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An exciting and long hidden object game with not exactly top of the line graphical presentation and a well-balanced difficulty. A solid Artifex Mundi title.

Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek isn’t the kind of game that knows how to set a tone, but when it eventually gets the story rolling, it suddenly turns one of the most overused HO clichés (heroine searches for someone in a small town ruled/haunted by a supernatural evil entity) into an electrifying serial murder mystery. With a really decent voice acting to boot.

There are very few conventional puzzles and even the item usage is quite straightforward and limited; the focus is on the hidden object scenes, crammed full of items, giving a surprising level of difficulty. A welcomed change for experienced HO gamers.

The only real problem is that the map: you cannot fast travel with it, even though there is a lot of backtracking– the story requires you to do several laps around the town, easily reaching 4-6 hours of game time.

An absolutely gorgeous, yet utterly lifeless hidden object puzzle game with a nice soundtrack, where your goal seems to be running around back and forth instead of actual puzzle solving.

Despite the fixed resolution, Crystals of Time is one of the most beautiful hidden object puzzle games I have ever encountered… and sadly almost one of the most boring ones.

For starters, it has almost no story: you get a few lines of explanation at the beginning, then one ‘Congratulations, you won!’ screen at the end. Even the titular crystal of time is wasted, it serves next to no role in the game.
Speaking of which… the gameplay mostly consists of running back and forth between half a dozen HO scenes to get your next key item, and after using said item you yet again search the entire house to find the one HO scene that opened up. Repeat a few dozen times until you win. No real sense of progression or accomplishment, just monotonous clicking and searching.

Still, if you find it on sale, or really want to play it for the exceptionally well-drawn HO scenes, it may be worth a try.

Meticulous pixel hunting in overdrive with a good plot and a plethora of beginner developer/writer mistakes.

Them, Chapter 1 was the first and the last game of the indie company Gamatic (game + fanatic), and it’s obvious that it was created by a really ambitious aspiring writer. It revolves around a single plot idea– a conspiracy thriller with some supernatural elements– but the dialogues are really clumsy, and due to the three-game structure it ends in a cliffhanger that never gets a proper resolution.

The game itself is a series of photograph-based hidden object scenes, each crammed full of the tiniest object possible, turning it into a never ending series of pixel hunting, where finding anything is more of a question of luck, not skill or sight. The hit detection is also a slightly off sometimes. But on the really positive side, the soundtrack is nice.

I wish Steam had a middle option, because it’s not a terrible game, but since I can’t recommend it at full price to anyone, I have to use the ‘not recommended’ tag on this one.

If you like a challenge in a hidden object game, don’t mind a lot of backtracking, and enjoy ghost stories, then House of 1,000 Doors will be your title.

If there are any ‘hardcore hidden object puzzle gamers’– despite HO being a casual genre– then Alawar’s House of 1,000 Doors is something that was custom-tailored to their needs, because it has everything: hidden object scenes with several difficulty enhancements; puzzles that can hardly be finished under a minute even if you know the solution; and point ‘n’ click sections that would make even an old Sierra game developer proud.
On top of all it lacks a map feature, so you also need good memory or good notes to keep track of your progression. (And of course this also means that a significant portion of the game is nothing but backtracking, especially in the bonus chapter.)

As for the story, it can be considered a really high point or a mediocre one. The voice acting (except for the child actor) is good, and the plot is a series of well-written short ghost stories. But the overall tone maybe has a wee bit too much spiritualist preaching in it instead of the usual supernatural fantasy elements.

If you ever wished for a beautiful and engaging 3D adventure game that also gives you more than a dozen hours of pure entertainment, then Book of Unwritten Tales is that wish come true.

The Book of Unwritten tales is a masterfully crafted point ‘n’ click adventure game which knows exactly what the essence of this genre is: the storyline, the presentation, the visuals and the puzzles. It takes place in a world where classic D&D fantasy is mixed with the modern laws of capitalism. This paradox, along with the constant fourth wall breaking, is one of the main sources of humour, a strong suit of the game, and very reminiscent of the classic LucasArts titles.

Thanks to the Ogre rendering engine all scenes are lush and highly detailed, but the animation is prone to a lot of clipping and there are no facial expressions. These are compensated by the very slow character movement and an excellent British voice cast (who, I must admit, give a lot of class to the game).

The story is fun and engaging, but it would be hard not to notice that it suffers from deadline syndrome, where the first half is much more detailed in design and in execution than the second one. The main sore point is the ending: the plot, which ran a slow and steady pace, suddenly makes several seven-league leaps, only to tie up everything in less than a minute and roll the credits. Thankfully there is a prequel and a sequel to remedy this mistake.

