Dream Catcher Chronicles: Manitou

A great game does not need achievements or trading cards but if that is all one plays for - this game has neither. I would call this a sleeper, great gameplay, good storyline, and mostly definitely a Hidden Object game. It is fast paced with smooth transitions, so fast and smooth in fact one is at the end (hours later) before one realizes it. It is not a short game though and about the average length for an HO game (around 4 or so hours). Storyline: Singing Star's husband White Wolf is missing, and she sets off to find him. She goes to the Manitu (element or nature spirits) for help. Her journey involves finding various plants and objects in different locations to use in spells. As the journey unfolds the player meets the Manitu and learns their intentions are not always what they seem. Gameplay: 98% of this game is HO scenes, no point and click elements or any puzzles. Even the map is only used to move between HO scenes in any order the player choses. There are several HO scenes for each chapter while looking for ingredients and objects needed to make a potion or later at the request of the Manitu. The HO scenes are colorful and detailed. (Even the chapter transition "black and white" ink drawings are quite amazing.) A few things to note about the HO scene find clues. 1) They are unusual clues, mostly plants and animals most people have not heard about. Since there are no hint penalties I suggest using them. I had to hint and look up some myself. I had no idea an ewer was a pot-like jug with a handle. Some other examples are cane (which means cane sugar plants which look like cattails in fact), puddle (Really? A puddle of water? - How unique!), algae (and not the normal pond scum variety, but the long Sagrasso type that grow like monsterous wide bladed grass under the sea), and of course I can not forget the flying cow. (Totally serious the clue is cow and it is flying and the player has to click on it when it zooms by.) I have not had this much fun playing HO scenes for a while. Such unique and unusual clues. 2) None of the find clues are unfairly hidden either. But in every scene there are one or two that are especially cleverly hidden. Oh the player can see them quite plainly after finding them but they blend so well, one either needs to know where they are there or really has to look for them. 3) The find clues are more and less appropriate to the settings. Or at least to the game theme of Native American indigenous cultures (both North and South America) all jumbled together and throughout time. Basically what I mean is there are no used tires or hammers or bicycles. Very nature oriented with an entire education on plants, animals and birds if one is so inclined. 4) I only found one clue misspelling: broken bow should be broken bowl. It happens (shrugs). Can not complain otherwise about the text. Remember I said this game is 98% Hidden Object, the other 2% is a mini-game the gamer plays twice and a Match 3 game which has various uses. First the mini-game, it is potion making (in a cauldron). The point of the mini-game is to change the color of the potion to a different color using the plants or things gathered from the HO scenes using a recipe chart and quite literally drawing a magic symbol over the brew. Sounds easy, but it is not. This is a real brain teaser of a puzzle, and if one goofs up one has to start from the beginning again. Fortunately there are only 4 things that can be put in the brew. The gamer only plays the mini-game twice but gathers stuff to make potions often. Second is the Match 3 game. This Match 3 game is used as a Hidden Object scene, gathering mana orbs to make potions and boss battles. Yes, you read that correctly BOSS BATTLES. Boss battles in a Hidden Object game, my oh my. Then again the player is dealing with nature spirits. I have run into this type of boss battle scenerio before in a game called Cave Quest. But comparing those battles to these, these will kick your butt if not careful. Think Gems of War maybe. Good luck with the battles. They are tough since your opponent starts out with 2-3 times higher hit points then you do. (No skip option either.) My only suggestion is take your time, there is no time limit. Beautiful artwork, great gameplay, fast moving storyline and 98% Hidden Object. Who can could ask for anything more from an HO game? (That's rhetorical by the way, so do not answer.) Highly recommend.

