Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood
Story: Two years after the events at Maple Creek our intrepid and stubborn female detective has heard rumors of mysterious disappearances in Northern California’s Redwood National Park. Believing the elusive Maple Creek Preacher is involved, she goes there. While driving through a remote part of the redwood forest overlooking the coast she is nearly hit by a black cloudy flying “thing” before encountering what appears to be an accident scene involving a family camper. No accident, as it turns out when the black cloudy raven with red glowing eyes attacks again to retrieve the girl child who escaped the first time. Drawn both willingly and cautiously into the dark sinister world of Ravenwood Park, (most probably an unregistered and unheard of tourist stop about the past lumber industry), she once again encounters dark and evil forces at work as she thrives to rescue the captured family. Old friends, new friends and a lethal enemy. Be warned, friends are only enemies with mutual goals.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hidden Object Adventure Games.
Ah yes, another lovely HOG from the desks of Artifex Mundi, of who are quickly becoming my favorite producers for this kind of game. Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood is quite the treat, vastly improving in many areas from the first game in this series, and adding even more goodies to give a unique flavor to this game.
### =Complete Review=
=The Story: 4/5=
Once again, I can’t say too much about it so as to not spoil it. However, what I can say is that it certainly expands greatly upon the story and background of the first game. Giving you insight in to what the purpose of the murders are. You start off two years after the first game, hunting down a lead for the culprit from the last case, only to find yourself attacked by a monstrous raven made of shadow and mist.
– Real player with 15.1 hrs in game
Tiny Lands
Tricky 3d pick-the-difference game that allows you to rotate the diorama, but has limited zoom capability. If you get stuck you can leave your current game and go on to the next, but when you return, you have to start from scratch and hope you can remember the differences you have already found. This is where the limited zoom capability can be a real pain as you can only zoom in on the centre of the scene, not at the side areas. You simply rotate the diorama and hope for the best. If you are hunting achievements, this is going to leave you very frustrated, though it eventually helps with the achievements based on your speed of finding the differences.
– Real player with 55.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hidden Object Isometric Games.
Tiny Lands is a gorgeous spot the differences game - probably the most beautiful I’ve played so far. Each of the 50 levels is a masterfully crafted miniature world in 3D, with an abundance of varied low-poly items. While this type of puzzle game is usually encountered in 2D, now you can move the camera around the level in order to change the view point or zoom into / out of an object. Currently this is done using the keyboard, but mouse-only input is planned to be added in the near future.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
Hidden Folks
If you enjoyed searching for Waldo, you’re going to enjoy this game. However, there is no easily identifiable character like Waldo; instead, each area has a list of people or things to find. At first some are daunting, both due to the size of the areas and due to the size of the items (golf ball, for example). However, each item to find comes with a clue and the clue points to a bigger thing to search for. For example, one item to find is a mushroom and the clue is that a pig is about to sniff it out. So instead of looking for a little mushroom, you can look for a much bigger hog. In fact, I was never stuck on an area due to the smallest items, and the couple times I did get stuck a little, I just wasn’t seeing what was right in front of me. In fact, in addition to the verbal clues, there are auditory clues. I didn’t discover this until the last few areas when I heard someone crying out in distress and looked for the source of the sound, but it’s a nice feature.
– Real player with 16.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hidden Object Hand-drawn Games.
Remember that kid from school who’d draw in his notebook, filling entire pages with massive amounts of tiny squiggles? Enter Hidden Folks, a HOG that captures that precise feeling and manages to distinguish itself through a combination of silly writing, small mouth sounds, and crowded, fully animated landscapes. Best of all, previous DLC-only content has been merged into one, so provided you don’t look up solutions, provides amazing gameplay value for every single age–especially small children.
– Real player with 13.8 hrs in game
Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan
Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan is the second installment in the Grim Legends game series, it has no connection to the first title however. In this game you play a world famous healer brought to the Eagle Kingdom to tend to the beautiful queen. What starts off as a simple visit turns into an epic adventure battling dark magic and an evil curse. The fate of two kingdoms -and the lives of their denizens- lay in your hands. This game is filled with interesting twists and turns as well great gameplay, making a very enjoyable experience for fans of hidden object games.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
Game Information
“Grim Legends: Song of the Dark Swan” Collector’s Edition is a Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game. The game was developed and published by Artifex Mundi.
“Song of the Dark Swan” is the second episode of “Grim Legends.” Previous episode: “The Forsaken Bride.”
