The Clockwork Man

This is a review for both "Clockwork Man" and "Clockwork Man: The Hidden World" since I played them back to back and they share the same lead character. Actually, I've played both these games many times on a different PC before I got into Steam. So my playtimes you see for each will probably be less than a normal playthrough since I can whiz through the games by now. We'll start with game #1: Pros: - Nice graphics and good character designs. The main girl, Miranda (YAY, she has my name!), is quite lovely. - The voice acting is also good, for the most part. I really like who they chose for Miranda. Some of the others can be a bit cheesy but it is amusing rather than irritating. - Interesting story. - Both games have a very neat hidden object feature. Scrolling and zooming. Not every scene but many allow you to move around the area. Some items are sneakily hidden behind others but just one click to the left or right will reveal them. - Both games also have an interesting hint system. You travel around with a little robot man and he'll help you locate those tough to find objects. He starts out with the ability to just tell you where a random something is. Then a little into the story, he learns how to give you an item's silhouette (which is the hint I prefer if I'm stuck). Further in the story, he gets other abilities. Like briefly highlighting each metal object on your HO list. - In both games, the music isn't spectacular but it's pleasant to listen to. Actually, in #2 there are a couple places with very lovely melodies. - When you beat each game, Freeplay opens up. This gives you random hidden object areas. Good for if you're in that "I have a craving to find stuff" mood. Cons: - Neither game is connected to Steam while you're playing. So you won't be able to chat with friends or take steam screenshots. - Unfortunately, both games have issues when it comes to clicking on items. You'll find you need to be very precise and occasionally you'll need to click more than once or try clicking on a different part of the object. It doesn't happen TOO often or else I wouldn't be able to recommend these games. - Both games are short. Boo. Now I'll list the differences in Clockwork Man: The Hidden World: - The length is longer. Because of the higher difficulty, possibly much longer. - This game has a journal where Miranda records her adventures and anything of note. You WILL need to use this journal to solve quite a few puzzles. - There are many more puzzles in #2 and some of them are downright devious. There are no skip options either. Also, it's easy to miss things that you need in some scenes so you might get stuck for awhile. I love this game but it IS a bit aggravating sometimes. Those who enjoy a challenge will have fun. :D - The story has no tie-ins with the first game. The Hidden World's plot is much more involved than #1 and, in my opinion, fascinating. - The voice acting, again in my opinion, is better than the first game. (Miranda is still the same, which is good!) - Maybe it's my imagination but it seems the graphics are better in #2, though I'm pretty sure they used the same game engine. - When you finish the game, you can rewatch any of the cutscenes. So in closing, I really enjoy both these games so I'm definitely recommending them to hidden object and puzzle fans. But, because of their short length, you should wait and grab them when they're on sale. Important Note! The games might not load up for you, which is an issue I had. Right click on the Clockwork Man title, click on Properties, click on Local Files, click on Browse Local Files (which will bring up your program files for the games), right click on the Clockwork Man title again, click on Troubleshoot Compatibility, and finally click on Try recommended settings. I did that for each game and then they worked just fine.

The gameplay is ok, and the art has some nice late-90s CD-ROM puzzle game aesthetics. Unfortunately, there's very little game to play. I'd swear the cut scenes are a full half of the game, and they're horrible. The template is: "bwahaha, foolish girl, I tricked you into cleaning my [space]!" "Oh how dare you, you churl!" "Relent, miss! Out of guilt I will actually do what was requested of me." But seriously, almost every scene is your character being tricked into cleaning up after people. And you're the only female character. You play a girl who goes around cleaning up after men. It's actually the whole story.

The Clockwork Man is a simple "find the item" picture game, with some light puzzle-solving elements mixed in. If you are a fan of these sorts of casual low-key games, you will probably like this one. The characters and world are pretty nicely designed (it takes place in a sort of Victorian Steampunk-ish setting) and the voice acting is decent. Gameplay primarily consists of clicking within scenes to find a list of objects that are hidden throughout. Occasionally, there will also be scenes where you have to find, combine and use objects in specific ways to solve puzzles. It's definitely not rocket science, and not the least bit challenging... but you know what? Sometimes that's OK. That said, there are some things to be aware of before making a purchase. First, as I just mentioned, the game is extremely easy. So if you are an adult, don't buy this looking for a challenge - buy it if you just want something mindless to keep you occupied for a few hours. Second, I feel the price is just a bit too much for what you get. The story mode takes around 2-3 hours (at most) to complete. And while you do get an endless randomized "free play" mode that opens up after beating the game, I am still not sure the whole package is worth $10. You may want to hold out for a sale. Price aside, I recommend this if the premise interests you and you don't mind extremely casual/easy games. Another selling point would be if you have younger children. This game is tailor made for kids, or to play with your kids. So that's something to consider as well. Otherwise, if you don't care for mindless hidden-picture games or puzzles, move along, there's nothing to see here.