[h1]Short version: 70%[/h1] Dream Catcher Chronicles is an old-school pure hidden object game. Its English translation is a bit rough and it also almost serves as a botanical vocabulary, but it is undeniable a fun little game. [h1]Long version:[/h1] Dream Catcher Chronicles: Manitou is from 2013, but its game mechanics are much older, as they consist of nothing but hidden object scenes and the occasional minigame interludes. (One of them is a match-3 type and the other is… something I still do not quite understand how it works.) Since it lacks the modern point ‘n’ click elements, it is also short, despite reusing each of its scenes at least once. Do not underestimate it though, because the item list can be tricky. Each scene focuses on searching for potion ingredients, which mostly means animal and plant names that may require even some native speakers to look them up. Said potions are used by our protagonist, the daughter of an Indian tribe’s shaman, who is looking for her missing husband with the help of the local spirits. Although the entire story uses a simple comic format, it has a great flow that suits this game style well enough.

This is a decent hidden object game, if you take a few things into consideration. First of all, although the game has a Native American setting, it has no real resemblance to any real tribe. If you're a stickler for historical accuracy, you may want to skip this. The game is riddled with cliches and downright silliness at times, but if you're not too serious about realism, you'll be fine. That said, the music and graphics are quite pretty. The game is almost exclusively hidden object scenes with an occasional minigame tossed in for variety. There is no inventory management or item-based puzzles as in most modern games of this genre. This doesn't make it bad, but if you're looking for a more complex game, this isn't it. The hidden object scenes themselves are nicely done and aren't too easy. There are some naming conventions that might be bothersome to some people, such as using more formal names for animals and plants (I'm well aware of what a Calla lily looks like, but I might be a minority there). However, there is a handy hint button or the ever-present power of Google if anything is too weird. I feel that the quality of the scenes outweighs the sometimes-odd naming. Lenth of the game is pretty comparable to others of this type, maybe slightly shorter. At the time of this review I believe I'm over halfway through at a little over an hour. With these things in mind, and with there being no frills, extra content, achievements, or trading cards at this time, I would recommend this game on a half-price sale. Although the game is decent aside from its quirks, it's not $9.99 worth of decent. But I would still recommend it to genre fans, especially people like myself that tend to run out of titles to play!

What a disappointing game. I finished it in less than 2 hours, it has WAY less content and challenge than most other hidden object games. Every HO scene is visited twice, and they're very easy to complete -- this isn't really a drawback to me but some of the scenes took less than a minute to finish, and that's even without spamming clicks! The mini-games are terrible: - The 'mandatory' match-3 is boring and uninspired (the first couple of them are of the endless type, you'll just have to match mindlessly until you get the Skip button to show up), and it's even buggy -- sometimes it'll just stop dropping the stuff you need permanently. Use the Skip button. - The potion-making thing is only seen twice, and doesn't make sense at all (by the time the Skip button shows up, you'll only be halfway through *planning* the right path to generate the final potion color). Again, use the Skip button. - The Fire Manitu mini-game is interesting but is only used once (and once again, the Skip button shows up way too quickly). Don't use the Skip button, or only if you can't get it right after a few tries. There's only one solution that works, I'm afraid. - And in the final chapters you get to do some offensive match-3 against adversaries, except they get 3 times your HP and way more luck, and of course there's no undo button to prevent that terrible move that just cost you your victory. And talk about lackluster combat: you can ALSO skip them, even the final boss... After beating the first opponent I didn't want to bother with that stupid boss. Clicked the Skip button. Then they showed me the end credits. Fantastic. Other than that, the writing is mediocre, with terrible English (I'm gonna try and assume this is the Indians' way of talking), and worst of all, it's all shown in Comic Sans MS. Yes, I'm not kidding you, Comic Sans MS. What is this, a game straight from 1998?! I'm still going to give a positive review because I enjoyed the game art, the music wasn't too irritating, and the setting is quite unusual for a video game. I didn't feel like I wasted too much time. Sometimes, you play a game that's just objectively terrible, and you'll still enjoy it, mostly because it doesn't overstay its welcome. Well, that was the case for me here. 100 minutes is just right. Just don't forget to spam that Skip button because only the HO scenes are worth it.