Since this is a collector’s edition game, it comes with extra features that are not available in its' counterpart; the standard edition.
The Game Review
Game Visuals
I want to mention that the visuals in the game are nicely done with a painted feel to them. The visuals can be adjusted in the game’s option menu.
– Real player with 12.5 hrs in game
Grim Legends 3: The Dark City
Game Information
“Grim Legends: The Dark City” Collector’s Edition is a Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game. The game was developed and published by Artifex Mundi.
“The Dark City” is the third episode of “Grim Legends.” Previous epsiodes: “The Forsaken Bride” and “Song of the Dark Swan.”
Since this is a collector’s edition game, it has extra features that are not available in its counterpart; the standard edition.
The Game Review
Game Visuals
I want to mention that the visuals in the game are nicely done with a painted feel to them. The visuals can be adjusted in the game’s option menu.
– Real player with 12.1 hrs in game
I played all three in the series, and this is by far the weakest link. It’s a diversion from the high-fantasy setting of the previous two and puts us into a Victorian setting where we’re… Hunting monsters? Something about this story and game just doesn’t seem “right”. It seems like AM developed this game as a standalone title that was just shoe-horned into the Grim Legends series. It doesn’t seem to fit at all. However…
My biggest complaint is the achievements. Oh, Lord, are they broke and obnoxious. The ONLY way to get the “Finish the tutorial” achievement is by first playing on the casual mode, with the tutorial enabled. Others and I made the mistake of playing the game first on Expert mode to get the achievement associated with beating the game on Expert, then switching to casual difficulty, finishing the tutorial, and getting the achievement. But nope, the games tutorials are broke after that. The only way to get it when you beat the game on expert is to make an entirely different game profile, and start a new game on Casual and get the Steam achievement there. This means your original in-game profile will always have one achievement missing - unless you decide to beat the game two times in a row, starting on Casual first, then going to expert. But you CANNOT do this the other way around due to tutorials becoming broke on expert.
– Real player with 9.1 hrs in game
Darkarta: A Broken Heart’s Quest Collector’s Edition
This game is marketed as a “hidden object” “adventure” and a “point and click” game. I can honestly say that this is the first time I would consider that an okay mix. I generally do not view hidden object games as something that should be in the point and click adventure game category. To me a point and click adventure involves exploring an area, having an inventory (which you generally use to solve puzzles and sometimes have to interact with in your inventory), talking with NPCs, solving puzzles, and a strong storyline. Most Hidden Object games don’t really have an inventory don’t usually involve conversations with characters, usually have a sort of weak story, and usually only have minor mini-games if at all. That’s where this game seems to cross the lines a little. It has some very minor dialogue, let’s you wander through several areas where you need to collect things that you use to solve puzzles in other areas (sometimes you need to interact with them in your inventory), and for a hidden object game very few of the puzzles in the game are actually a hidden object puzzle. Even when you are presented with a hidden object puzzle it generally gives you an option to switch to a match 3 game instead. The story is actually very rich and you slowly discover it through various objects and cutscenes as you play through the game. The additional memory objects can add even more story element to the mother daughter relationship between the min character (Mary) and her daughter Sophia. I’m still not sure I’d call this a Point and Click Adventure but, it definitely comes close. It’s more than an interactive storybook and certainly a puzzle game that goes well beyond your normal hidden object game.
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
The key for this game was provided by the devs for reviewing. The review and opinions are my own and have been not been influence by this.
Darkarta: A Broken Heart’s Quest is a puzzle game from India which has the look and feel of a HOG, except with a variety of puzzles. I quite enjoyed the array of puzzles provided. While I can’t say I enjoyed each puzzle type individually, you would generally only be given a certain type of puzzle once, so enduring a disliked puzzle will usually be over quickly. The variety of puzzles to me also felt like a bit of a double-edged sword. While I appreciate the use of variety helps to remove the feeling of doing the same thing over, it also made it feel somewhat unfocused. So, was this a case of the game not being able to win? Liking the variety but criticising it for it? Not sure exactly why, but something just felt a little off with only doing puzzle types once. Usually in puzzle games, they introduce a puzzle concept to you and “train” you on it, ramping the difficulty as it went. Perhaps for me then, I would rather have had SOME variety in the puzzle type, but not so much that most types felt like a disposable one-use? YMMV of course.
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
Hidden Through Time
Highly recommend this, fun game for all ages to play through, however some levels are a little harder with items being hidden in smaller and out of way places-but this makes the game fun. The items also have a description to hint where they’re likely to be found in case you get stuck which is a nice touch for the bigger maps and younger players or players who struggle to see the minute details.
