[b]Pros[/b]
+Nicely created environments.
+HO scenes are decent (although repeated)
+The 2 HO scenes in shapes are great
[b]Cons[/b]
+Bad story with no ending
+Unskippable “loading” screen
+No achievements
+No mis-click penalty
+Repeated items being collected in HO scenes
+Repeated HO scenes
+Puzzles too easy
+Short (less than 2 hours)
+Repeated / annoying music (ring around the rosie)
A standard hidden object game, but really needs some polish.
White Haven Mysteries has some of what you expect from a HOG. The story is basic, you’re in an abandoned research facility where they were testing drugs on patients. Apparently, you were one of them and you need to find an antidote to cure you. There’s not much to go by and therefore I had little interest in the plot.
The actual hidden object scenes, while repeated, are drawn nicely and some items were a struggle to find. There is no mis-click penalty, so you can click all over the objects and collect most of them before even looking at the list. Strange the devs didn’t include a penalty like almost every other HOG does. I really enjoyed the HO scenes where the items were arranged into a shape. Unique and pretty difficult. I would have like to see more of those, however there are only 2 I remembered like this.
There are only a handful of puzzles in White Haven and they are all very easy. While being easy, there were no instructions to follow for them.
The overall environment is mildly creepy. The game goes through an unskippable “loading” screen every time you start it up where it warns about disturbing scenes. This is way too dramatic and I only caught 1 time you may get startled.
Some other random things I noted:
-After collecting a journal entry, viewing them doesn’t always show you the one you just collected
-Back arrow is near the inventory area, causing you to wait for it to disappear to go back a screen
-One HO scene has you listening to the annoying sound of a pump the whole time
[b]Conclusion[/b]
White Haven lacks a lot of things for me to recommend this. There’s no bonuses or extra chapters, so it’s just the main game. If you’re into the genre, grab it on a heavy sale.
[b]4/10[/b] Below Average
