Ominous Tales: The Forsaken Isle

Ominous Tales: The Forsaken Isle is a Hidden Object puzzle game, the type you normally see on mobile app stores or even as browser apps. There's literally hundreds of these on Steam, mostly published by Artifex Mundi, many of them free on mobile app stores, but this one will cost you money on Steam. There's a 19th century magical/mystery/horror theme to the game, but this is a just a veneer over a tired and overdone set of hidden object minigames and Adobe Flash tier puzzles, wrapped together with a bunch of static screens that you "move" through by tapping your finger on your iPhone screen. While these kinds of games are popular amongst casual gamers, it's difficult to argue this is a great value proposition as a PC game, especially considering the price of this compared to the hundreds of free HOGs on the mobile app stores. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here. This looks and feels like a mobile app, but it doesn't seem to have made it to the app stores. It's unclear why this was put on Steam instead of the app stores it seems to have been designed for. Maybe it was removed, maybe it was rejected by Apple and Google (they do have more rigorous quality standards than Valve does for Steam, after all). Regardless, for all intents and purposes Ominous Tales: The Forsaken Isle might as well be a mobile app, it has the same limitations and dumbed down qualities. It's impossible to recommend such a game to PC gamers. We don't spend all this money building gaming rigs so we can pretend they're iPhones and play games that might as well be mobile apps. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 9 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Ominous Tales: The Forsaken Isle has the ridiculous, laughable price of around $7 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam. For comparison, the $7 asking price for this game could get you games like "Fallout: New Vegas", "The Witcher 2" or "Payday 2". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

[h1]TL;DR:[/h1] Short, but pretty good. Okay story, average puzzles & HOGs, but has some weird P&C item logic here and there. Nothing particularly noteworthy other than the nice artwork. Wait for a sale or bundle. [h1]Pros:[/h1] + Great backgrounds and character art + Decent HOPs with no bizarre mistranslations + Short but cohesive story + Extra collectibles in the form of claw marks, ghosts, and diary pages. They're easy to spot, but the map also shows a trophy icon on a location if you haven't found everything there yet. [h1]Neutral/No Effect on Opinion:[/h1] ~ VOs were ok, but it kinda sounded like the same guy recorded all of the characters. Even Lady Annabel's voice is a bit like a guy doing a falsetto. Not a bad one, but still. ~ Rewards for completed HOPs are items that weren't even in the scene in the first place. It's not a con exactly, but it would make more sense for rewards to fit the context of the scene. ~ I don't know why most of the backgrounds are tilted at a such an extreme angle. They're still pretty, but it's not like the protagonist is drunk while walking around. [h1]Cons:[/h1] - P&C item usage is a bit loopy at points. Like when you use a crowbar and it disappears, then you find another one later on. Why can't you just keep the first one? And you can't use said crowbar to open a jammed window, you need a stick of [i]butter[/i]. Uh.. ok? Or you have a dagger and need an item in a thorn bush, but instead of cutting it you need to cover the bush in oil and then set fire to it. o_0 - Inventory item names can be confusing. Like you find a "log" that looks like a wooden board, and then after trying everything that seems logical you realize you're supposed to use it like a twig to prop open a small venus flytrap. But you ALSO find an actual twig around the same time, but [i]that[/i] gets used like a torch. - Because of the above points, it's not always obvious what you're supposed to do next, because the items you find - both their labels and what they look like - don't match the intended action. - I didn't use the hint button, but there may still be a crash issue with that according to other reviewers. So be wary if you use it. - Some zoom/popup areas remain active even after you find or use everything there (including collectibles). It can be confusing to see the "active spot glint" at a location and not realize you actually completed it already. - You have to click to advance every. single. sentence. of dialogue. Normally I like to just sit back for cutscenes or dialogues, but that's not possible here. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Give it a shot if you need a HOG fix and don't have much time to invest in one of the longer HOPAs that require focus for achievements (there are none in this one). You can probably complete it in about 1.5 to 2 hours max, including breaks, so I wouldn't recommend it at full price.

