Hidden Object Games

Released: Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas

Play the next part in the hit hidden object wedding series, Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas. As the hottest new wedding planner in the country, your reputation is taking you from the Big Apple to Sin City! A high rolling bride is placing all bets on you to prepare for her big day. The stakes are high as you manage important tasks while keeping the bride, groom, and mother of the bride happy in this opulent destination. Get ready to hit the jackpot!

• Try your luck in the casino to earn and spend points
• Adventure and escape puzzles
• Mini games and wedding crisis levels
• All-new “Choose a Story” - your decision could affect the path of the game

Try Dream Day Wedding: Viva Las Vegas.

PC Game Review: Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch

Samantha Swift fresh from her Roses of Athena Adventure readies herself for another that follows Midas’ golden touch. In Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch, a client hires Samantha to find Alexander the Great’s scroll, which lists all of the items that King Midas turned to gold. She can keep whatever else she finds on the quest, and of course, she puts everything in a museum to share with the world. Samantha naturally runs into trouble as someone wants to use Midas’ secret to turn everything to gold.

In this long lasting hidden object game, players have plenty to do to prevent boredom in searching the hand-drawn scenes for objects. Mini-games and puzzles are plentiful with no repetition. Many of the items that Samantha must find end up in her inventory for use later on. Instead of finding stop signs and other unrelated objects, Samantha picks up things that will go in the museum or further her quest.

The mini-games add a touch of the game’s theme and style. In its version of mah jongg, it has symbols that fell on top of each other. You match pairs that aren’t blocked and the symbols have a role after you solve the mini-game. A match three mini-game also appears, and again, it matches the story and current mystery. It’s rare for a player to enjoy all of the mini-games, but Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch does a beautiful job of fitting the games with the story without any repetition.

The puzzles have you interacting with objects from your inventory and the scene. While fun, these turn into a guessing game. Often, you can’t tell what you need to do in the scene. All you need to do is move your cursor around the scene until you see two blue gears turning. Once you do, you can figure out the rest. Sometimes it takes time to pinpoint where you need to go.

The visuals remain as sharp and charming with a nice complement from the audio. Story updates come in bite-sizes and short cutscenes to avoid overwhelming players with too much info. The story flows and intrigues from beginning to end.

The very young and those new to hidden object games delight in playing Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch. It provides endless amounts of hints and help. Every scene contains lightning bolts, which gives you hints anytime you need it. It takes little time to pile up on them.

Furthermore, a scanner shows you the outline of any object you need to find AND turn from white to orange to red to let you know how close you are to the item. Experienced players can challenge themselves not to use any hints or help. However, some items don’t look like what you expect. You could let the scanner show you what the item looks like and then click another item to turn off the scanner so you can find the item on your own. If you click too many times without hitting anything, the scanner punishes you by turning itself off for a few minutes.

Though hints are plentiful and guessing games needed, Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch is a game worth touching.

Download the game from your favorite site:

Big Fish Games

PlayFirst

Reflexive Arcade Game Center Solution

New: The Serpent of Isis

The casual games industry is giving The Serpent of Isis high accolades. I haven’t checked it myself as I’m swamped with client projects. Here are the details:

Someone stole the legendary artwork, The Serpent of Isis, from the grand opening of the Egypt Museum in Cairo. Your character’s grandfather originally discovered the artifact that has been missing for years. An anonymous letter arrives saying that the person who has the artwork is on board the Mont Palu Express. Catch the train to find the artwork and solve the ancient mystery.

Although the artifact comes the very popular hidden object game setting of Egypt, the action doesn’t all take place in Cairo. In fact, it ends in London — one of the first places I want to visit outside of North America.

PC Game Review: Fabulous Finds

Fabulous Finds, a hidden object game, has a few hidden gems to offer something a little different. Rather than being one big game with several mini-games, Fabulous Finds offers three-in-one as no one component dominates.

Great Aunt Beatrice left you her home in Carmel, California. The home needs a makeover, so you dig through the house for stuff to sell in the yard sale to collect the needed funds for redecorating. The three-in-one components include collecting items for the yard sale (hidden object), selling them in the yard (connecting customers with what they want), and decorating rooms (puzzle).

The hidden object portion contains no list of things to find. Instead, you read the newspaper to identify a trend and then search rooms for items fitting that trend. One trend is gardening. Click all items that have some association with gardening. This offers a creative twist, but it has flaws. I see a garden hose and click it. Nope. It’s not acceptable. This sort of thing happens at times.

Since you’re weeding through junk, some items have missing parts or need repairs. These have helper items, but those won’t show up on the list until you’ve picked up the original item. A high heel shoe, for example, has a missing heel. After you find the shoe, the missing heel appears on the helper list. Find the broken heel to reunite the two items.

