Awakening: The Goblin Kingdom Collector's Edition

[b]Awakening 3: The Goblin Kingdom[/b] (IHOG) In this third installment of the Awakening series, Princess Sophia journeys to the Goblin Kingdom to meet their wise king. An evil force watches her every move, however, and Sophia faces dangerous trials as she tries to learn the answer to the burning question: Where have all the humans gone? Options include Full-screen, Custom Cursor, choice of Normal or Casual Mode, and separate sliders for Sound and Music. Dutch language also available. Although there is a running storyline through these games, the intro gives you a brief synopsis of the previous games, meaning that you don't have to have played [i]Dreamless Castle[/i] or [i]Moonfell Wood[/i] in order to understand the story. Having played the three back-to-back, it's easy to see the changes that were made to make each game better than the last. [b]Gameplay:[/b] [i]The Goblin Kingdom[/i] beautifully combines adventure, hidden objects, puzzle and story into an experience that feels perfectly-balanced. The game is split into four chapters, each with its own distinctive environment, but still maintaining the feeling of everything being connected. There is no [b]MAP[/b], but we have a limited number of scenes that we work with at any given time, so the to-ing and fro-ing is kept to a minimum. In addition to the standard find-by-list [b]Hidden Object Scenes[/b], we also have a few other types of HOS: Find by silhouette, put items back into the scene and find x-number of an item (ie. 12 gears). HOS are lightly-interactive, with yellow items requiring some kind of action before you can find them. [b]HINTS[/b] are refillable, and while there is still no directional hint during the adventure portion, the hints we DO get are more useful than those in the two previous installments. There are at least 40 [b]Mini-games[/b], and while they all look different, there are some repeating themes, including: identifying differences (not your typical spot-the-differences scenes, though!), solving riddles, tangrams, putting things back together, logic, a couple of different kinds of match-3, deciphering patterns, etc. (No Simon Says this time!) There are a few timing-based puzzles, but they're easy-peasy, and all mini-games are [b]SKIPPABLE[/b]. Our [b]Journal[/b] documents our journey and will make note of anything unusual (puzzle hints/solutions), and while the [b]Goals[/b] tab can contain a bit more story, it also has what I feel are mild spoilers, so I recommend staying away from that part unless you need some help. [b]Bonus Content:[/b] [list] [*]30 in-game Achievements [*]Integrated Strategy Guide (accessible via the Menu button) [*]Bonus Chapter [*]9 Rewatchable Cutscenes [*]6 Music tracks (cannot be saved) [*]6 Wallpapers (mostly from cutscenes) [*]3 Morphing Concept art (hover mouse over concept to see finished product) [*]Tangram Mini-game [/list] [b]Bonus Chapter:[/b] Immediately upon finishing the game, you will enter the Epilogue (bonus chapter). This seems like the true ending, so I'm glad to have the CE of this one. Gameplay is just the same as in the main storyline, and doesn't feel at all like it was just tacked on. [b]Verdict:[/b] This game polishes the best parts of the franchise and combines them into a perfectly-balanced addition to the series. Despite the fact that we saw the beginnings of actual danger for our heroine, I found [i]Awakening 3: The Goblin Kingdom[/i] to be bright and cheery and absolutely delightful. Recommended!

A lovely and enjoyable HOPA game. This game definitely feels more modern than the first two games in the series. The only issue I had with the game was that it crashed several times on *exit*. I didn't lose any data, and everything worked fine when I reloaded later, but it was a bit odd, and sometimes frustrating. I don't think others are having this problem, so I'm not sure what's wrong. Pros: - beautiful art (it's really gorgeous, especially the backgrounds) - smart, likeable protagonist - a range of characters - a good mix of HO scenes and puzzles (but more puzzles than HO scenes until mid-game) - a coherent story, which merges seamlessly into the epilogue (bonus chapter) - there is limited voice acting, but it's quite good - the music is pleasant and suits the game and what's going on in-game - it's part of a series, and the series is well done continues to improve Cons: - some of the puzzles are repetitive, and a few get a bit frustrating due to 2-3 progressively harder levels - I'm not a fan of puzzles that require you to "trace" (i.e., click and drag along an outline) - the major downside to this game is that there is no map, which means no action indicators (however, the areas are self-contained, so it's not too bad having to comb through available areas)

I have mixed feelings about this game. This is a highly rated game on other sites, so I had high expectations which it didn't fulfil. It took me 8 hours to complete on normal play, so good value for money. Halfway through I started to get bored. Graphics are mixed. General scenes are good, but HO scenes are very basic. Definitely two different artists doing the work. Music is good, but repetitive. Puzzles range from easy to diabolical. I didn't need the strategy guide as the hint button was very helpful. Story was ok. This is a family friendly game so suitable for children. Not sure if I will continue the series. 7 out of 10.

This game is one of the best. I love the music that is set for this game and the graphics are beautiful. Hidden object scenes and puzzles are easy, but also quite challenging. I am glad that they put a strategy guide in the game, because some puzzles I needed help with. The bonus chapter was worth the extra and keeps the story going.

This Hop completely ignores Win10 display scaling. Once I'd worked out that was the problem, the only way for me to really play it was to change the scaling to 100%, potentially messing my desktop up, and making everything too small to be useful for anything else until I'd finished. Fortunately, it was good enough to play through in pretty much one go. The second thing which put me of at first was no map. This often ultimately means no idea where to go or what to do next without hints. But that didn't happen here. Each chapter was fairly small, easily navigable, and self-contained. There are plenty of mini-game type puzzles here, and some of them (although not original) are pretty well done. And at times quite challenging compared to the same type of puzzle in other games. The story is nothing to shout about, the graphics look rather dated compared to some recent games. But both are at least on the upward side of adequate. There seemed to be fewer HoPs compared to the mini-games, but they still covered all the different types. I definitely warmed to this one, and despite an initial sinking feeling about buying the whole bundle, I'm now rather glad I did.

Played with family. Love the artistry and the characters!

Wonderful game to get lost in for a while. This is an absolute wonderful improvement over the last game that I didn't give a good review on. The art and style was very good for it's time. One compliant I have is the puzzles could have used a restart button. And a few of them badly needed, but despite it that it was an enjoyable game!

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This is [I]Awakening[/I] #3, a continuation of the story. In many ways it continues to be a wonderfully charming adventure, with many excellent puzzles. I especially enjoyed the tangrams! However, though I enjoyed and am recommending this game, it has some frustrating aspects. For one, it doesn't seem to work well on modern PCs. I had to set my desktop resolution to 720p to play in fullscreen, and the game would never exit normally: it always crashed when quitting. Also, it has too many tasks that involve mouse precision, i.e. drawing exact lines using the mouse. A few times I was sure I got it right but the puzzle completion didn't trigger. I just tried again and again until it seemed to arbitrarily work. Finally, though this is the first game in the series that includes achievements (not linked to Steam), there are far too many and they are a confusing, incoherent mess. Many of them want you to complete sections in a short time, which is so silly for these kinds of games in which you want to calmly savor your time with them, enjoying the graphics and little details. Getting these achievement means that you will have to rush. Just ignore them! So, though you probably want to play this game if you've been following the series so far, be warned about these issues.

Episode 3. Idem le 2, même difficulté et durée. A noter, un bug empêche de fermer le jeu (une fois qu'on est revenu au menu, si on veut quitter ça bugue)