The DLCs are also just as good, adding new items, people, animals and animations along with some new background music. For the most part the music is repetitive but non-invasive, I don’t mind it so much and you can always choose to lower the volume or switch it off altogether.
– Real player with 13.6 hrs in game
lol, never thought I’d find myself hooked to these types of games but picked up Hidden Folks on sale one day and did not expect much. Turned out to be a crazy addictive game that was hard to ever put down. I see this game on sale, never heard of it but read reviews comparing it to Hidden Folk in color.
Yes, this is another Where’s Waldo type game with similarities to Hidden Folk in that they give you clues as to where the objects may be found while trying to throw you off at times. It’s done great. I’m finding myself holding back to just quit the game because it’s so addictive to move on to the next and begin the search.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
Hidden Object Bundle 4 in 1
A bundle of 4 HOGs containing:
House of 1000 Doors: The Palm of Zoroaster
Nice graphics, the HOGs scenes are beautiful but the difficulty is very low. 46 morphing objects to find. The story is fantasy style, with magic and fire spells and a very classic construction. Also it’s a sequel and I didn’t play the previous game(s?) so it felt a bit awkward. The characters and the cutscenes are nice. The ending was a total let down though: the cutscene lasted 3 seconds! It’s the game I liked the least in the bundle but it’s still a good game and I do recommend it.
– Real player with 33.1 hrs in game
I’m going to group the games together for their mechanics until the end of the review because they’re very similar/the same. You have all the classic types of puzzles in here: memory games, spin-and-match, etc. For the most part, they don’t seem to be very challenging but are time consuming. They’re still fun (besides a few puzzle types I don’t really care for in any game), but you may hit “Skip” on a few just to keep moving.
The graphics are pretty decent – mostly standard fare for HOGs. Don’t expect excellent quality, however, as most HOG companies focus more on puzzles and story than graphics. Some computer animations will look like circa 2000s technology, but that never really bothered me. The voice acting was pretty decent for the most part, but there were a few characters who made me cringe a little.
– Real player with 20.6 hrs in game
Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden
This time, the protagonist has to locate and retrieve her lost partner, who is employed in an underwater city, called Eden, made by mankind. Some sort of strange happenings have occured in Eden. Up to the player to find out and piece the puzzle together.
Compared to other Artifex Mundi hidden object games, this installment focuses more on storyline. With significantly more cutscenes and NPC animations, the developers really made an effort to immerse the player.
Overall, the locations are colorful and rather busy & a bit overwhelming, with more than enough backtracking between them. The elevator used to reach the 3 different niveaus, has a animation which can’t be skipped and gets very tedious towards the end of the game. Especially when you complete the game twice or more, which is needed to complete all achievements.
– Real player with 12.9 hrs in game
This is one of Artifex Mundi’s mid-tier games. It’s got a tight story, with a variety of characters, featuring a woman with a unique skill set (scuba diving and adventuring related skills like knowledge of machinery), saving her fiance? boyfriend? from certain doom. With a Lovecraftian threat in the form of wraiths and a Cthulhuoid deity, a good mix of beautiful art and horrific gross art, and a tight storyline, this game offers both hidden object puzzles, regular puzzles, and domino puzzles for people who want to skip the hidden object sections.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Mind Snares: Alice’s Journey
Mind Snares Alice’s Journey bills itself as a mature, psychological thriller with horror elements and for a hidden object adventure game this is a fresh idea. Unfortunately, it loses track of the story halfway through and goes back to tired old tropes, with an unfulfilling ending. While I love when games have a deep story, I accept that hidden object games will often have a very simple, linear story -they’re straightforward, and I’m okay with that. What I’m not ok with, however, is a game getting my hopes up and completely letting me down. Here we have a decent HOAG that bit off more than it could chew in terms of story and that overshadows its positive notes.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
My third Artifex Mundi title played on PC. I enjoyed the experience, but am putting thumbs down because if you are newer to the genre, there are better titles to start with. If you like HOGs (hidden object games) anyway, get this on a sale! Or better yet, in a bundle, which I did.
Story Overview
I feel the strongest part of Mind Snares: Alice’s Journey is its darker than usual HOG story. You play as Alice, an office worker that hates her job. Her managers treat her horribly and give her mundane tasks like running errands, and disregarding her vacation time. Almost too close to real life for some folks eh?
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game