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
• Reflexive Arcade Game Center Solution

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
• Reflexive with Game Center Solution