This is a rough around the edges hidden object game that might have been fun if not for the broken puzzles, pacing issues caused by repetition and backtracking, and plotline that somehow manages to make the sinking of the Titanic even more depressing.
- Gameplay -
There are 31 available locations in the game, all of which are revisited twice.
The first time you explore a scene, you’ll play three rounds of hidden object puzzles: finding 10 of one item, finding a list of disparate items, and a small fractured object challenge. These are immediately followed by a minigame.
Revisiting a scene offers one final round of list-based object finding.
There are no adventuring elements in this game.
- HOS -
The hidden object scenes are fairly easy to visually parse, but there are often multiple items that match each list clue, and objects require pixel accuracy when clicking on them. However, there doesn’t seem to be any penalty for misclicks, and you start the game with 6 hints available.
Corners were clearly cut on these puzzles, though - there is overlap in the clue lists between the first and second visits, and the same image assets are reused across multiple puzzles.
- Minigames -
The minigames also suffer heavily from repetition - there are only 15 different puzzle types across 31 instances, with the majority being reskins of expected genre standards (jigsaws, spot-the-difference, matching, block pushing, tile rotation, etc).
A few of the duplicates escalate the challenge level, but most have only slight variations to the visuals, and one is the exact same thing a second time.
Furthermore, 5 of the 31 minigames are completely broken, with necessary graphics not displaying. I managed to brute force my way through them anyway with a lot of painstakingly strategic clicking, but as far as I can tell the only penalty for skipping is losing time off your high score ranking.
- Story -
The tone of the writing uncomfortably waffles between nostalgic edutainment, and actively punching your heartstrings.
Additionally, every few scenes you receive a taunting letter from the culprit you are chasing. Rather than adding tension, these letters only serve to A) showcase how absolutely arbitrary the villain’s identity is, B) highlight your slow story progress, and C) remind you how much backtracking and repetition you are doing.
The game is only about 4 hours long, but it felt like 7-8 while playing - in part because of these notes.
I got this game in a bundle. I wouldn’t recommend buying it on its own unless it was on a steep discount, and even then, there are so many better HOGs out there with more to offer.