As for the puzzles, they are fun and varied, and they have one wonderful feature: every time you move an object over another object or scene element that it can interact with, the cursor changes. It doesn’t mean the game holds your hand, only that it completely eliminates the frustrating part of the try-everything-with-everything scenarios, making it even more perfect and fun to play.

If you want a hidden object game which offers exactly what you assume in this genre, Pilgrim’s Hook won’t disappoint you. It may be unoriginal, but it is also a solid hidden object puzzle title.

Small Town Terrors 2 is the kind of hidden object game that tries to remain in the genre’s comfort zone, which works as much to its advantage as against it.

The story offers little surprises: while searching for a loved one you find yourself in a small town haunted by something evil, which of course you promptly destroy before the end credits. There is next to no supporting cast, and the voice acting is kind of a hit and miss.

Same goes for the puzzles: we don’t meet a single one that wasn’t seen before, but they offer a large variety and a good difficulty curve– although the hidden object scenes tend to rely on the ‘find x amount of said object’ gimmick. The only really conspicuous flaw is the usual dumb adventurer syndrome, where you instantly throw away a useful object even if you would need it three scenes later.
Despite these small issues Pilgrim’s Hook is still a good pick that won’t really disappoint any hidden object game fans.

Another shoddily made cheap rip-off from the infamous Xing Interactive that, as usual, is only good for one thing: to thoroughly offend someone by gifting this pile of shame to them.

Xing (formerly Crystal) Interactive– or rather the person behind it– has been known for almost 20 years in the indie/shareware industry as one of the shadiest publishers, and also the maker of the kind of games you meet only twice in your life: the first and the last time.

The Flying Dutchman is no exception: it is a hidden object cash-in ‘game’ with six scenes… in 11 MB. As you can guess, all the pictures are extremely low quality, blurry stock photos with lazily cut out images pasted all over them as the so-called hidden objects.
The translation is dreadful, there is virtually no story and play value, the detection is off, and the hint system is completely broken in the sense that it doesn’t work.
But it has the Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy looped in the background, so I guess that is worth three percent.

Vault Cracker is a very low-resolution, really old-school hidden object game with an astonishingly good storyline.

It’s really hard to write a review on Vault Cracker: The Last Safe, because it’s incredibly good and incredibly bad at the same time.

The story is excellent; a heist thriller that could easily hold on its own in a modern action adventure game, or even in a movie. It is also devoid of all supernatural elements– something that is almost never seen in modern hidden object games.

On the other hand this 2010 product feels like something created at the earliest days of the hidden object genre. The resolution is locked at 800×600. The image quality is horrible with JPEG compression noise everywhere. There is no puzzle variety, just HOPs, which also reminds us of the ancient HO games. And I still don’t quite understand what purpose did the character dress-up sequences serve.

Still, if you don’t mind the outdated mechanics and visuals, and the short length, then play it for the story, it will be worth it.

If you like ghost stories, then this mediocre game should worth a few bucks for you, especially if it is on sale. It’s far from being the worst hidden object title on Steam, but even further of being the best.

Shadows: Price of Our Sins had a really sound idea behind it: a hidden object puzzle game featuring a ghost story about witchcraft, love, betrayal and tragedy. It’s the execution that suffers.

The game has no voiceover after the intro, so everything is told in large– and frankly, very boring– text dumps. Also, the main plot seen at the beginning pretty much disappears, and never gets a proper resolution: after solving the final puzzle, it just… stops.
The puzzles range from bad to above average. They are also repetitive, with an uncomforting emphasis on colour puzzles. Despite this it is recommended to play it on an easier difficulty, since they follow little logic: key items just turn up abruptly in the most unexpected places.
The graphic style fits well to the atmosphere, but it is also quite dated, which really shows in the meticulous pixel hunting of the hidden object scenes.

If you ever wanted a nice, easy, and stylish noir adventure in the form of a hidden object puzzle that won’t take longer than an average movie, then 9 Clues is your title.

9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek is all about style. The 1950s noir detective story motif and the incredibly talented scene compositions– which feature slanted shots and lots of wide angle close ups– create a powerful atmosphere. Too bad the same cannot be said about the over the top characters and the horrible voice acting (not counting the protagonist, whose performance saves a few scenes).

Despite the 2013 release date the low resolution graphics and some design flaws make it feel like as if the game was made around 2007, especially in the normal puzzle segments. It’s not like as if the game isn’t trying: it introduces a new HOP type called Detective Mode, a welcomed addition, and also an integral part of the story. But even that can’t help the largest problem, the length. Even the most casual player should be able to finish it well under three hours, making 9 Clues nothing more than a nice one-afternoon entertainment for a low price.