Alenee's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:3.3
- Helpful Votes:302
- Reviews Submitted:64
- First Review:October 14, 2015
- Most Recent Review:January 4, 2020
- Featured reviews0
Status:
Can you save your true love from the God of Death?
Overall rating
1
/
5
13 of 16 found this review helpful
Pretty, but Vacant.
PostedSeptember 8, 2016
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
1
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
For such a beautiful and large (memory wise) game, I expected a whole lot more than what this game offers. The hints of an epic quest never materialize; in the whole game, there are just two objectives that you must fulfill and everything else is of the 'before you can open that door, you have to feed a bird and fell a tree and put a neat lock together and find a missing mechanism' variety. Busywork through and through. Those who love a good story will be disappointed as there are no plot twists, no character development, no sub plots or backgrounds given.
So this could have been a good game if only they'd have put half as much energy into the storyline as they did into the gorgeous scenes.
In addition, the game instructions were some of the most incomprehensible that I've ever come across. In the two or three games I could understand the instructions for, the game was too easy, or else it had a frustrating tendency to reset the whole game if you made a single mis-click, seemingly to make it last longer without adding anything in terms of real challenge. But for the most part I had to skip them, because the rules were so poorly explained and I couldn't figure out how to make anything work.
Much as I hate to delete something so elegant looking from my computer, I know I'm not playing this again.
I don't recommend this game.
Dreamscapes: The Sandman
Be the one to save Laura from her nightmares
Overall rating
2
/
5
Wish I could give a better review
PostedAugust 23, 2016
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
I'm incredibly disappointed by this game, more so because there was such a high rating given to it overall from the other customers on BF.
How can I sum the storyline up? The problem is, I don't know how!! It starts off good, with a woman being 'claimed' by some sort of scary nightmare spook who pulls her out of her amazing real life. She falls into a sort of coma and you are then asked to save her from her dreams.
This is where the 'story' part of the game effectively comes to an end, after just 5 or 6 minutes. Immediately after going into the dream world you find yourself wandering aimlessly around one badly-drawn, Salvador Dali-esque dream scape after another with no clear objective, no logic or backstory to explain why it exists (except to say that it's bad dream). None of the scenes seem to have an relevance or progress the story line. Each task is 100% busywork, with no fun or logic to it at all.
But then again, I'm getting very annoyed with this whole 'rescue someone from an abstract dream' plotline. It seems to me like these 'dream' games are just an excuse for developpers to slack off, or slap a bunch of third rate outtakes from other, better games together, and then claim that it's just a dream. (And didn't anyone ever tell these guys that 'and then she woke up' is the worst way to end a story?)
I find it insulting. Big Fish customers are not 5 year olds, we're adults, yet some devs clearly expect us to remain interested in a story that has nothing but vaguely spooky, cartoonish weirdness to recommend it.
This is definitely the last 'dream' style game I will ever buy, and it's probably the last game of any style I'll buy from this dev.
The wolf spirit still haunts... will you heed its call?
Overall rating
3
/
5
1 of 2 found this review helpful
Has ups and downs - but mainly, a flat ride
PostedAugust 11, 2016
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
I have to take my hat off to the dev's in charge of designing the visuals for this game. They're very eye catching, to say the least, and that's what caught my attention about it. The game play also takes advantage of these great visual effects, with plenty of glowing emblems appearing in psychedelic tandem from the desert-y, rainforest-y, totem-pole strewn landscape in this 'Native' tale.
But, ehm, about that landscape... as I watched it unfold, everything started to fall apart for me about this game, and it never managed to reassemble itself afterwards. Firstly, it was the sheer brazen flaunting of any sense of realism that annoyed me.
The First Nations people of the forest lands, desert plains, rainforests and mountains are all flung far and wide across a vast expanse of North America. I found it unrealistic, and just a tad disrespectful (seeing as the Europeans nearly eradicated many of them) that a European dev has attempted to jam them all together into the same reservation. Apparently it's meant to be somewhere in Nevada but it is hard to tell when there are West Coast totem poles outside the front gate and what looks like a cenote in the backyard...next to what seem to be mountains...?
To put it into perspective, the devs may want to consider what would happen if an American made a game in which some bagpipe playing French dude was running a pizza & espresso joint on a Nordic glacier... and that was presented as an everyday real life scene in Europe. (Actually, that'd make for a pretty hilarious game... but I digress).
The second thing was that there wasn't enough of a tale to keep me busy, so my mind's eye grew bored and spent even more time scanning the scenery for out of place artifacts than I needed to. By the end I was bored and annoyed, but still couldn't manage to quit the game because it was so gosh darned pretty.