Valve, please. Just give us one more option besides a "yes" or a "no". A half-hearted "mneh" or a a shrug icon or even a thumb pointing sideways. Because that's how I feel about The Clockwork Man. Not angry or frustrated enough to condemn this hidden object game, but not impressed enough to turn my thumbs upwards either. There're certainly some aspects to praise about the game. It comes with a fairly unique hint system, built into the game's clockwork sidekick. It uses charges to help the player find more difficult objects, and recharges slowly over time so it doesn't make the game too easy all at once. The art is nice at least, and the game is mildly spiced up with other kinds of puzzles in-between hidden-object-finding sessions. On the other hand, there just isn't much else to the game. I finished in about two hours, with some help from the hint system. The puzzles are nice, but they're also obvious (and overdone) to the seasoned puzzler. Upon completion, The Clockwork Man offers a freeplay mode, but those are for Hidden Object maps that you've already played by then. The biggest disappointment had to be the setting. It promised an alternate-history steampowered Victorian world, and it delivered that in the first few moments. But then you're sent to an under-developed tropical island where little to none of that ever comes into play. Your "global" adventure only consists of a few moments in your Victorian home and the rest of it on a single generic tropical mystery-island. The only steampowered clockwork wonders you'll experience are your sidekick Sprocket and [spoiler]what you discover during the short finale[/spoiler]. Hidden Object game enthusiasts will like this more, but they'd be better off with The Clockwork Man Bundle, which consists of this game and its sequel (which appears to at least have more Victorian steampunk elements). For everyone else though, whatever the second game is like, I can definitely say that The Clockwork Man is underwhelming and not worth a full-price purchase.

[h1]Charming HO game, but ultimately frustrating[/h1] [b]Note: The sequel is much much better, and does not require playing this one.[/b] [b]What I liked[/b] [list] [*]Generally lighthearted and charming tone. [*]Simple story taking place in a steampunk Victorian setting. [*]Cute and likeable main character (both the voice acting and the illustrations) [*]Variable quality of voice acting - it's fine as long as they don't try to do an accent. [*]The hinting system is like a minigame, with several options to choose from. [*]Zoomable and scrollable scenes add a layer to the gameplay. [*]High quality art throughout - I especially appreciated the detailed artwork in the closeup of each object I found (but then why make them so darn tiny in the scenes? More on that below) [*]Inventory item blurbs are pretty fun to read, made me chuckle several times. [*]Free play mode once you finish the story mode, with object locations changing. A pretty nice addition to the game, but marred by the same gameplay issues (more below) [/list] [b]What I didn't like[/b] [list] [*]Objects to be found are often extremely tiny. I am talking about ten pixels squared on the screen. That's not how you add challenge to a HO scene. (and I'm not referring to the zoomable scenes.) [*]The objects in questions, and their descriptions, tend to be just confusing. "Church lantern". "Cheese spoon". Do these terms convey images in your mind as to what the object looks like? "Bookmark" turns out to be a metal knife-like object, more like a letter opener. A "magnifying glass" turns out to be the freestanding type, not at all the shape you have in mind. And so on. [*]Because of the above, the hinting system actually has an option to show you what an object looks like (but not where it is.) If you have to offer such a tool, then you know your HO scenes are lacking. [*]Pretty short. 3 hours to finish the story mode. But there's a free play mode afterwards if you think the game is worth it. [*]No Steam integration of any kind (no Steam overlay or chat or F12 screenshots, and no Steam cloud save or achievements or cards.) [*]No Alt-Tab. Your screen will flicker and then put you back in the game. And windowed mode is too low-red. [*]The Steam store screenshots are misleading: the game is 4:3 and not widescreen. [*]The main character, Miranda, is a capable inventor and mechanic, but she's somehow tricked again and again into cleaning up the messes of the other characters (all men, by the way). There was a couple of puzzles where she had to construct or fix stuff, though. [/list] I get the impression that they were so happy with their elaborate hinting system that they wanted to give people a reason to have to use it. Thus the obscure objects. Difficult decision, thumbs up or down... the game was charming, looks lovely, and the player character is so endearing... but ultimately I can't recommend it for gameplay. PS. I should note that the game wouldn't run for me on my main PC, throwing up some sort of error. I posted in the forums and one of the developers was nice enough to offer suggestions to troubleshoot. Nothing worked, but I appreciate their help. I eventually installed and played it on another PC.

