Senaste recensioner av Karrolanth

I'm not sure what the previous reviewer was expecting from this demo - more action, perhaps? It doesn't look to me like it's going to be that kind of game, so maybe it's just not his/her thing.

Personally, I found that this demo gave me a good idea of what I can expect from the game. The graphics are decent, the voice acting seems very good so far, and the presentation is certainly novel and interesting! The way the game acts as a movie set, and moves characters around accordingly, is not something I've seen before. Although I knew what to expect from the store page, it was still a little odd to experience it for myself and it may take a bit of getting used to. I think I like it, though!

In this demo you only get to play one of the three characters, but I think it's enough to give a good idea of how things work. Romana has to submit blog reports at intervals, and you get to choose which facts to report on and what tone to give your posts (choices which also have effects in the game). I would imagine there might be a similar mechanic for the other two characters, but couldn't say for sure.

The way decisions are made and relationships are influenced seems to be nicely done - I kinda wish I had more of an idea what effect certain decisions might have, but I guess that's what life is like - you don't know exactly what effect your words or actions might have on others, and what pleases one person might distress someone else. You just have to go with what feels right at the time, and try to smooth over any issues later. :) The game does warn you when "critical decisions" are about to be made, and also tells you when something is the result of an earlier decision (though not necessarily which one!), so you may have an idea of when/how to change things on subsequent playthroughs.

I enjoyed this demo and am glad I spent a half hour or so on it, as it's helped me decide whether or not I'd be willing to pay for the full game!

Looking at all these positive reviews, I can't help thinking that everyone else must have been playing a different game to the one I got.

The graphics are okay, the sound effects strange, the voice acting awful, the cut scenes unbelievable, the translation dodgy and the hidden object scenes too few (plus translation issues don't help here either). The plot was B-movie at best, and I actually found Sinister City more enjoyable than this - at least I got some laughs out of that one! The ending of Dracula's Legacy makes very little sense to me, but then much of the game was illogical anyway in my opinion.

I didn't experience any real bugs although there were times when an area would continue sparkling after I was done with it, making me think I had to go back and do something else there. There is no journal or notebook, as you might find in some other games, to remind you what your objectives are. However, the game does move you on to new areas once you pass a certain point and doesn't allow you to go back, so at least you're not wandering aimlessly around every previous scene looking for items.

I got it very cheap in the Hallowe'en sale, but I still don't recommend it. It was not the cheesy fun I expected, but more slap-your-forehead illogical and frustrating. I got through it, but I won't play it again - I feel like the majority of it was a waste of my time and I could have been doing something much more fun, like watching paint dry.

This game makes me wish there was a "maybe" option rather than simply yes or no to recommend.

Although I adored the demo and really wanted the full game, I have to say that I don't feel it's worth the money - it has an extremely disappointing 'ending', if you can call it that.

While the game is - as many other reviewers have said - very short, that isn't always a bad thing if the game itself is a good one. Lilly Looking Through is absolutely charming: beautiful to look at, completely non-violent (very suitable for children, although they may need help with the puzzles), includes an interesting mechanic with the goggles which should have been used more often, and has some scenes/events which are both lovely and a bit melancholy. A couple of the puzzles (especially the colour-based ones) were frustrating because there seemed to be no clue what was required, but the majority of them were fun and not too challenging if you put a bit of thought into them and used what was available to you.

I could forgive the price and the length of the game if it had some kind of resolution at the end, but it has nothing. There's sort of a hint, during the last 'chapter', that there'll be something more - perhaps the "unlocking the ultimate mystery" mentioned in the developer's description - but the ending is so abrupt and unexpected that it was a real let down. Since people have been commenting on this even in the developer's own community discussion for at least a year and nothing seems to have changed, it looks like this 'ending' is all we'll get.

I waited months for a sale and never saw this reduced, so I eventually received it as a birthday gift. Having finished it in less than 3 hours (my playtime includes the game being left running while I did other things) and been left feeling very let down, I can't help but feel sorry that my purchaser paid full price for the game!

In conclusion, then, I guess I can say I cautiously recommend this if you like the game's look and feel. If you enjoy the demo, you'll likely enjoy the majority of the game - just be prepared for the fact that you'll be left hanging at the end with no resolution, and try to get it on sale if you can!

Endearingly awful... :)

Cheesy B-movie acting, a plot that doesn't even pretend to take itself seriously, and some amusing jokes - for a mere $0.10 on sale I really can't complain too much! It was a little dull at times, and the excuses for making you go find stuff were lame, but it was a couple of hours of mild entertainment for almost nothing.

