Runaway Express Mystery

[i]Runaway Express Mystery[/i] is a decent HOG title and one of the earliest games coming from the relatively small Czech developer, Icarus Games. The game presents an interesting and well detailed supernatural storyline, ending up with a couple loose ends, convenient for developing future installation as series. Amanda Waters is a mother of two young children, visiting the nearby antique train exhibition to see Runaway Express, a famous locomotive hailing from early 1900s. It's all fun and games until the appearance of a mysterious engineer and the train taking off with Amanda's children on board! Determined to find her children, Amanda catches the train in last minute. From thereon, she'll meet many strange passengers on the train - long dead and lost in time. If she is to find her children, she should solve their mysteries and shed light into their stories first. With each new clues she gathers, Amanda gets closer to saving her children. Can she solve the dangerous mystery of Runaway Express, revealing the dreadful affair of its last journey and return her children home safely? As you can once again observe, a loved one in danger + a supernatural mystery dynamic never fails in HOGs. This game is no different, aside the remarkably irritable personality of our protagonist. Amanda seems to be immune to fear or surprise, and amazingly fixated on finding her children only. She is a mother first and foremost, okay. But she embarks on a train, meeting corpses and travelling back in time for God's sake! She keeps walking around, reprimanding living corpses (!) and demanding explanations about the whereabouts of her children from them! It's amazing to watch her reactions and listen to her comments. This whole eerie setting has literally no effect on her. Once she is declared that the only way to save her children would be solving the mystery, she gets into the investigation yet keeps challenging the rules, looking for shortcuts all the way. The mystery itself doesn't concern the mother of the year. Talk about one track mind. Imagine your mother reprimanding Frankenstein's monster - that is Amanda Waters for you. Now that would be hilarious. Visuals are beautiful, and the atmosphere is appropriately rustic. Background artist knew what he was doing. Character designs are well done too. Talking animations of characters are a bit clumsy, but they have impressive facial mimics and body gestures. All characters are voice acted with clean cut accents. Listening to Evelyn's heavy Aussie accent was cute, for example. The main attraction of the game is the investigation process for each new case about various passengers you meet. You walk around, gather clues about their pasts and try to solve their murders a century after their demise. You are expected to arrange your clues on a crime board, explaining the course of events. There are not many HOG scenes, but the ones that we have are short and easy to manage. Puzzles are mostly innovative and interesting. The train is huge - with a couple of visited stations along the way - and backtracking may become an issue if you are not playing in casual difficulty, but the map has a teleport function at least. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, I won't lie. The mystery of the train is revealed alright - with a nicely arranged inter-relevant background story, but the nature of the engineer is not explained at all. It is hinted that this won't be the last time we'll be facing him as our enemy. Over all, [i]Runaway Express Mystery[/i] is a good casual game for you to spare 3-4 hours and explore a nice story. Hit it when you'd feel like having a light reading on the mystery department. Enjoy! Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ladystoryteller#curation]here[/url] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!