After collecting everything for the theme from several rooms in the house, time to hold the yard sale. Items appear spread around the yard, on tables, on the porch, on the corners of the yard. The customers enter and notes show up describing the customer and what he/she needs. “The librarian wants to cook.” So you look for the stereotypical librarian who dresses impeccably and has her hair up. Then you need to find something that has to do with cooking — pots and pans, perhaps. Drag the librarian to the pots and pans.

Sometimes the clues can be obscure. It makes the game more challenging. Each customer has a happiness bar. The longer it takes you to find what they need, the shorter their happiness bar. So not only do you need to find the right customer, but also the item he/she needs. Kind of a mix between hidden objects and a puzzle (using content to figure out what you need).

When the sale ends (after all customers receive what they want), you can proceed to redecorate a room. Or you can start looking for items for the next yard sale. The game doesn’t care which order you take. The only thing that matters is that the yard sale can never come before finding the items for it — obviously.

In decorating a room, Fabulous Finds gives you clues as to how to decorate the room. The closer you match the clues, the higher score your room earns. Most of the time, this is too easy. At least, after you finish the game, you can decorate the rooms in any way you’d like.

The fabulous part about the game is its colorful and sharp graphics and creative approach to finding items. Fabulous Finds, however, needs to last longer and provide a little more challenge in room decorating. Or maybe turn it into a SIM environment where you can play in the room with characters. It also needs to avoid not accepting objects that fit in with the yard sale theme. Despite the few nigglings, Fabulous Finds deserves its name.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• PlayFirst

PC Game Review: Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst

Talk about cheering up a gal who couldn’t do much while recovering from hand surgery! I had no idea another Mystery Case Files (MCF) game was coming out. It doesn’t feel so long ago since we had the pleasure of seeing Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate. Then I discover it’s a follow up to Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst. I had mixed feelings because the original’s ending disappointed me. However, the game had a strong story and intriguing puzzles.

Wow! MCF: Return to Ravenhearst surpassed all expectations and blew away all previous Mystery Case File games. I believe that this one truly takes the Mystery Case Files franchise and hidden object to a full-fledged adventure where hidden objects take a back seat rather than rule the game.

Most hidden object games give you two or three scenes you can roam, one at a time, from a map. This one reminds me of the first adventure games from Sierra that I played on my Apple ][+ as a kid. Of course, the overall production transcends those old adventures.

Navigate around MCF: Return to Ravenhearst by clicking the sides of the screen when you see an arrow pointing indicating you can go in that direction. As you move your mouse around the screen, the cursor turns into a magnifying glass or a white sparkle showing there’s more to that item.

The casebook plays a big role as who can remember everything s/he reads (aside from those with photographic memory). You could write it down, but you may not remember or realize the significance of a note that appears in the casebook.

Other games with a similar casebook just rehash the story. This one provides useful details. Review the casebook as it contains clues and information that will come to play later.

Good news — if you haven’t played any of the Mystery Case Files, it won’t affect playing this one. There’s little reference to the previous games.

The game picks up from the previous after the release of Emma Ravenhearst’s soul. But Charles Dalimar — the villain of both stories — continues to torture other souls. He was also responsible for the strange goings-on at the carnival in MCF: Madame Fate. We must help free the tortured souls so they may rest in peace.

We’re seeing an influx of adventure games (yeah!), but some come too easy. Not MCF: Return to Ravenhearst. I got stuck in a few places and had to walk all over the house a few times before I figured them out. Gamers who feel games are too easy shouldn’t find that a problem here. The nice thing about getting stuck is that you don’t have to figure it out right then to move forward.

Big Fish Games, publisher of the series, has also released a separate sound track. Why? The music was annoying that I turned off the sound early on.

Some objects are nearly impossible to find. One was hidden behind a toy in a glass case. Even with the hint, I couldn’t see it. There’s no limit on the hints, but you do have to wait for the meter to refill after use.

Another negative was the game’s snarky comments when you make a useless move. I’d think, “Gee, thanks for the insult.”

Nonetheless, these little peeves hardly interfere with the experience of playing the almost perfect game.

I thought the hype surrounding MCF: Madame Fate was overdone, but not for MCF: Return to Ravenhearst. It never let me down. The game also relies on some video and they fit beautifully with the story and scenes. I generally don’t like videos because they lack captions, but that’s not an issue here as they come with subtitles. Yeah!

What will MCF bring next? When? I hope it continues to build upon the superb MCF: Return to Ravenhearst.

PC Game Review: Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye

Mike and Isabel of The Nightshift Code return in Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye, an adventure that mixes hidden objects with a variety of puzzles.

Game developers have a challenge in telling a good story, providing the right amount of story updates between scenes and puzzles, and tying the story with the game. Not an easy balance to achieve.

While Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye comes with a heavy-duty story, the story gets lost and confusing along the way. I love a good story in a game, but this one had too much going on and didn’t flow well between scenes and puzzles. It may make more sense if I took the time to read the stories.

I like most of the mini-games, which aren’t standard fare. The anagram game requires moving letters around to form words. Great game, but tedious to play because it involves more mouse work than necessary to move the letters.

The time line mini-game is a great idea that needs better execution. Boxes appear above pictures. Each picture provides a clue so you can move it into the right box. The earliest event goes into the first box while the last event goes into the last box. The clues are too hard.

One of the beautiful things about the casual games industry is that most games come with a way to play at your own pace. Forget about that here. Time plays a big nasty role. You have to start the WHOLE level over if you run out of time during mini-games. That means finding the hidden objects again before returning to the almost impossible mini-game.

Logic is my favorite mini-game. As a kid, I enjoyed doing logical puzzles where you read a story and solve the puzzle using logic. Maybe we’ll see logic show up in more games. So much can be done with logic puzzles without ever feeling repetitive.

The mini-games steal the show in Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye. The hidden objects portion involves finding objects that work together in multiple scenes. Speaking of multiple scenes, the game never makes it clear I need to look elsewhere for more objects. In some scenes, the list of objects is everything you need to find in the scene.

However, in others, the list of objects cover multiple scenes rather than just one. I had to figure this out the hard way. So if time stops, that means you found all the objects in the current scene and need to go to another scene for the rest.

It penalizes you for incorrect clicks and some of my clicks were correct. I admit I had to replay a few levels because I ran out of time.

The do overs go fast because the object locations don’t change, so you won’t likely want to replay the game unless you want to figure out the puzzles that had you relying on the hints to solve it. It’s OK if you need to use lots of hints, you’re not the only one.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• PlayFirst
• Reflexive with Game Center Solution: PC or Mac

PC Game Review: Samantha Swift and the Roses of Athena

Samantha Swift, an archaeologist, travels all over the world to find rare artifacts for a museum. Her latest venture calls for finding six roses that belong on the Shield of Athena. Adventurers will find a rosy game in Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena.The game ranks up there with Natalie Brooks and other hidden object games slash adventures slash mini-games.

Samantha, Adam Woodson and her father’s former partner, Dr. Butler, must also deal with two bad guys who also want the roses, but for selfish reasons.

Anyway, I played this game over a month ago while recovering from hand surgery as it only needed one hand. Since typing was not possible, I had to hold off writing the review until my hand healed. What stuck with me was the game had wonderful hand-drawn graphics along with a strong story that neither overwhelmed nor confused.

In replaying the game, I got stuck on a scene and couldn’t get pass it even though I did what I needed to do to move on. I used a hint to confirm I wasn’t forgetting something. So I tried starting over with a new ID and it froze in the same spot one step further than before.

Thank goodness, I got through it the first time. I tried exiting the game and restarting the computer. Nothing worked.

Replaying the game also showed me that objects rarely change location and the list of items to find changed a little. So once you finish the story, you won’t want to replay it. But that’s often the case with this genre.

I also appreciated this wasn’t a timed-game, something I couldn’t manage with one hand. Besides, non-timed games compel us to enjoy the game more because it’s not a race. When it’s a race, we take short cuts and use more hints.

Every hidden object scene contains items highlighted in blue. You can’t find these until you’ve collected the other hidden items. Once done, use the found hidden items to interact with the scene to find the blue items. This feature appears in more of these point and click adventures. That and you may need to find items in other rooms before completing the puzzle in the current room.

Hidden objects often fit the story line and theme rather than have you find things to make the game longer lasting. Found artifacts end up in the museum that you can visit anytime during the game. Click an artifact to get its details and place of origin. Samantha travels to Guatemala, Tibet, Japan, Rome and elsewhere.

Lightning bolts hide in every scene to give you more hints. Experienced gamers might find this one a little easy, but worth experiencing the gorgeous graphics, interactive puzzles, humor and fitting background music.

Just play one hour of Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena and you’ll find you want to keep going.

Download the game from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games
• PlayFirst
• Reflexive with Game Center Solution

Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst Savings

Emma’s soul is free. But her ghost has delivered a dire warning: evil still lurks in Ravenhearst Manor. Big Fish Games Studios takes you deep inside the cursed estate in Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst, the thrilling sequel.

Experience Ravenhearst’s spectral halls as never before with new immersive adventure-style gameplay and an epic original soundtrack. Feel the floorboards creak as you move from room to room solving puzzles and seeking out clues in over 150 detailed scenes.

Save 50% on the game using coupon code RAVEN50. This promotion is valid from 11/27-12/27 ONLY. Go try Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst first to see if you like it.

