[u]Recommendation[/u]: A completely bonkers hidden object game with solid puzzles, wild plot, random scenes, horrible deepfake CGI, and hilariously melodramatic vocal performances. If you can find the humor in these things, it's a good time.
[u]Critique[/u]: Some hidden object games establish a theme and try to retain a through-line related to that theme: a murder mystery, a way to catch a madman in the Himalayas, an attempt to escape from a mental hospital. This game is not like that. It is not like that at all. [i]What is going on??![/i] A big part of the entertainment in his game is the nonsensical transitions and wandering plot. Where did this mechanical dragon come from? Oh, are leprechauns a thing here? Oh, now I have to help some fireman put out a fire? Wait - why are we sailing away with a pirate? It's almost like a parody of adventure games, there's so much nonsense.
Playing the monarch of the realm, you will run into various characters - your loyal subjects who know the dire situation you are in at least as well as you do - but all of them need you to perform tasks for them before they can help you. The scenario is such that, again and again, you want to yell at the screen: [b]"NO, PEON! I WILL NOT HELP YOU FIND YOUR LUCKY CHARM! THE BOAT IS SINKING AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE! YOU WILL DO AS I COMMAND, NOW!!!!"[/b]
So the framework that is presented for the puzzles - the story, what the puzzles are and how they relate to anything in the game world - is comically, entertainingly bad. The puzzles, however, are pretty good. The graphics in the hidden object scenes are easily discernible, and there is a wide variety of well-executed minigames, including some that I haven't seen or have only ever rarely seen in other games (in particular, I'm thinking of a spatial puzzle in which you have to rearrange tiles on a grid so that given symbols only appear once in each row and column, sort of a visual nonogram).
The voice acting is so funny! The main villain's lines, in particular, are delivered with such over-the-top silliness that they belong to a hammy stage production of "The Perils of Pauline." It's also funny that the recorded voice lines don't match up with the text shown on the screen (any time the "Isle of Darkness" or "Tower of Darkness" are mentioned, for instance, the voice actors say "Dark Island" and "Dark Tower," respectively).
There is some truly grotesque CGI in this game. Of course, there's the omnipresent "horrible deepfake" animation of people's faces, stretching and squashing a static image to make it appear as if they are talking or changing expression (that said, it's not as bad here as it is in some other Artifex Mundi games). But there's also obvious 3D animation in the cut scenes that feels terribly out of place (and thus sometimes extravagantly showy, like when you pull a tarpaulin off of a cupola and the whole thing collapses, sliding to the ground in glorious 3D when it could have just disappeared like happens in most every other place in the game).
The game plays pretty quickly, without a lot of the frustration inherent in hidden object games where you can't make out what you're trying to find.
[u]Review[/u]: This is...hard to review, because the plot is so bonkers. Let's see...[spoiler]you have married the handsome prince, and now that you are King and Queen, you have had a baby girl. A wizard godfather shows up to give you a present: a pixie slave to do your bidding. But then a spell petrifies your husband and a melodramatic sorcerer steals the baby princess. This forces you to descend into the castle dungeon to barter with some dwarves and animated talking piggybanks to retrieve the wizard's magic orb. Satisfied, the wizard pushes a mechanical dragon that was attacking the castle away and then departs without helping you any further, and you climb down a rope through the hole in the castle and start to explore the larger castle grounds. The sorcerer appears to taunt you: [b]"You shall never get your daughter back! By tomorrow, I will have completed the ritual at the Dark Tower and she will be mine....forever!"[/b] The mechadragon attacks, but you barter with some hamsters to get elemental seals. With the seals, you use fire and water magic to drive off the mechadragon (then never use that magic again). Having done that, you are free to raise the royal flag on the flagpole, which permits the guards to open the castle gates to you, their Queen. Out in the town, you help put out a fire and haggle with a leprechaun in order to move some freight around on the docks. But then, in order to use the ballista you rebuilt to take out the mechadragon, you have to stop time. Having done so, you are confronted by the sorcerer again: [b]"You shall never get your daughter back! By tomorrow, I will have completed the ritual at the Dark Tower and she will be mine....forever!"[/b] Hopping on board a pirate ship, you sail on a long ocean voyage. Days later, far out to sea, the ship is blown off course by a storm and a giant kraken attacks the ship. So you have to poison some fish, find a parrot, repair a ladder, trim the sails, find a lucky charm, all so you can light a fire to scare off the Kraken.
You then arrive at the Dark Island. There is a faerie there who is upset with you - not because you have a pixie slave - but because you haven't brought her a present. She's also having a tiff with her satyr lover, and you have to do some matchmaking to patch things up while dealing with a random giant pool of acid and some obstrperous bees. Rearranging the many arms of a giant stone statue opens the gate to the interior of the Dark Isle. Inside is another gate. It's clearly time to collect some crystals! Through that gate, you are on a bridge in the sky! It is blocked by thick fog. After constructing a scarecrow on a floating island you get an egg to deliver to a griffon with beak teeth. Then you solve some plumbing problems and enter the Dark Tower, where the sorcerer appears to say: [b]"You shall never get your daughter back! the ritual is almost complete, and there is nothing you can do to stop me from claiming your daughter as mine....forever!"[/b] Rummaging through the sorcerer's things, you sit down to watch some puppet theater, where it is revealed that the Prince made a deal to give his firstborn to the sorcerer in exchange for becoming royalty. So you assemble a mechanical owl and use the crystals to disrupt the ritual and rescue your daughter.[/spoiler]