The characters who inhabit Hidden Object Games are some of the messiest people I've ever seen - I'm no longer surprised by the piles of junk they seem to have in all their cupboards and corners and desks. Unfortunately in this game, some of the objects you were asked to find were barely visible behind other objects (just a tiny piece poking out), were hard to see clearly, were named oddly, or were completely hidden behind other objects that you probably wouldn't know you could move unless the hint sparkles told you so...

Speaking of which, the 'easy' mode was far too easy. Pause in your random clicking for mere seconds and the game would show you what you needed to find, without you asking it for help. That said, though, some tasks or locations seemed so obscure that I'm not sure I would have known I could look closer at a particular spot in the room if it hadn't shown me.

I did encounter one bug, where the game refused to respond to my clicking and I thought I'd have to restart, but it was fixed by going to the main menu and then continuing the game. Other than that, the only issues I encountered were with the clicks picking up objects I wasn't actually clicking on in some cases, which may have something to do with it apparently being a mobile port (I presume, what with it telling you to 'tap here' or to swipe the screen in order to complete a mini game).

I had a few laughs while playing, and especially at the end credits - I'm not sure I would have been happy to pay full price even though it IS cheap, but on sale it's worth a play through. Just don't expect anything serious and you'll be okay! :)

Recommended if on sale.


Very addictive - this game has the "just one more puzzle!" effect, and since each one generally takes only a few minutes it's very easy to find yourself spending more time than you intended with it.

Unfortunately, there is no way to replay puzzles. Once it's completed, however long it took you, that's it. You can never go back to it and try to improve your time, or just play it again for fun. And when you have a poor memory like mine, and the puzzle would seem new again in mere days, that would add a lot of replayability! :)

There have been a few words that I wasn't familiar with, but in general I think anyone with a decent vocabulary should be able to figure out the puzzles. (I've only tried a couple of the 'hard' ones so far, though - I'm working my way through them in order and I'm halfway through 'medium'.)

You are able to choose which puzzle you want to play, so it's not necessary to follow the order they're presented in. If you get stuck you can move on to something else, but the game does save your progress and won't reset your time when you go back to that puzzle.

It's possible to get hung up on thinking a particular word is correct and trying to solve the rest of the puzzle around it, only to find that it doesn't work. And the game won't tell you which, if any, words you have correct... you have to complete it entirely to get any kind of feedback.

So, while I would recommend this title for anyone who enjoys word games, I wouldn't suggest paying full price for it. It's a 'once and done' game that you can't go back to. Get it on sale, though, (I paid less than a dollar) and you'll probably be happy with it!

Recommended with a few qualifications. Like other reviewers, I wish there was a 'meh' button sometimes!

I'm still fairly new to this genre, having played about three other titles so far. I found this one to be average but not, in my opinion, worth the full price tag. On sale, however, it's worth a look especially if you're a newcomer to this type of game.

The game is quite short, probably only a couple of hours if you don't wander off and leave it running like I did a few times! :) Most of the puzzles are easy, although I did skip one that I just couldn't get.

The hidden object scenes seem to vary in quality - some are quite detailed and have hard-to-spot objects, others are painfully obvious. It's not hard to get the 'click four things in four seconds' achievement. The names given to some of the objects can make it hard to find the right thing in a couple of the scenes, though.

The story was okay, I guess - nothing special, and the twist at the end didn't really have the effect it probably should have had. I'm not sure why; perhaps it was due to the acting, or the way it was wrapped up so quickly. There were other scenes that should have been tense due to imminent danger, but just didn't really achieve that feeling. As an example, although the water is apparently rising fast towards a sparking electrical cable, I have plenty of time to not only rummage around in a pile of junk for something useful but also to visit a couple of other rooms and then go back to the 'dangerous' area for more stuff. Rather than being in fear for my life, I felt like I could have had a party down there and invited a few friends over to splash around for a couple of hours...

Ah yes... the voice acting. Well, the female voice was okay, but nothing special and somewhat lacking in appropriate emotion for the scene. Most of the male actors are bearable at best. There is one particular male actor, however, who was just atrocious! (Sorry, whoever you are.) And I have never heard anyone pronounce 'arrrrgh' the way it's spelled... not when they're meant to be seriously 'acting', anyway!

All in all, if you can ignore the poorer aspects of the game - and can get it on sale, I wouldn't recommend you pay full price - it's a fairly enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. And I defy you not to laugh at the method of opening the lighthouse door...

I have to say thank you to @Flaming Monocle for his review and entertaining video, which is what convinced me to splash out the princely sum of $0.89 on this game!