Game breaking glitch. (sigh, so sad) In all good conscious I can not recommend this game, unless the developers fix this game stopper. (There is a game fix listed in the discussions for good game hackers, unlike me who messed up my game so badly I had to erase everything and start over anyway.) Also unsure if it is my computer or the game but there are severely lagging areas. When Amanda first jumps on the train, and the background graphics are moving, everything lags severely. This lagging occurs anytime Amanda is outside the train while the train is moving. This glitch is avoidable so here it is where the glitch occurs for the intrepid or the just down right obstinate like me. The glitch occurs in Budapest as soon as the gamer opens the bank safe. Before you do anything, or even move, click on the vault and the gamer should get a photograph. If you do not get the photograph for criminal evidence you have encountered the glitch. Please understand this photograph occurs in the third segment of the game, and more then halfway through that segment. So play this game at your own risk. Other then this the gameplay is unique and interesting. Story: Amanda Waters (is the name the game automatically gives the gamer but the name is changeable) has brought her children, Peggy and Jimmy, to a train exposition. The arrival of the train the Runaway Express is the highlight of the exposition. While her children are on board they are not allowed to leave by a person in an iron mask and the train starts to leave the station. Amanda jumps on board to rescue/save her children. On the way she encounters three different crimes and must solve each one. Gameplay: A fair mix of Hidden Object finds and point and click gaming. The Hidden Object finds, however, are not the usual list word finds. The Hidden Object scenes are a combination of three different types of finds. The first find type is the criminal investigation. The gamer is given a magnifying glass, fingerprint power, a squirt bottle for finding blood stains and a flashlight for dark areas. When using the magnifying glass and flashlight the game will state whether they are needed or not. Finding blood stains is fairly easy as a find, since the game scene goes darker and the stains can be seen if looked for. Otherwise just spray all over the scene like one has to do with the fingerprint powder until all of them are found. The second type of find is silhouettes. Find the object and click on it, easy enough. Which leds directly to the third type of find, interactive. If the silhouette picture stays this indicates that the item needs to be used somewhere in the scene. Overall the Hidden Objects are not overly challenging, but not especially easy either. They are a nice change of pace from the usual list finds. Puzzles: The few actual puzzles (not counting the point and click obstacles) are brain twisters. Before my game glitched I encountered two quite worthy of the time and effort I put into solving them. I would have to call them master puzzles since they are between the segments of the game or between major points in the game. I really would recommend this game if it were not for the game breaking glitch. (I would even recommend it despite the lagging, though I would warn everyone about that.) Too bad. I wish I knew how to contact the developers so I could tell them about the glitch so possibly they would fix it. That way I could change this "thumbs down" to a "thumbs up".

