Backstreets of the Mind

Make no mistake: this is a “FIND THE HIDDEN OBJECT” game, in case it wasn’t clear by the game’s video trailer and description. (It wasn’t clear to me, anyway) If these “hidden object” games are not your cup of tea, then you might want to pass this game by. As far as “hidden object” games go, this one’s pretty decent, but with a VERY SHORT play time. It has nice “photorealistic” graphics, an interesting (although a bit melancholy) storyline, and a few mildly-amusing minigames. One twist in the gameplay/graphics was the “multi-plane” scrolling of each level; moving around shifts the perspective a little, possibly revealing a hidden object. Another twist: hidden letters in the scene, often in the form of misspelled signs, often must be found. The story is entirely linear (except the final level), so the “time-shifting” aspect is just part of the linear storyline; you can’t “time shift” on your own. This game has a psychological/meaning-of-life motif that seems to be in vogue these days, but I found the story intriguing enough to want to play the game to the end. The game is very short, and can be beaten in about 2 or three hours. So yeah, I liked it. It's a short but decent casual game. Consider the cost of the game versus the two/three-hour playtime, though.

[b][u]Overall Rating:[/u][/b] 6.5/10 Only buy on sale, not worth full price. Hesitantly giving this a thumbs up. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't that good either. [b]Pros:[/b] [list][*]Art is nice, crisp and clean, but nothing amazing to be seen. [*]HOG scenes are nicely done, but not challenging, with no misclick penalties or timers. (good and bad, depending on how easy you like it...) [*]Pleasant music throughout, not overwhelming, good controls for voume if it feels too distracting. [*]Runs great even on a taoster, an old, broken down toaster. No performance or technical issues at all for me and my 5 year old low-mid range rig. [*]Interesting blend of HOG and visual novel, with interesting movement in the HOG scenes.[/list] [b]Cons:[/b] [list][*]Choices did not matter, I played many scenes over with different choices, the result was always the same. [*]The only place your choices mattered was at the end, which was very short, felt cut off. And you can replay the scene again and have the other ending and achievement in under 3 minutes from the first ending. [*]Little to no replay value. This is a one-shot deal, there is nothing special enough to make you want to replay the whole game again. [*]Minigames were ridiculously hard compared to the HOG scenes. The discrepancy was extremely obvious. Not difficult to complete the minigames, but to get the score needed for the achievements... prepare to replay them quite a few times. Controls for the 2 video game minigames sucked, to be honest. Getting high enough scores was down to pure luck and multiple replays.[*]The game was too short, and felt like the story skipped a great deal. The beginning flowed nicely, but it just jumped forward to a too aburpt ending, like the ending was slapped on when the dev ran out of money.[*]Too many odd translations and oddly spelled words. Some of it felt very American, some of the words and phrases felt like archaic UK/EU terms from the 19th century. Example- a tire was labelled tyre, high top sneakers were called gumshoes. It was odd and made finding some objects by name very confusing.[/list] [b]TL;DR[/b] Not a terrible game, if you don't expect much from it. But too short, too many oddities with language and names for items. Minigames were fun, but the high scores needed for achievements made them frustrating, with many replays needed just to get them. I enjoyed it, for the most part, but wouldn't buy it again, even at 50% off. Maybe 75%. Just not compelling enough to give high recommendations for. But fine for a 2-3 hours time killer. It was different, but not special enough to ever pay full price for. Buy it at a deep discount, or search the Internet and Giveaway groups for free keys. [Edits made for typos, and more may remain to be found. My dyslexia is for reals acting up tonight...)

Красивая, увлекательная игра. Очень круто выглядит реализация параллакса в сценах. Я раньше не встречал такого в играх подобного жанра. Перед нами интересное путешествие в прошлое, где мы будем пытаться улучшить наши дела в будущем. Играя в мини игры, можно отдохнуть от поиска предметов, что делает геймплей разнообразнее. Рекомендую эту игру любителям жанра hidden object.

Уродливая, бессмысленная, неинтересная хрень. Худшая игра из всех в которые я играл. Поиск предметов сделан отвратительно, задания на уровне класса для диффективных детей. Кроме того игра может похвастаться убогой рисовкой и отсутствием хоть какого-либо сюжета! Ни в коем случае не покупайте это гов.ище!!!!