If you like this sort of matching game I would even recommend it at full price... it's several hours of fun for only the cost of a fancy cup of coffee, and it's much more entertaining than a Caramel Macchiato... :)

Other reviewers have already covered the gameplay in detail, which consists of three different types of game, but I'll comment on those here too. 'Cause I'm just a rebel like that.

1. Find the key to unlock one of the books of magic, by playing a Hidden Object Game to construct several items and reactivate an elemental altar. This is not timed, and there doesn't appear to be a penalty for needing a hint or clicking in the wrong place. Some of the items you need to find are tiny and/or very well camouflaged - in some cases, even after the fairy helper pointed them out I had to admit I would probably never have found them!

2. Once the book is unlocked, collect four cards for each one. Each card is made up of four layers, which are collected by playing the main part of the game - the Match-3 levels. These start out very easy and progressively get more difficult, although I did find that even towards the end of the game some levels were much easier and quicker than others. The last two levels are quite tricky, and if you don't do the right thing at the start you might find yourself stuck and unable to progress. I failed level 63 twice before I realised the trick to getting past it.

These levels, while fun and addictive, are not completely relaxing because there is a timer and you can run out of time to reach the goal. Again, there doesn't seem to be any real penalty for failure except a few wasted minutes - even the fairy just shrugs and tells you to try again - and if you do fail you generally get an idea of what went wrong and how to do better on the retry. I wasn't able to figure out how long the timer is, and I think it might vary depending on the difficulty of the level, but my slowest levels were over 9 minutes so in most cases you have a bit of time to think!

3. Once you have the four parts of the card, you play a 'spot the difference' game to complete the card. Again, some of the differences require very careful scrutiny to see them as they are quite subtle. (I didn't feel that the resolution of the game was an issue with either this or the HOG sections; I believe it's just that the details are so small that you really have to look hard to find them.) Once this part is done, the card is completed and the text becomes unscrambled so that you can read it.


In all, there are 64 Match-3 levels to play through - four books with four cards each, and each card needing four levels to complete it. In addition there are the four Hidden Object scenes to unlock the book, and 16 spot the difference games to unscramble the cards. The game saves your progress when you exit, allowing you to continue from where you left off, and there doesn't appear to be any way to skip a section or choose where to go next. It looks as though more than one person could save a game in progress, as you choose a name at the start and there is an option on the main menu screen to switch this.

The background music was quite pleasant, although it occasionally began to feel a bit repetitive, and I didn't find it distracting.

The graphics, although perhaps a little dated in some ways, were really rather nice. There are a lot of little details in the background of the level screens that you don't really have much time to appreciate when you're focusing on finding the next group of 'gems' to match (I particularly liked the fish swimming past on the underwater levels), and the gems themselves have different designs on them depending on the element you're working on.

A few pros and cons, from my point of view.

Pros:

- fiendishly addictive! Like a good book, I found it really hard to put it down. I didn't want to stop playing at the end of one section and have to wait until the next day to continue, especially if I was almost done with one of the elements.

- attractive graphics... not top notch, but good enough to not detract from the game. (In my opinion anyway, other reviewers clearly disagree here. :) )

- pleasant music and sound effects, nothing too irritating.

- new power-up concepts are introduced one at a time to allow you to get used to them.

- the map is a handy feature to help you see where you should be heading, and there is also an arrow at the edge of the screen that points the way for you. (Actually reaching it is sometimes another matter entirely!)

- the maps sometimes make a picture, which is a nice touch.

Cons:

- some of the details in the hidden object and spot the difference screens are just TOO small and well-disguised, leading to some frustration with these sections (especially the HOGs).

- at the beginning of each level the camera sweeps back from the end goal to the start, showing you the route you need to take. This is so fast that I find it nauseating to watch, particularly when the route loops around as it does in many of the levels.

- there is no way to move the camera around the field (at least, not that I could find) to allow you to see what is just around the corner from your current location. A glance at the map or a look at your guiding arrow will give you an idea of which direction to go, but the map won't show you any of the special flaming arrows you might need to head for or piles of stones/tiles blocking your way.

- the camera follows the progress of the magical energy, which can lead to it swinging around unexpectedly when you're trying to click on something, or to your view being moved further away than you wanted and making it difficult to figure out where to go next. There are sometimes flaming arrows (necessary to break through some areas) in hard to spot locations because of where the camera has positioned itself.

- the playing tips at the end of each level got very irritating after a while, especially as they were repeating things you already knew towards the end, and I could not seem to turn them off.

