This is a decent little hidden object puzzle adventure (HOPA) game.
- Story and Graphics -
The plot is loosely inspired by “The Odyssey,” with seven of the poem’s fourteen locations represented in some way (although the islands of Helios and Aeolia have been conflated together). There is also one new location that doesn’t appear in the source material.
Content-wise, the game seems directly aimed towards young audiences unfamiliar with the epic poem as a way of getting them interested in Greek history and mythos. The basic outline of Odysseus’s journey from Troy to Ithaca is shown, however all depicted canon events have been altered to remove anything violent or lewd in order to make the story appropriate for children. If you are looking for something dutifully accurate to Homer, this is not it (and you are playing entirely the wrong genre).
The scenes and character designs are all well-drawn and vibrant, but the overall theming has a very “Hollywood’s idea of what antiquity looked like” feel to it (think 2004’s “Troy” film), with “Fairy Barbie Circe” being the most jarring anachronism. The visuals still read as olde timey enough for the average consumer, though, in large part due to some truly beautiful background art, so unless you are a diehard history buff, you probably won’t notice or care about the inaccuracies.
- Hidden Object Scenes -
There are approximately 15 traditional hidden object scenes (HOS) in the game, with most of them being utilized twice. The front of the game is heavily loaded, the middle feels a bit sparse, and the end of the game has a balanced ratio of HOS to other puzzles.
For the most part, the scenes look like messy storage areas suitable to their map locations, with all the objects being believably from the era even if they are not arranged or layered in ways that make logical sense. (Nary a Victorian ewer in sight!)
As an added layer of complexity, each HOS in the game includes a handful of interactive combination or cached objects in addition to the regular items scattered about the scene. These are indicated by a darker color text in the clue list.
Aside from the slightly obscure “clew,” the text clues are all straight forward.
Beyond these dedicated HOS, the game also contains three other hidden object based puzzles, all following the format of “find X number of this item within the map location background.”
- Adventure Elements -
As a HOPA, you will need to pick up and use inventory items to solve challenges as you walk about the map. Almost all of these object-use puzzles are intuitive if not downright easy, with the only exception being the ring in the rock which is a bit moon logic-y (and the snake if you aren’t familiar with folk beliefs). Even the ubiquitous “key stuck in door with a gap underneath” puzzle makes a cameo!
You will actually have a harder time locating the inventory items in the first place, especially in the third area. Some of them are very easy to miss because they either blend into the background, require pixel accuracy (some hotspots are finicky), or are not immediately interactable and require you to come back later. Luckily backtracking is not really an issue, since each area in the game has only 4-7 screens.
The adaptive mouse icons clearly indicate what is and isn’t interactable or solvable, the NPCs and task scroll give solid next goals to work towards, and clicking around gives good feedback text if you are stuck. (Clicking on anything with a “?” icon often gives fun flavor commentary too.)
One thing to note is zoom areas become non-interactable after you have done everything you can with them, so if you can still open one it means you either missed something or will need to revisit it later after triggering a new plot event or puzzle.
- Other Minigames -
There are a bunch of minigames to complete over the course of the game. Most of them are standard HOG/HOPA fare: mosaic sliding puzzles, jigsaws, tangled threads, arranging tokens in the right order, pipe pathfinding, using the right key shape, fishing, memory games, aligning mirrors, rotating discs, matching symbols, trial and error sequencing, putting objects back into a HOS where they belong, etc.; however, Circe’s final challenge was a unique and clever surprise!
Some of them are a bit repetitious, making you do the same thing 2-4 times in a row, but none of them are frustrating. Players of any skill level will find them to be decent brainteasers.
The Simon-style flute game is the only one that is 100% not colorblind friendly. You might also have some trouble with the fishing and the web minigames, though, if you specifically have difficulty distinguishing red.
- Technical Issues -
Although the individual music tracks are appropriately atmospheric and help create a Grecian ambiance, the loops are joltingly terrible.
I first played the game on Win 7 with no issues, and recently replayed it on Win 10 to get the card drops and finally write a proper review. The game froze so badly at the loading screen during my first two launch attempts that I had to force Steam shut from Windows Task Manager. Once I finally got into it, it seemed fine, but then my computer froze after the zodiac puzzle. That time I just let it sit, and it finally fixed itself after several minutes. If you are planning to play it on a modern computer, you may need to run the game in compatibility mode, or just prepare yourself to have it freeze and lag at transition points.
- Final Thoughts -
For a dubiously historical game about a genius who can’t tell when something is abandoned and doesn’t know what “cool off” means, it’s pretty good. The HOS are solid, the adventure elements are accessible to children and new players, and the minigames are fun even if they are mostly just reskins of genre staples. For a $4 asking price you’ll get around 4 hours of gameplay.