[h1] Genre [/h1] Ein Hidden Object Adventure [h1] Story [/h1] Wir spielen einen jungen Mann, der einen anderen Mann versucht das Leben zu retten bzw. ihn vor ein paar Schlägern rettet. Wir werden aber selber niedergeschlagen und wachen bei dem Mann wieder auf aber haben scheinbar unser Gedächtnis verloren. Nun müssen wir unser Gedächtnis wieder erlangen [h1] Gameplay [/h1] Es gibt 3 Kapitel. In jedem Kapitel müssen wir verschiedene Wimmelbilder, Minispiele und Wort Rätsel lösen. Die Wimmelbilder sehen an sich ganz OK aus aber wir müssen durch gedrückt halten der Linken Maustaste das Bild permanent hin und her ziehen um einige der Gegenstände zu finden. Das funktioniert allerdings im Schneckentempo was wirklich nach kurzer Zeit nervig wird. Die Minispiele sind sehr Originell und Einzigartig (ein Börsen Minispiel uvm.). Wenn wir in einer Wimmelbildszene alle Gegenstände gefunden haben, sehen wir was in seinem Leben schief gelaufen ist und müssen dies nun besser machen indem wir dann wieder Gegenstände finden müssen. Die Story wird immer zwischen den Wimmelbildern/Minispielen via Text fortgeführt. Das Voice Acting ist natürlich wie immer Mittelmäßig und die Musik ist OK [h1] Achievements [/h1] Es gibt insgesamt 12 Erfolge. Hierfür muss man das Spiel beenden ohne Tipps zu verwenden, beide Endings gesehen haben (man kann nach einem Ending, direkt vor der Entscheidung wieder anfangen) und in den Minispielen immer etwas bestimmtes erreichen (Punktzahl, Sterne usw.) [h1] Pro/Contra [/h1] + Günstig + Story ganz OK + Musik OK + Wimmelbildszenen sind an sich auch ganz OK + Einzigartige Minispiele + Achievements - Das permanente gedrückt halten der Linken Maustaste um das Bild hin und her zuschieben nervt total und ist unnötig [h1] Fazit [/h1] Das Spiel ist pure Mittelmäßigkeit. Zum einen finde ich es Originell aber zum anderen hat es sehr nervige Elemente in den Wimmelbildeszenen, die ja den Großteil des Spiels ausmachen. Ich will dem Spiel keinen Daumen nach unten geben aber Empfehlen kann ich es wirklich nur Hardcore Fans des Genres 👑 Powered by HoI 4 Deu Curators group in German / English 👑⠀⠀⠀[list][*][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30388691/] Follow Main group [/url][*][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40282064/] Follow Second group [/url][/list]

If you like 'Hidden objects' games - Backstreets of the Mind is your choice, if you have not played such kind of games before - you can start with this one. Great photorealistic graphic, nice mini games, interesting storyline. Even my mom got excited from this game! I hope that developers would continue work and soon we would see second part ;)

Artwork good, mini games ok except not challenging enough, but man, the thing that stands out most to me is the panning. I really hate having to hold the mouse button to pan. It ruins the whole game for me. Zoom would have been so much better. There are some errors in some of the story text and I can't figure out why you needed Unity to make this game...

Good but not great.

Finally a HOG that isn't "save your child from the evil wizard" and then it ends up with an extremely bad UI in the HOG scenes, where it's clear that it was designed for a touch screen. The mini-puzzles were mainly arcade games, but when one of the final ones ended up being a spreadsheet stock trader game, you couldn't skip, I had had enough. The story and graphics seems solid, but the rest is just not worth the time and money.

Worst UI I've ever seen, and I play Logistical religously. It's just bad. Repeated, tedious cutscenes you cannot skip. Annoying way of moving in a HO scene (you have to pan but it really turns into frustrated click and drags that move your vision a milimeter at a time), plus when you screw up in a minigame you can't just restart it, you're forced to go through the entire process before it will let you retry. I really wanted to give indie HO games a try but damn. This was bad. I even got it on sale and it wasn't worth it. It's just not a good game, story wise or functionally.