Eh. I am giving this hidden-object game a thumbs up, but only barely. It's not terrible, just not great. It's straightforward hidden-object scenes with a handful of puzzles: no point-and-click adventuring. Some hidden-object scenes are innovative, in that they involve zooming (dumb) or scrolling (cool). Otherwise, they are of moderate difficulty, and sometimes not quite fair. Another innovation is in the hint system, which involves constantly upgrading your robot helper. But ... the whole point of playing such games is to avoid the hints and enjoy the hidden-object scenes! I never used the robot, so this innovation was lost on me. The story is the usual humdrum, with good voice acting, but there are too many cutscenes. There is too much effort to put the hidden-object scenes into the context of the story, with some quite silly results. You're supposed to play a budding engineer, but all she does is search through piles of junk for junk. :) As others have commented: being the only female cleaning up after all the male characters is quite insulting, but then this genre isn't exactly known for its progressive values. If you're a fan of hidden-object games, you might enjoy this game for the scrolling scenes. Also the sequel, The Clockwork Man: The Hidden World, is [b]much[/b] better, and it does continue this story, so if you want to play that one you might want to play this one. In itself, it is a forgettable and buggy game. I'd like to thank the developer for supporting Linux, but unfortunately the Linux port isn't good. I could not activate fullscreen mode (though at least I could maximize the window) and could never quite get the sound levels right. (The default sound level has the music as loud as the voice acting, which makes it impossible to hear what people are saying.) The game seems to have been developed in Flash -- which I don't mind, as long as the final result works. As it stands, it's all a bit sluggish and buggy (I have a very powerful PC, so hardware is not the issue).

As far as HOG games go, this one is alright. I was pleasantly surprised with the “zoomable and/or scrollable screen” that you can get in some scenes, I thought it was something I don't find very often in this game type, it definitely makes the game a bit more challenging, and the scenes really are cram packed so it takes a good looking around. There are some HOG games you just glance at the list, glance at the scene and find things straight away because it’s been poorly edited into the picture or is just plain obvious, this definitely isn't like that, the scenes look decent. Only fault in that department I would say is when you scroll along, edited items skip and jitter a bit so it’s easier to find objects put into the photo. The music is alright; it’s not repetitive and mind numbing like some soundtracks i have heard alongside a game like this. also, all different HOG games have different ways… or “excuses” rather as to why you are searching around in a cluttered room “cleaning up”, and this game really is quite cheesy with that, a popular one as most fans of this genre would know is that you are doing “detective work”, in this, you quite literally are just everyone’s ♥♥♥♥♥, “I'm a lazy ♥♥♥♥ hotel owner, clean up for me will ya” kind of thing, I found that a bit of "utter cheese" to be honest. Alongside that the story is really short, at first it took me a while to get into it, I wasn’t too bothered, then it started picking up, I became interested in what was going on and it just ended. Although it did end on a “to be continued…” it wasn’t all that satisfying in terms of length and storyline. I would say it’s decent, it may be worth a go if you are bored and missing the genre which was the case for me when I started it. Unless you are planning to play the next one straight after it, (which I haven’t played yet) just be prepared for a short game.

This was an interesting hidden object game. As opposed to the usual one-screen puzzles in other HOGs, this has huge side-scrolling, vertical scrolling, and zoom-able puzzles that contain hundreds of potential objects, of which you need to find 15-20, many of them tiny or partially-obscured. It is especially difficult considering there is no delineation between the foreground and the background, so clickable items can potentially be on any pixel of the screen. Being a Victorian-set, European-produced game, I also found the items weren't always labelled with word choices I recognized. I ended up having to use the in-game hints for a handful of French, Italian, and archaic historical terms. However, there is no penalty for using the hint system, and the game features several levels of hints, with the "I need a slight nudge" level recharging faster than the "just find this thing for me because I give up" level. The plot feels almost like a maguffin to get you to solve puzzles, and I don't know if it quite resolves itself satisfactorily. Also, even though the protagonist is supposed to be a "strong female character," it doesn't really feel like she's a hero because she spends the majority of the game being bossed around, patronized, and tricked by other characters, and having to clean up after their messes. On a related note, there is a recurring plot-point of "hidden object puzzles only exist because all of our characters are either slobs or victims of disaster." All of the hidden object scenes look like they just dumped a random assortment of junk all over the landscape, with no real rhyme or reason to the layout, and no location-specific theme (except for one gimmick level that was hilarious). All that being said, the art was beautiful, the few mini-games and point-and-click sections were intuitive enough, the voice acting was hilariously over-the-top, and the music was cinematic-quality. It also does a pretty good job of maintaining a steampunk atmosphere throughout the game. Additionally, unlike other HOGs, this has almost no backtracking. You simply either automatically advance to the next area, or you click on the map to jump to a puzzle of your choice from the available options. For a casual time-waster game with no achievements to worry about, it is worth a chance if you pick it up on sale. While the hidden object scenes are definitely challenging compared to other HOGs I've played, I appreciate the scope of what they tried to accomplish with the scrolling views. Overall, I would give this game a 5.5/10

This game does NOT work on Windows 10 (even using compatability settings). The devs have long abandonned the game.