in every way. A compelling story, wonderful setting, and beautiful art make this one of the most high-quality HOGs I've reviewed. It's also important to mention just how well the Xbox One's controller handles the gameplay. I was initially wary about using a controller for a HOG, but these games have convinced me of its utility. Yes, every now and then the large 'clicking circle' in the HOSs has me grabbing an item other than what I was looking for, but it's accurate the vast majority of the time, and actually makes navigating from screen to screen easier, as well as speeding up inventory management quite a bit.

How good was the experience of playing Nightmares From The Deep 2: The Siren's Call on the XB1? Despite the fact that I already own the third game in the trilogy on PC, and am excited to see the next chapter - the Bonus Game does a great job of teasing the sequel - I'm probably going to wait until it's available on consoles, just so I can play this whole franchise all on one platform.

DISCLOSURE - I received a review copy of this game from Artifex Mundi.

Want to see the playthrough that led to this review? It starts with the video below!

Small Town Terrors: Livingston

After a car crash caused by a stubborn unwillingness to just run over a zombie, the game's main character is thrown into a coma, from which she awakes in plenty of time to discover that the town she was unlucky enough to convalesce in has been wholly run over by zombies! Only by finding some hidden objects, solving some contrived lock puzzles, and, oddly, maintaining her health bar, will she be able to rescue her family and escape the terrors of Livingston!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

They absolutely do, but the game does a great job of earning it. With the town of Livingston having been entirely destroyed by zombies and associated civil unrest, it makes sense that everything would be a godawful mess. Beyond that, it makes sure that, for the most part, at least, the items players are asked to search for are closely related to the places in which they're hidden. A pantry will mostly have foodstuffs, a police station desk will be covered in tools of the trade - these are well-drawn screens obviously produced by people who cared about making sure that they were internally consistent.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

It's purely 16-1 screens here. Clean up an area to find the one item the character needs to progress. The game actually cares enough to - usually, anyhow - make sure the item the player is specifically looking for is something that would actually be in the location they're searching. Like the police desk mentioned above - the player needs to find a club to break some glass - where else would they look, logically?

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

The game is broken up into four distinct story segments, with few, if any, items making the journey between them. This gives the game something of an episodic feeling which helps to build a sense of momentum. The player goes from recovering from her accident to starting a search, to entering the heart of darkness, to planning a desperate escape. The hidden object puzzles fit unusually well in the game world, and the puzzles generally take the form of slightly-preposterous locks and rewiring minigames. As a result, Small Town Terrors: Livingston offers an unusually consistent game experience, with little to distract the player from the story it's telling. Even the extra health bar mechanic works well - the main character is recovering from her coma, so she's a little on the weak side, so whenever she needs to perform a  physically strenuous task, like barging through a barricaded door or opening a rusty gate, she'll first have to find some first-aid supplies to patch herself up. In practice this just creates a little more busywork as the player is asked to track down health kits as well as all the game's quest items, but that extra bit of content does a great job of making the game world feel that much more fully fleshed-out.

While Small Town Terrors: Livingston may not be up to modern graphics standards, there's a lot of great content here. Along with a truly obscene number of jump-scares for a hidden object game. The only thing keeping it from being discussed alongside other minor genre classics is the lack of a functional map. The game's four areas are each fairly dense with locations, and while a map is available, it neither shows points of interest not allows fast travel, making it wholly useless. This causes a mildly frustrating amount of backtracking, which is one of the few blemishes on an otherwise great experience.

If you'd like to see the playthrough that led to this review - check out this playlist!

Demon Hunter 2: New Chapter

At the end of the first Demon Hunter game the stakes were clearly set - the main character had been ushered into a new world full of supernatural dangers, as well as an ancient battle which she was the only one qualified to fight. That's one heck of a way to kick off a franchise, which is why it's so puzzling that Demon Hunter 2: New Chapter picks up the story some 20 years later, after she's already become a world-famous demon hunter who's had countless demon fighting adventures that go basically unmentioned. Why would the developers skip over all of that content? What story was so important that they skipped over decades of adventures to tell it? Oddly, it's the return of the demon from the first game - who the main character has already defeated once (and without too much difficulty, really), rendering him less of a threat than I think the developers were hoping.

On to the hidden object criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

It's pretty bad. The game is set in largely realistic locations - offices, mansions, hospitals, a dungeon complex, and the developers have taken those areas and absolutely littered them with completely random and nonsensical assortments of items. While there are a few token attempts at building a theme - a hospital hallway might have a microscope and oxygen tank - generally very little care is put into making the items on display make sense. That same hospital hallways also contained a feathered mask, antique compass, and lace doily.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Not in the least. Demon Hunter 2 has a few different kinds of visual puzzles - including a couple of fun 'build a Rube Goldberg machine' sequences. By and large, though, the game is made up of traditional list-based searches. Interestingly, these are universally, drawn from the rarest subtype of hidden object screens, the elusive 12:0 screen. In normal 12:1 screen the player is asked to find everything on a list of items, and one of them will be the item they use to solve an environmental puzzle elsewhere. This creates a figleaf in-world justification that the player is 'cleaning up' the screen so that they can find the thing they're looking for. In 12:0 screens, players are given that same list, but once all the items have been identified and ticked off the list, they're handed a wholly unrelated item that they weren't told about. Not only is this strange from a storytelling point of view, it's weird from a design standpoint - it makes it seem like the HOSs are being built without any consideration of the game that they're going to be placed in - after all, how hard is it to draw a puzzle piece or sledgehammer into an already cluttered mess of a screen?

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

Demon Hunter 2 actually holds together pretty well. I've been hard on the premise and the slightly shoddy HOSs, but as a story and an adventure, it's a very well-made two hour quest. It's full of puzzles that fit naturally in the world - starting a helicopter and examining chemicals are transformed into logic puzzles, for example, and the actual plot developments are interesting enough that I was eager to discover the identity of the game's masked culprit. I'll say this for the game - I've played a large number of HOGs now, and this is the first one in which players are twice attacked by RPG-wielding foes.

Like its predecessor, Demon Hunter 2 is a perfectly solid HOG. There's nothing as delightfully odd as that game's 'surprise' villain - a drawing of Re-Animator era Jeffrey Combs who regularly teleported away in a cloud of black smoke - but it's still a worthy sequel. The key elements are all there - demonic conspiracies, injured animals that have to be rescued, and an impressively large number of hidden object scenes. This isn't the best game that Artifex Mundi has published, but it's certainly worth a look.

If you'd like to see the playthrough that led to this review - it starts here: