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Casual Games Thread

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rtrooney - 20 October 2014 06:44 PM

Did everyone see the lead article on the home page? Casual game, Evil Pumpkin: The Lost Halloween, was reasonably well reviewed. Unfortunately, there was no buying link accompanying the article.

I Googled it. It’s available on BFG for Mac only. Thought that strange, but I checked and it’s not available there for any other platform. Price is $6.99 or one credit. It’s also available on Steam for $9.99.

Since it was reviewed on AG, that means it is a hidden-object-free game. I was thinking of suggesting it as a bonus Halloween game after finishing Phantasmat. I’ve never purchased a game from Steam. (I did try several years ago, but had a problem with their method of payment, and haven’t gone back since. Maybe things have changed.)

I’ll check it out on Steam. You can use Paypal on Steam—was that an option before? According to the review, the Hidden Object screens are optional.

Odd that Evil Pumpkin it isn’t on BigFish for PC. Maybe it’ll release there on Halloween? Of course, then again maybe not.

     
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And it looks like Evil Pumpkin: The Lost Halloween is now available on Big Fish for PC, today for members, tomorrow available to all.

     
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Thanks for the heads up. Just finished downloading the demo.

     

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Evil Pumpkin is a strange one and a bit confusing, mostly because of translation problems, I think. 

Right now I’m playing Fear for Sale: The 13 Keys and am liking the story and the surreal dream parts quite a bit.

     

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Lady Kestrel - 28 October 2014 04:13 PM

Evil Pumpkin is a strange one and a bit confusing, mostly because of translation problems, I think. 

Right now I’m playing Fear for Sale: The 13 Keys and am liking the story and the surreal dream parts quite a bit.

I agree. The graphics are wonderful. Not pixilated retro, but definitely retro. Voice acting fair, but nothing to write home about. It’s unfortunate that the worst voice acting (so far) comes from the mouth of our protagonist. And, from the very beginning of the demo I was asking myself “What do I do now?”

I pretty much lost interest in the game around the 30-minute mark. Not a recommended buy from me.

     

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There’s a 50% sale on Alawar Games at BFG today.

     

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Today (Halloween) there’s a “two for the price of one” sale on Big Fish. Which I think is the same as a “buy one get one free” sale—right?

If you’re looking for another good game to play on Halloween, you might want to consider Rite of Passage: Hide & Seek. In it you assume the role of a young woman –- you’ve just discovered, after your mother’s death, that your father is still alive and living in his original home town. You cast aside all speculation as to why your parents kept you away from your ominous ancestral home, and rush back to see your father again. Understandable, but – of course – disastrous.

Something wild, weird and deadly has been going on back home. Children have gone missing, some for years now – including your brother. The town is almost deserted except for people who, beyond all real hope, are still looking for their loved ones. The town is creepy, but the surrounding countryside is even stranger, and of course you end up wandering around in the backwoods where the instigator of the kidnappings is sure to be found.

The story in Hide & Seek is not an uncommon one in Hidden Object games – paranormal influences affecting a town (or mansion or hotel). What sets Hide & Seek apart are its graphics, its music, and some of its story-based puzzles.

The environments are polished and detailed, with a three-dimensional effect. They feature intense color contrasts, odd angles, and an unusual emphasis on the sky – various cloud formations, stars, and/or streaming light. Despite containing so much rich elaboration in each screen, the environments don’t feel collaged. But there’s so much to see that it’s almost hard to take it all in.

This game has some of the eeriest music I’ve ever heard. It ranges from contemplative piano melodies to music with more of a beat – one piece that stuck in my head was like a mystical traveling tune. The music seems triggered by events, rather than by being in a certain location -– I like this way of adding atmosphere.

Puzzles often use symbols or picture fragments, and focus on analyzing patterns and shifting items around. Inventory puzzles can include examining an item more closely and manipulating it. Puzzle difficulty is easy to medium. Some of the Hidden Object puzzles are standard slightly-interactive lists. But others are more creative, including my favorites – story sequences that require you to find missing items and place them in the correct spot in order to advance the plot or learn more about the characters.

I played the CE version of this game. The collectible challenge in the CE version allows you to go to the “Extras” section and revisit the areas where you missed the collectibles. This, and another challenge that hides a single item within each screen, lets you revisit most of the environments in the game – something I would like to do with all the games I finish. (The autosave function in most casual games makes this impossible—you have to replay the entire game in order to wander about the gameworld again.) Viewing the gameworld when you don’t have to worry about what you’re supposed to be doing next makes it easier to admire the view and observe the graphical details more closely.

The Bonus Chapter itself contains a smidgeon of backstory and a brief epilogue. Here the environments—which are just as lovely as in the rest of the game—become even more surreal and imaginative. So I’m on the fence as to whether the CE is a better purchase than the SE. If you buy a CE solely for the Bonus story, there’s not enough to justify the extra expense—though there is a surprising amount of gameplay available amonst the Extras.

This is the third Rite of Passage game I’ve played. I again encountered the “mysterious drifter” with the lantern. He was, as usual, helpful and not very talkative. I am extremely curious as to why he is there, wandering about in the fog. Maybe in the next Rite of Passage game we’ll have a long conversation with him? He knows a lot more than he’s letting on.

Oh, forgot to mention—the game and bonus activities took me 7 hours.

     
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Lady Kestrel - 28 October 2014 04:13 PM

Right now I’m playing Fear for Sale: The 13 Keys and am liking the story and the surreal dream parts quite a bit.

I’ve played the CE demo. I like it, but am wondering if the bonus material is worth the extra cost. I’m definitely going to pick up the SE when it’s available. (It may be available now. I just haven’t had a chance to look at the BFG site for close to a week.)

     

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Earlier on this thread, I wrote about two art styles that are popular in casual Hidden Object games – the Gothic and steampunk styles. I’ve also been observing a different graphical style that is quite common in fantasy-themed HO games. It’s closely related to Fantastic Art  and is similar to the illustrations of Alan Lee in fantasy novels like The Lord of the Rings. It also reminds me somewhat of Victorian Fairy Painting.

Since it doesn’t exactly fit an established genre, I’ve decided to call this style “Storybook Fantastical.” I’ve posted screenshots from five casual games that are good examples below. Common elements of this style include: a hand-drawn effect with a touch of surrealism, unexpected juxtapositions of forms and objects, including buildings and islands that float in the air, appearances by characters from myths and fairy tales, giant rock formations with human and animal forms, intricate details including carved wood and stone, eerie ruins, lavish floral presentations, trees that have been transformed into dwellings, cottages in the woods, and elaborate towers and palaces.

Awakening: The Skyward Castle

This is the fourth game in an ongoing series in which the non-magical Princess Sophia uses her wits and creativity to solve the mystery of what has been happening in the magical Skyward Kingdom. This young woman really knows how to make an entrance, as she sweeps into town on the back of a winged unicorn.

Skyward Castle has a Northern European fairy tale esthetic, with sweeping forms, unusual angles, and inventive, odd shapes. Stylized human and animal forms are built into the environment. Each screen looks like part of a painting, or the illustrations from a novel. Forms around the edge of the screen and details far into the background evoke a layered effect, as though you are being drawn into a fantasy world – an old-fashioned place of the type that used to be accessible only within the pages of a book.

     
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Nearwood

This game has made it onto some of the “Best of Casual Games” lists. It has a breathtaking opening sequence where you sweep over a surreal landscape. You play a young orphan who is just coming into her inheritance – a mansion with a portal into another world. Evil has overtaken the realm of Nearwood, and you may be the only one who can stop it.