The puzzles were pretty neat and standard Eipix fare... they were challenging enough. It was just a shame that they had been clearly cut-and-pasted in from other games where they blended better with the storyline/quests.
Unfortunately, Eipix just hasn't been creating new tales that match their puzzles lately. Either that or they need to create some new puzzles that match the intriguing tales they want to tell. The two parts should enhance each other but in this game, it was clear that they were unbalanced. Apart from the aesthetics, it was a fairly shallow experience from start to end.
Beyond the sky lies a thrilling adventure... and a deadly threat!
Overall rating
5
/
5
5 of 5 found this review helpful
Stellar Quality Game
PostedAugust 3, 2016
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
I'm not sure why, but all the games that I review seem to fall into the category of 'mediocre' or 'superb'. And games that fall into the latter category are rare. Luckily, "Beyond" is part of that stellar class.
The game starts off in a fictional, glittering 1950's small town where a meteorite has just crashed in a field. Your character's nearby, watching from her observatory under translucently clear night skies. And the stars look just the way they should on a 1950s countryside night. It's a great, cinematic start to the game, and the devs don't take their foot off the gas pedal as you jump on your motorcycle and head out into the dark to explore the meteorite wreckage, unearthing facts about an advanced UFO race along the way.
Everything that you do in "Beyond" actually leads into the action, or devolves from it in an fairly natural, un-contrived way. I cannot overstate how rare that is in any HOA game. There are plenty of situations here where you put things together (plane parts, antennae, etc) or search for necessary things in a way that you can imagine actually doing in such a situation, in real life... assuming that you'd ever find yourself chasing the World Eaters through late 1950s America in real life, that is!
The music's perfect as well: dreamy, but with all the cheesy intergalactic touches that you'd hear in a 50's UFO movie on late night TV. Why watch them when you can play this instead and see all the action first hand?
I wish every HOA was this great!!
The Queen of Creatos is missing, and if you don't get her back soon... the entire world will crumble!
Overall rating
1
/
5
10 of 12 found this review helpful
This Crazy-Making Game Will Knock Your Equilibrium Off
PostedAugust 3, 2016
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
1
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
What a crazy, crazy-making game. I've been playing it for a few hours already and have barely made it anywhere. My character literally cannot make a single move without first being forced to assemble something, unlock something, decode something, map something out, or something else. I was tempted to toss my laptop against a wall at one point, it was so infuriating, but rationalism prevailed and I'll be deleting the game.
This game is a Technicolour Yawn of tedious, small, badly planned, glitchy and exhausting busywork tasks that lead nowhere. We're talking, 20-30 tasks per scene, many of which are nearly identical. What a nightmare. What a headache.
I'd love to be able to tell readers what the game's tale is about but at this point, that's still pretty vague. What isn't vague is the migraine that I have after 2.5 hours of wrestling with this flashing gaudy gameplay. Attempting to make heads or tales of what has happened so far could easily make my brain explode. Supposedly, there's a queen in there somewhere that we're trying to save, but I say, let's let her stay a slave! Better that, than to see this epic hassle through to the end and rescue her.
There are a lot of bad aspects, but the main flaws of the game are:
Appalling literacy in English on part of the developers. They call a gong a 'bell in a frame' and make dozens of other petty mistakes that destroy what little sense the game has. And trust me, there ain't a lot of that!
Minigame instructions are badly phrased... again, adding further to the frustrations that are already heaped on the player. For example, there's a chess game where you have limited moves but the limits of those moves aren't explained at all, so you have to keep guessing what the %^& you're supposed to do next, and you keep on having to reset the game.
Bad quality on Mac. Don't buy this if you have a Mac because it's jerky, lags and blacks out at random.
And apart from the fact that there are WAY too many tasks, the tasks aren't even introduced in the order which the devs seem to have planned them to appear in. For instance, my character sees a bat outline in one scene and thinks, 'I've seen that before' even though the sequence of actions that leads to her actually 'seeing that bat' happen AFTER she encounters the bat. As if it isn't baffling enough to try and remember all the endless tasks that you've been assigned, you're also being asked to remember details that haven't even appeared yet!? Like I said: crazy.
If you're a bit hyperactive and have a photographic memory, then this game may appeal to your senses. But even then I reckon it could drive you mad.
The reason why I rated the game's 'challenge' as a five is because it IS a serious challenge... just in a really bad way! Sadly, that's the only area where it excels.
(All of the above is not necessarily a reflection on any other games by GrandMA. I have played two of them so far and they have been great. Dunno what went wrong with this one...)