- the ending was just a text epilogue which, after the voiced intro, was a bit of a let down. I was hoping for another word from the wizard after I heroically saved the kingdom!


All in all, though, I found this to be a very enjoyable game. It does have faults, but they were mostly minor in my opinion and I was able to either ignore or put up with them and still have a lot of fun. I certainly can't complain for the price I paid for it, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it - get it on sale if you're still not sure. :)

As another reviewer mentioned, this game just begins - with no intro, no clues, nothing. There's only one thing on the screen... so what are you gonna do with it?

This is a very short but very cute game... the tiny alien is adorable and I was a little sad to see it head off into the great unknown at the end. As an example of what Red Dwarf Games can do (which I presume is the purpose of this little game), it shows a charming art direction, nice animations, atmospheric music and interesting 'puzzles'. I had to laugh when the drop of water had an effect I wasn't expecting!

Try it... it's free, it's only a few minutes out of your day, and - as someone else suggested - it's better than watching a handful of mind-numbing YouTube videos. :) Plus, you can spend the rest of the day wondering why all those things are inside a tree...

tl;dr: Buy it - if only for the adorable kitty helper! Especially at the current sale price it's well worth it, and I would recommend it even at full price if you have the funds to spare. If you're still on the fence, go to artifexmundi.com and try the demo - then come back here and buy the game!

---

Your sister is getting married today, and you're hurrying to get home in time for the ceremony. Suddenly, a bear spooks your horse and almost sends your carriage over a cliff! You must save the carriage, repair your wedding gift, rescue a cute helper, and get to the village before it's too late. But this is just the start of your bad luck... it's not long before things take a turn for the worse, and thus begins your quest to rescue the victims, expose the villain, and learn more about your own history in the process.

Although I was a fan of point-and-click adventure games back in the day, I'd never played a Hidden Object game and wasn't sure if I'd enjoy one. However, although there don't seem to be any demos on Steam, Artifex Mundi's own website allows you to try a demo of any of their games. I spent a few hours on those, and now I'm hooked and want all of them! :) All their games of this style employ the same type of interface, which is very easy to use, so once you've tried one you'll be fine for just about any other title.

I found this game to have an engaging story and enjoyable gameplay. The puzzles and hidden object scenes vary in difficulty and a few had me scratching my head for a while, but I only got frustrated once. My husband helped me with that one by pointing out something I hadn't thought of, and saved me from having to consult a walkthrough! Usually there will be some kind of hint in the dialogue or descriptions of a scene, and whenever I felt I couldn't progress it was generally because I'd missed something in a previous location. There is a map available in this game which allows you to go directly to any previous scene if you wish, eliminating backtracking frustration, and sometimes going back to a recent location will present you with a new hidden object game to allow you to progress further.

In my opinion the graphics are well done, and although the character animations in the cutscenes can seem a little bit stiff (and the lip-synching is usually off) I didn't feel that this detracted from the overall enjoyment. The hidden object scenes are highly detailed and beautifully drawn, and some objects in the scenes blend into the background so well that it takes quite a bit of hunting! (Hint for newcomers to these games: if an item in the list is in a different text colour, you'll need to interact with something(s) in the scene to find or create what you're looking for. Your cursor will provide clues!)

There is a hint option if you get stuck, and some (if not all) puzzles and hidden object scenes may be skipped if you wish. Puzzles can also be replaced with a game of dominoes if you find one too challenging. There are achievements related to completing puzzles and domino games, so if you like to collect them all you might wish to do one playthrough with puzzles and another with dominoes.

The music and sound effects fit the game well, with the music adding to the tension of the story at appropriate points. I generally turn background music way down or completely off in games as I find it distracting, but at a slightly lower volume I found the music in this game added to my enjoyment of the whole experience.

There are many additional things to find while playing, such as woodland spirits and 'elusive objects'. I missed one spirit somewhere, and only managed to spot three of the elusive objects. These are items in scenes which change or are hard to spot, such as a face in the moon. These objects work to translate text in a book in your Achievements screen, and once you find all the objects for a particular page there is an option to 'hear the story'. As I haven't completed any pages yet I can't really comment on this, but it's something for me to work towards on my next playthrough!

This being the Collector's Edition there is an additional episode, taking place after the main story, which is unlocked once you complete the main game. Although this is much shorter, it still added a couple more hours of fun!

In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and will definitely replay it at some point to try for more achievements and elusive objects. I would recommend it even at full price, and I look forward to playing many more Artifex Mundi games in the future!

10/10 - would impersonate my twin again.