The gameworld in Nearwood is whimsical and quaint, featuring lots of natural textures – stone, moss, thatch, and wood. Mushrooms have gone hog wild and sprout in the strangest places, attaining remarkable heights. Golden runes float in the air, as do stepping stones and stone arches. Shimmering points of colored light float on the breeze and illuminate giant leaves. Wizards battle, a giant golem comes to life, and gnome-like creatures huddle near their homes to escape a magical threat.



Spirits of Mystery: Song of the Phoenix

This is the second game in the popular Spirits of Mystery series. You assume the role of a princess from the Dragon kingdom who is about to marry a prince from the Phoenix kingdom (or maybe it’s the other way around). This will unite two civilizations that have previously been at war. Unfortunately, an evil force kidnaps your prince to prevent the marriage, and you set out to rescue him.

Song of the Phoenix has a paper thin plot, and normally I look down my nose snootily at paper thin plots. But in this case it hardly seemed to matter because the fantastical world in this game is simply gorgeous. It looks as though it springs straight from the imagination, like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, with lots of hand-illustrated detail and an antique esthetic. Semi-muted bits of bright color illuminate a twilit landscape—cool starlight and moonlight contrast with warm firelight and candlelight. Startling shapes rise out of the earth—a stone snake bridge, a dragon winding around a column, a giant stone head, a huge claw-like signpost.

 

 

 

 

     
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Dark Parables: Jack and the Sky Kingdom

The Dark Parables series takes folk tales and fairy tales and remakes them, placing well-known characters in new situations and producing some unusual combinations. You assume the role of a detective who is brought in to investigate whenever the fairy tale world begins to negatively affect the real one. In Jack and the Sky Kingdom, you attempt to reach a levitating island which is hovering overhead, dropping pieces of masonry onto the villages below. You are accompanied by an adventurer named Jack who knows a lot more about the Sky Kingdom than he’s willing to let on.

The environments are extremely detailed, with abstract carvings in stone and wood and gold on the walls, ceilings, floors, columns, and doors. Colored light streams through windows and skylights. Flowers of all different types saturate the gardens. Trees with serpentine roots and branches and elaborate foliage create a tapestry-like background effect.


Sister’s Secrecy: Arcanum Bloodlines

This is a game that slipped under the radar somehow, but it’s worth playing because of the whimsical yet dark story and the dreamlike environments. You assume the role of a woman from a magical family whose sister has gone missing, probably in the fantastical realm you’ve spent most of your life avoiding. Of course you try to rescue her, and soon you realize that you’ve bitten off way more than you can chew.

As you puzzle your way through the countryside in Arcanum Bloodlines, you’ll encounter all kinds of intriguing architectural ruins, odd fantasy creatures, and anthropomorphic shapes in stone and other materials. Gnarled trees twist into the darkened skies, giant horn and whale sculptures ornament the harbor and, as the story unfolds, the graphical elements begin to border on the grotesque – impaled bodies, horned statues, and armored skeletons.



If you’re a fan of fantasy novels and like to picture yourself wandering about in the worlds they create, you’ll find that Hidden Object games are a surprisingly rich source for this type of experience. They definitely lean more toward a fairy tale/mythic ambiance rather than a dark, violent, high fantasy ambiance. But for those who want games with out-of-the-ordinary journeys, Storybook Fantastical worlds just might fit the bill.

 

 

     
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Quick note:
Big Fish is having a sale on collector editions: Buy one CE and get the other for $1.99.

     

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LadyK—what did you think of the bonus game in Fear for Sale: The 13 Keys? Did it add significantly to the story?

     
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Yes, it’s very cleverly done.  The regular part of the game resolves the story, but in the bonus section the couple can’t leave the hotel because the contract must be found and destroyed.  There are new rooms to be explored and more puzzles to be solved.  It was one of the better bonus sections I’ve played.  I also really like the jigsaw puzzles as alternatives to the HO scenes throughout the game.

     

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Sounds like I’m getting the CE version. Thanks!

     

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