PC Game Review: Mushroom Age

Mushroom Age sounds like a quirky name for a game, doesn’t it? What images does it conjure for you? None of the thoughts I had about the game based on its title and logo accurately represent the hidden object game’s story. About the only thing you might figure out from the title it’s an eccentric story. Don’t judge the game by its name — in this case.

The first thing we see is Albert Einstein, but not quite. His name is Einbock and he hates it when folks confuse him with the genius behind the theory of relativity. Vera — us players — wants to find her fiancé Tom as she hasn’t heard from him.

Thanks to Einbock’s not cooperating, she snoops around to finds Tom’s cell phone and starts messing with it. Minutes later, she lands 1000 years into the future. Her travels won’t stop there as eventually she reaches Jurassic Period and Stone Age as well as meets Socrates and Nostradamus.

The cell phone has a feature that can’t be had on any of today’s cell phone: time travel. Vera’s lands in a graveyard in 3008 where she meets a funky robot with a laugh that cracks me up. The poor guy — though 1000 years into the future — malfunctions and Vera must reboot him on occasion by playing a “Wheel of Fortune” / Hangman game to figure out the password.

Vera has to do more than try to find Tom after discovering a dangerous plan. Dialogue shows up as both text and audio saying what the text shows. Though my hearing is far from perfect, I find the voices annoying. The voices sound like a parent talking to a young child. Clarity is important, but audio can sound clear without talking down as it does in Mushroom Age.

What amazes about Mushroom Age is that it lasts a long time (23 chapters) for a game of its kind, which blends hidden objects and doing things to make something happen. It resembles games like Azada and Dream Chronicles. The game not only expects you to find needed items (and all items have a purpose), but to use them together such as starting a fire or unlocking a gate.

Although you return to some scenes, it doesn’t mean doing the same thing as before or finding the same objects. Besides, every visit to a scene has a reason not just to save development time. The only thing that repeats are several mini-games, but they become more difficult with each play.

The end of a chapter shows how much of the game you’ve completed to that point. However, a couple of chapters make the number go down instead of up — obviously a bug.

The hint system lets you ask for a hint anytime as long as the hint meter is full. If you’ve found all the objects in one room and request a hint, it becomes a wasted hint because it tells you to go in another room and nothing else. This becomes a problem when playing some confusing mini-games.

Despite the sharp-looking graphics, the character movements aren’t as sharp. They resemble characters glued to Popsicle sicks — they’re frozen and their whole being moves as a stiff entity.

Seasoned hidden object and puzzle gamers will recognize many of the genre’s features in Mushroom Age. Yet, the game comes together as an original. The game’s title reflects a piece of the story that comes later, but it could’ve had a better name. Nonetheless, casual game players — no matter the experience or whether they have green thumbs — will likely to find Mushroom Age fascinating and funny.

PC Game Review: The Hidden Object Show: Season 2

The annual Fall Carnival makes up one of my favorite memories from elementary school. I remember enjoying going from booth to booth to win prizes and never winning the cake walk. It was also neat seeing my teachers outside of the school day. Now that I have two kids in elementary school (one is now in high school!), I look forward to the school carnival.

The Hidden Object Show 2 doesn’t quite compare to the elementary school carnival, but it’s colorful and contains many games within the game. The game takes a unique approach in not having players find X objects in every scene with special activities in between. Instead, players see the fortune teller who decides what kind of game they’ll play.

The 11 hidden object games range from the basic find 10 of the same category of objects (sweets and things you throw) and silhouettes of objects to Hangman-style (find the letters to build the list of objects to find) and compare two scenes to spot the difference.

The game’s biggest strength is length with 300 rounds! You could play it for two or three days and barely make a dent in the game. However, it also makes the The Hidden Object Show 2 feel like it has no direction. After playing four rounds in a level, you win a prize. The prize list scrolls through and names your prize. Ho hum. Just not exciting.

In addition to finding objects, players can look for tickets to grow your ticket total, question marks for one or two more hints to add on to the three in every round, and skip chips for skipping games you don’t want to play while on the fortune teller scene.

Sometimes the scenes overwhelm with so many objects blending with the busy background. It gets old. When asking for a hint, the showman comes out with his cane to point to the item. He can be swift that you miss where he points or you can’t see the object even after he points it out.

Scenes contain bright colors and the showman has a little character. Sounds get carried away at times. Season hidden object players will love this one because the objects prove challenging to find with so many things in each scene. Others might tire of the game’s business and lack of direction.

The Hidden Object Show 2 earns its money the hard way with variety and lasting a long time. But its long length may bore some who like to play for something. Life’s a carnival — give The Hidden Object Show 2 a try.