Story/Plot: Ominous Tales: The Forsaken Isle is a hidden object game that has you traveling to the titular Forsaken Isle, a place said to be inhabited by the undead and other dark forces. Upon arrival, you find yourself trapped, and being threatened by wolves, only to have a ghost appear and save you. As you can guess, to free her and the other trapped souls, you must confront the evil and defeat it. As stories go, it works but it certainly isn't memorable. The start really doesn't give a good reason why you should go to the island, while the characters felt rather thin. Visuals: One thing this game has going for it is gorgeous art. Additionally, I'm really glad that the human characters didn't fall into the whole uncanny valley effect that many HoGs suffer by trying to go for realistic people. Gameplay: As a hidden object game, gameplay consists of three elements: hidden object screens, point and click elements, and logic puzzles. The hidden object screens were rather small in number, and pretty easy to finish. There is a small variation in the puzzles such as showing an outline of the object, or moving something to another thing on screen to reveal it. The point and click elements were serviceable for the game. I would actually rate this on the higher side, especially when I look at previous HoG's I played. In those, you might have to find 5+ cutting objects (as an example), but this game didn't go that route. Additionally, the interactions were sensible overall, so it kept the moon logic to a minimum. Padding out the rest of the gameplay is the logic puzzles. Most of these puzzles tended to be of the 'rearrange' variety like moving weights, or picture parts. A couple do border on the difficult but one can also skip these once enough time passes. Sound/Music: This game is serviceable in the sound department. While there is background music, I honestly didn't notice it at all. This isn't to bad, especially if you are listening to something else, but doesn't add to the game's atmosphere. The game does have voice acting, and I would say this is a bit better than the music. As a short game, though, this doesn't give the voice actors any chance to show their range or lack thereof. Difficulty: I would say this game was a bit on the easy side, especially if you are a veteran of hidden object games. That said, you can easily change how hard the game is as well, including shortening/lengthening the recharge time, skip puzzle time, etc. Extras/Achievements: For those who care, this game has no achievements of any sort. However, it does have an extras menu where you can listen to the soundtrack, get wallpapers, see concept art, as well as other goodies if you find all the diary pages, claw marks, or ghosts. Recommendation: So would I recommend this game? I give a hesitant yes, but with some caveats. For one thing, the game is on the short side; I took only about 2 hours to beat the game, and I can't see it taking over 3. Additionally, if you do get the game I would recommend waiting for it to be on sale. If you are going to spend $10+ (full price), there are some really good Big Fish Games or Artifex Mundi games out there. However, if you are just looking to spend an hour or two on a game, this isn't bad. That said, I've also played some really bad games, whic this isn't, so my tolerance threshold might be higher than other people.

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This was a pretty good game. I'd give the story and art a 9/10. The hidden object scenes were nothing special but it was annoying to not have the item you get from the scene not be something you actually found. I loved the map showing actions and collectives. The puzzles were fairly good as well. The only bad thing (other than the HO issue) was that the game is a bit short for $10.

a very nice, short HOG with a great story. pros. great story amazing voice acting great artwork cons. very short (around 1 and half hour for the whole game) no bonus chapter low resolution i had one crash with a bluescreen. noticed one typo. his died instead of his death despite being very short i highly enjoyed this game. it is very simple and has a great story. yet another proof that older HOGs are better. 8/10

A mediocre and very short casual point-and-click adventure. The story is especially cheesy. It's poorly written and the text has several spelling mistakes. The hidden-object scenes and puzzle mini-games are easy and uninteresting. There are collectibles, but finding them does not award achievements. All in all, a sloppy and unsatisfying game.

各方面都普普通通。拿到地图时我在想不会就这么点儿场景吧，结果还真就这么点儿。连带找物场景和解谜游戏都很少。对不起这定价 7/10

One of the worst HO games I have ever played. Худшая игра жанра «поиск предметов» / «Hidden Object» из тех что я играл.

its ok, pretty short art is good