[h1]Introduction[/h1] Since I haven’t reviewed a fully fledged HOG (hidden object game) since Darkarta, I decided to dedicate several hours to this fascinating genre and write about it. Runaway Express Mystery has been around Steam for a few years already, yet it flew under my radar until several days ago. Developer Icarus Games has released two other Hidden Object Games for the platform but sadly they went off the grid since 2014. Judging their projects at a superficial first glance, I doubt they couldn’t have provided Steam players with more quality, narrative-driven experiences. [h1]Story[/h1] Amanda Waters is a caring mother for her two children and in 1996 she decided to take the youngsters to a train exhibition in a vaguely discussed location, which I’ll presume it must Paris since one of the main themes present also in the title is a fictional namesake to the Orient Express. I’m referring to this Runaway Express, naturally. It seems to have followed the same historic railway itinerary of Paris to Istanbul in a luxurious environment, all amenities included. Ours is a supernatural tale, of course and the female protagonist has to save her boy and girl from a sinister entity that has kidnapped them aboard the doomed train. Without spoiling anything, that trip will involve solving quite a few murder mysteries since the Runaway’s few lingering passagers cannot leave the train before finding their solace and subsequent, eternal rest. Can’t recall the last time I didn’t play a HOG that involved ghosts or the undead, but you won’t read any complaints from me. The story has sufficient original ideas, to offer a pleasant gamplay involving novelty. If you figured out my own nickname here on Steam, you’d understand that mystery fiction and crime novels in particular, are of great interest to me. So no, Runaway Express Mystery is not a reimagining of Agatha Chriestie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”. It doesn’t have to be, since it already has set pieces and characters which shall take our heroine to several locations and back in time. Budapest itself, is rarely featured in games. Sure it was a backdrop to Hitman (Agent 47 & Contracts), but it never receives as much “screen time” as Paris. [h1]Graphics[/h1] It’s hard to find conclusive data on the graphics engine in HOGs, since most use proprietary versions. I won’t bother with that, yet I have to stress out that I was surprised by Runaway Express Mystery’s default video settings. You can't fiddle with them at all, but you don’t have to. It automatically scales to your monitor’s native resolution and playing it at 4K, I honestly didn’t expect it to go so smoothly. I never understood why some of its genre counterparts never got the memo that 1080p isn’t the threshold any longer, but at least Runaway didn’t lock me into 1366x768 like Darkarta did. I know that this game type is meant to be enjoyed even on a budget laptop, but devs need to take into account all potential players and systems. PC gaming will never be “one-size-fits-all”. So the game runs smoothly, it scales flawlessly and for a 2D engine and assets, it plays nicely with motion and shadow animations in order to offer the illusion of 3D on occasion. I never witnessed a bug, crash or even frame rate issues. Speaking of which, no vsync option has been implemented and the Steam Overlay reported crazy FPS numbers such as 900 more often than not. Since no rapid movement is present in-game, no screen tearing will be observable either. A rare case in which 60 or 1000fps really makes no difference. The backgrounds are gorgeous, I always like HOGs for their inherent attention to even the smallest details. They couldn’t be otherwise since the genre relies heavily on player intuition and predilection towards clicking everywhere. [h1]Audio[/h1] Runaway Express Mystery and its so far immaculate image begins to show some stains when you’re listening more closely. The soundtrack was fine, if a bit low-key. My gripe was with the voice acting which can best be described as “hit and miss”. Sure, Amanda sounds convincing enough, but most of the train’s mysterious passagers lack the depth and enthusiasm one would expect from professional voice actors. So what do we have? And old man’s voice that was lent to at least three distinct characters (TES IV Oblivion style), a singer with a clearly faux Southern belle accent and the worst transgression of them all, a British lord that sounds as authentic as Kevin Costner in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Yes, the kind of posh English you’d be yelling at a hot dog vendor in New Jersey. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] At least Runaway didn’t disappoint from its gameplay perspective. It managed to mix the titular hidden object sections with challenging puzzles and evidence search. The corroboration of multiple facts on panels that would lead to a final suspect, was most pleasing. Good detective work, from a single mom whose professional background is never revealed. Of course, it’s the players that do the hard work, but for the sake of argument and some good ol’ suspension of disbelief, let’s concede that Amanda Waters will go to any lengths in order to save her children. As any mother should, no doubt. Apart from the train’s many compartments, both Paris and Budapest are well featured with several streets and addresses to visit in each case. I almost wish the trip would have ended in Istanbul though. If you’re gonna showcase a fictional Orient Express, at least “finish the job” and the journey. If the puzzles will ever seem either too difficult or time consuming, you can freely skip them. I could have probably shaved off an hour of gameplay, but where’s the fun in skipping the one element that defines such titles? Nothing is insurmountable in Runaway Express Mystery, provided you pay close attention to even minor details. If all else fails, a hint button is also available and it vaguely alludes to whatever point of interest will further the story. Yes, it’s fairly linear, but I’ve yet to find a truly open-ended adventure game in which puzzle solving and character interaction has a profound impact on the overall narrative through freedom of choice. Some titles mask that flaw better than others, but even Telltale’s creations ultimately lead players down several predetermined paths while only offering the illusion of choice. [h1]Verdict[/h1] Just by the fact that it scales to whatever resolution your PC’s running on, this game deserves a closer look. Couple that with a captivating tale which combines the supernatural with murder mysteries and you have a formula for HOG success. Runaway Express Mystery would have benefitted from some proper voice acting, but even as it presents itself now, I’ll consider that a flaw which should deter no one from giving it a try. Who knows, perhaps you’ll enjoy the game and genre even if you had no previous interest or experience in this type of gameplay. My own interactions with the genre began in 2005 with “Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None”. I’ll always return to such titles, no matter how often I’ll be in the mood for them. [h1]Strong Points[/h1] + Pleasant graphics. + Intriguing storyline. + Excellent choice of puzzles. [h1]Weak Points[/h1] - No Steam Trading Cards nor Achievements. - Voice acting lacked enthusiasm. [b]Rating 85/100 [/b] [quote]This review was submitted for [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ReviewExperts#]ReviewExperts[/url], through the generous contribution of [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/danielbink]Daniel - REX Network[/url].[/quote]

7 hours in and stuck with no other option than to restart. For a game with no save slots and no chance to backtrack, this is just unacceptable. Especially since the game tells me that I have everything I need to solve the case, but that's obviously not true as a quick Google search for others with the same problem showed. The graphics were really pretty and the story ok. The map has fast travel, which I loved. It's only my second Hidden Object Game, so I don't know what's "normal", but the HO scenes have silhouettes you have to find and you must often combine items (Need a zebra? Find a paintbrush, use it on a white horse ...). Having to find fingerprints and blood splatter in each scene with some crime kit was just plainly annoying and made me abuse the hint option. I played it in Dutch to learn and noticed that not everything was translated - probably the same for other languages. Overall, I liked the game, but I won't restart it and risk getting stuck again.