Wish I could recommend this game as it is a nice story, but some issues are detracting from my enjoyment. First is the screen sizing; When I have the game set to Fullscreen, the third rows of the item lists in the hidden object scenes are cut off from view. When I set the screen size to windowed, the hidden object scenes are small to the point of things being impossible to find. There seems to be no happy medium. The other issue that is making the game unenjoyable for me is what I can only determine to be translation issues. In one hidden object scene, a vulture was labled as a "griffin." I don't know if the developers were overusing their English thesaurus too, as they also decided to call a mountain goat a "moufflon" (sic), and lilies "callas": both odd choices of words for the two things, and also make finding the items difficult for people unfamiliar with the words. "Mouflon" and "calla," while legitimate terms, would be unlikely choices for native English speakers outside of certain settings. Regretably, the screen sizing and peculiar wording are both enough to completely overshadow the storyline in this game for me.

One of the gifts of video games is the ability to step into someone else's shoes. You can be another person, live the experience of another culture, explore a whole new mythology. You can experience whole new lives and identities. You can learn something, develop a new mindset to solve new puzzles. Or you can have a game about Native Americans that includes South American and African world bits and confuses wigwams and teepees and actually has a scalp hanging in the happy couple's home, why not? I've never heard of some of the spirits in this game, and the Native artifacts in this game seem to come from many tribes. I have no idea if the mythology is authentic or not, and nowhere to start looking. I am going to give up and appropriate someone else's review. "Pretty simple but fun game with 4 types of mini game: hidden objects, three-in-a-row, original potions puzzle and boss battles similar to PuzzleQuest game." That person gave it a thumbs up so I'll just take that, too. African animals for everyone!

SO i'm glad i got this game on sale, as it defo isn't worth full price. Plenty of hidden object scenes which is great however some of the items were difficult to see and an iguana was called amaga? Also when clicking an item it wouldn;t register but then when i'm stumped using the hint button it shows the item i had originally clicked. arghhhh. Storylines okay i guess and arts pretty nice, but too many visual scenes which i wanted to skip and get on with it. No idea about the pot puzzle, where you put a colour item in and then try and draw a shape, sometimes the shape wouldn't register which i ended up skipping out of frustration. Wasn't a very long game either.

Pretty simple but fun game with 4 types of mini game: hidden objects, three-in-a-row, original potions puzzle and boss battles similar to PuzzleQuest game.

This game could have been way more then it is. For a HOG it has a lot of potential, but it doesn't deliver. - Story typical for a HOG - HO scenes are beautiful, but again typical for a HOG. - The match 3 minigames are a nice change, but repetative and simple. - The potion minigame is the big potential and the only thing that really needs some thinking. - Music is ok, not to annoying like some HOG's have. - Skip/hint button loads very quickly. Last part of the game is a real dwnside for me. Without spoiling it too much, it needs a lot of luck and is very badly balanced. All in all it is a mediocre little HOG (done in 2 hours) and i would get it when it is really cheap.

Ну, ничем особенным игра от других поисковиков не отличается (чисто физически) — ищем вещи, переходим в следующую локацию, ищем вещи, повторяем. Единственной особенностью является необычный набор предметов для поиска: скальпы людей, мёртвые животные, куски мёртвых животных, ингредиенты для колдовских зелий... Запрятано всё довольно хитро, найти зелёного крокодила и кленовый лист на фоне зелёного леста не так-то просто. Пазлы сложноваты, требуют большей отдачи, чем обычно. В целом сложность выше среднего. Сюжет скучный, а главные герои живут в сраче, но по крайней мере срач оправдан кочевым образом этой самой жизни. Игра хорошая, но к покупке не рекомендую. Сам брал в бандле из 20 в 1 или что-то в таком роде. Лучше купите себе Farmington Tales или отыщите на просторах интернета платную версию Lost Island: Eternal Storm (можете почитать о ней вот тут: http://igrotop.com/posts/3819 ).