[h1]Short version: 82%[/h1] Runaway Express Mystery is more of a casual adventure game than a hidden object one, which will offer a few hours of fun for anyone who likes a good murder mystery or three. [h1]Long version:[/h1] I think technically we can classify Runaway Express Mystery as a hidden object game, although it only offers some silhouette-based scenes and no conventional puzzles whatsoever. These scenes are pleasantly fun, but it is obvious they were just a marginally important element during game development. This game is more of a casual level, point ‘n’ click, supernatural crime-solving adventure. It doesn’t start like that, it uses the most basic hidden object premises instead: a mother’s children disappear and she tries to find them. To do so, she must solve three murder cases, all of which are connected to the train the kids went missing on. All three stories take place in different cities to offer some nice sceneries, and despite being featured in a casual game, the writing is pretty impressive: it is easy to get lost in the adventure and investigation, so this small little gem created by a small Czech studio is more than worth its price.

Freebie with purchase: game breaking BUG. Near the end of case 2 of 3, if you have previously light the gas cooker and heat the teapot, they will disappear. You will end up with no means of reheating the "empty cup" (cup of cold tea) and the pills cannot be used as they cannot dissolve. The hints will keep pointing to the empty cup. The case cannot be solved. > THE END.

Alors qu'elle visite une exposition de trains avec ses enfants, ces derniers sont enlevés par un homme mystérieux qui les embarque dans le Runaway Express qui démarre. La jeune mère a le temps de grimper dans le dernier wagon pour tenter de délivrer sa progéniture. Elle découvre alors que le train est occupé par les fantômes de passagers et qu'elle va devoir découvrir les circonstances de leur mort pour avoir l'espoir de retrouver ses enfants. Ce jeu est une véritable curiosité qui associe une scénario invraisemblable avec un gameplay inahabituel pour ce type de jeu. J'ai rien contre les histoires surnaturelles peuplées de revenants qui permet souvent de faire preuve de créativité à ceux qui ont un minimum d'imagination. Encore faut-il que les personnages aient un comportement cohérent pour que l'aventure soit immersive. Ici l'héroïne ne semble pas tellement paniquée par le kidnapping, pas plus surprise qu'un train historique puisse quitter ainsi une exposition, pas vraiment effrayée d'être entourée de fantômes. Elle va prendre tout son temps de s'investir dans des investigations sur le passé des passagers plutôt que chercher ses enfants dans le train sous prétexte que les portes entre les wagons ne s'ouvent qu'une fois chaque enquête résolue. Même quand elle a la possibilité de descendre du train, elle part explorer la ville sans avoir la présence d'esprit de courir le long du quai pour repérer où sont retenus ses enfants ou de demander de l'aide. Ceci m'amène à préciser le gameplay du jeu. C'est un cocktail entre point&click, objets cachés et enquête mais sans qu'aucun de ces aspects ne soit réellement abouti. Les zones à explorer pour récupérer des objets à utiliser sont généralement assez restreintes et les actions à effectuer sont souvent évidentes, même si on opte pour le degré maximal de difficulté. On est cependant pas à l'abri de quelques combinaisons d'objets un peu absurde ou illogique, notamment une situation au tout début du jeu qui fait craindre le pire pour la suite. Les SOC ont l'originalité d'être présentées d'une part sous la forme d'un lieu d'investigation où on doit utiliser du matériel spécifique permettant de faire apparaître des traces de snag et des empreintes digitales ainsi qu'une loupe et une torche électrique (cette idée n'est toutefois absolument pas développée et n'amène rien au jeu) et d'autre part comme un mini chapitre d'exploration puisqu'on doit trouver des objets à combiner afin de pouvoir en dénicher ensuite d'autre jusqu'au moment où on récupére celui qui sera utile pour avancer dans le scénario principal (le fait de rester sur le seul tableau de la SOC restreint l'intérêt de cette idée et les objets qui prennent du temps à être découvert ke sont à cause du graphisme qui les rend parfois peu identifiables). Reste l'aspect enquête qui nous propose de rassembler sur un écran à part tous les indices nécessaires à la résolution de chaque énigme. Malheureusement aucun challenge à espérer ici car d'une part la solution est dévoilée automatiquement dès que tous les indices seront placés dans le tableau mais aussi parce qu'on comprend très vite le déroulement des meurtres tant l'intigue est simpissime. J'irais même jusqu'à dire que certaines "preuves" ne sont pas aussi accablantes que ça et qu'elle amènent à des déductions pas aussi indéniables que ça. Enfin, on peut déplorer certaines traductions approximatives, même si ça n'entrave pas la progression dans la partie. Malgré toutes ces remarques, le jeu reste plaisant et je veux saluer les tentatives des Tchèques d'Icarus Games de mettre un peu d'originalité dans ce genre de jeu. Ils ont d'ailleurs sorti d'autres jeux dans le même genre, notamment Sharpe Investigations et le contreversé Lost Civilization. Par contre, jeu à acheter en solde ou en bundle car le prix original est un poil trop élevé.

The story starts off as cheesy, you're on a train, searching for your kidnapped kids, you soon realize that the train is bizarre and something is off... I won't spoil ^^ The game is really well done, I really liked the graphics and the good music, the story is very well told too. The dialogues are fully voiced and it's rather well done. The characters are nice, the locations are beautiful and varied. Original thing: the evidence board, a special game mode where you piece up a story by collecting evidences, very cool. You have 3 cases to solve and you'll find blood stains, pictures, letters, etc. As far as HOG scenes, there's only the silhouette type where you have outlines of items to find, some helping you to find others etc. Pretty classic gameplay but it's very well done. You also have a forensic variant where forensic tools are also used to find some of the items (black powder for the fingerprints, flashlight to check dark places, etc). There's some mini games, really well done too. It was short - 4 hours but I'm pretty fast with HOGs, so add an hour for a leisure playthrough. The short time length is also due to not having classic HOG scenes with lists of items. Big up for this game, it's very good and should not be missed by any HOG fan!

[h1] Genre [/h1] Ein Hidden Object Adventure [h1] Story [/h1] Wir sind mit unseren Kindern bei einer Zug Ausstellung. Unsere Kinder sind natürlich Neugierig und gehen in den Runaway Express hinein. Dort wartet aber schon der Zugführer der den Zug nun in Gang setzt und unsere Kinder entführt. Wir springen auf den Zug auf und müssen nun unsere Kinder retten aber das dies stellt sich als alles andere als simpel heraus [h1] Gameplay [/h1] An sich ist es das typische Hidden Object Adventure aber es hat ein paar Besonderheiten. Wir müssen 3 verschiedene Fälle durch Detektiv Arbeit lösen um am Ende unsere Kinder retten zu können. Es gibt die üblichen Wimmelbildszenen, die hier aber etwas anders aufgebaut sind. Wir haben 4 Werkzeuge (Taschenlampe, Lupe, etwas um Blutspuren zu entdecken und etwas womit wir Fingerabdrücke aufspühren können. Diese Werkzeuge müssen wir in jedem der Wimmelbildszenen einsetzen. Zudem muss man natürlich auch Normale Gegenstände finden. Die Minispiele/Rätsel sind teils simpel und teils etwas komplex (eines konnte ich nicht lösen und habe es geskippt). Die Deutsche Übersetzung ist bei einigen Wörtern total Falsch aber es ist nicht weiter Wild. Vocie Acting ist für Genre OK [h1] Pro/Contra [/h1] + Gute Story + Coole Idee mit der Detektiv Arbeit (sowas hätte ich gerne öfters) + Voice Acting ist Genre Üblich OK + Die Wimmelbildszenen sind gut gemacht + Die Minispiele/Rätsel sind OK +/- Leider keine Achievements - Ein paar Fehler in der Deutschen Übersetzung (sind aber nicht weiter Wild) [h1] Fazit [/h1] Ein überraschend gutes Wimmelbild Abenteuer mit coolen Ideen. Die Story ist überraschend gut fürs Genre und die Wimmelbildszenen und Minispiele/Rätsel sind gut gelungen. Es ist definitiv ein Hidden Gem im HoG Genre und ich kann es jedem Fan des Genres sehr Empfehlen 👑 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][*] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44688798/] Follow third group [/url][/list]

Il mistero del Runaway Express:un ottimo hidden object,intrigante e (come dice parte dle titolo) pieno di misteri (gioco che in certi tratti sembra csi),che vede una donna alle prese con un qualcosa di strano pur di trovare i suoi 2 figli.riuscirai a trovare i 2 bambini scomparsi?