Something wicked has taken over Fate’s Carnival!
Overall rating
3
/
5
2 of 4 found this review helpful
Painfully dragged-out game
PostedJuly 28, 2016
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
I've never played the previous Madame Fate games. I have previously downloaded a trial of this very game, only to delete it because it had a very slow and dragging start. Then, after reading endless favourable reviews of FC (even on the very critical review sites) I decided to give Fates Carnival another chance. But you know what they say about first impressions being the most accurate...? Well sadly, mine was bang-on.
The game drags. It drags at the start, drags less for a few hours in the middle, and then starts to drag again in the second half of the game and never stops, it just drags. And drags.
Another review site uses the term 'busy work' to describe HOA games like this one. Fates Carnival will have you doing endless silly 'find and fix' quests to fill in the gaps where the storyline should be. They'll drive you mad with them, especially if you care about the adventure and character aspects of a game. They are almost absent in Fates Carnival. There is almost zero plot (unless you've played all their other games; then at least there is the suggestion of a plot, because this game refers to all their previous games & characters. But as any avid reader knows, referring to a plot is NOT the same as having a plot).
But to be fair, the first half of the game did have a few gripping hours (2-3 max... but then, I play extremely slowly so that's about an hour for an average player). There seemed to be an actual quest materializing out of the dark. The busy work was peppered with decent characters, and it blended well with the all-around surrealism in the air. But all that vanished in the second half, never to be recovered.
It's a shame because they turned a creepy and suggestive game into a deeply tedious, un-fun, frustrating game that I've had to abandon because, well, there were only so many 'weird' locks and useless gadgets that I could reassemble before everything else - even cleaning the lint out from between my toes - started to look more interesting.
Lesson learned, though... I'll go with my hunch, next time!!
When your father is arrested, it's up to you to save him and the city of Prague from sinister forces.
Overall rating
2
/
5
10 of 11 found this review helpful
Eipix has run out of ideas with this one
PostedJuly 14, 2016
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
BASED ON DEMO:
I downloaded this out of basic curiosity, because Eipix has done some very good games in the past. Yet this one is so much a rehashing of all the other games that it's bordering on farce.
Not one of the challenges seems to relate to the storyline in any meaningful way; for example, moments after seeing Prague set on fire and facing peasants screaming for help, you're expected to fix a sign hanging over a pub. (Because that's exactly what you do when a city's burning down, right?)
After that there's a ridiculous succession of all the usual "weird locks" and concealed objects that need to be dug out of walls and rubble piles, yet not one of them can be found in any sort of linear or logical fashion. It's as if they devs have thrown a bunch of quests from older games into a hat, picked them out at random and stuck them into the game without any respect for the storyline or setting. Few of the missions do anything to progress the plot, or serve any purpose except to make the game longer than it has any right to be, with such a thin storyline. The thing is, there's good long games and bad long games, and these days Eipix seems to be stuck firmly into the latter category.
As for the storyline, I have played through this demo without finding out a single detail more about what's going on than I knew when it all started. This is the third or fourth Eipix game I've picked up where it doesn't seem to even have a plot. Perhaps that's because Eipix has lost the plot.
I seriously doubt that I'll ever be downloading anything from them again because, well, if they can't even be bothered to do good demos anymore, they don't deserve my money.
You've been summoned to save the Fantastic Worlds from evil!
Overall rating
4
/
5
7 of 8 found this review helpful
Picks up the ball that Elephant & co have dropped
PostedJuly 8, 2016
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
First I'll tell you about the storyline, which is outstanding for the simple fact that they HAVE a storyline! A group of 'architects' who can create magical worlds, has discovered a traitor amidst them. This this so-called 'dark architect' is planning to destroy several worlds to achieve some evil selfish endgame. Most HOAs these day stop the storytelling at this point, but Dark Architect doesn't. This story's bad guy has real motives and history, like most of the characters you'll meet, although their backgrounds aren't as well fleshed-out as his tale is. That's a strike against this game, but it's a small one as the gameplay never allows that much time for asking questions.
And let's talk about that gameplay! Dark Architect pinches and improves upon all the game play elements that are familiar to those of you who have played Nevertales: Legends, Amaranthine Voyage, Empress of the Deep etc. The artwork is colourful and textured to the max, the way the scenes shift slightly when you move make it all feel a bit more 3-dimensional, and even the small touches like feathers of the owl familiar who helps you out along the way are designed to give a sense of movement and texture. But it all falls short of being a carbon copy of Elephant or Eipix because these developers actually add their own personal aesthetic and experiential twists to all of the above. It's all very promising for GrandMA studios, but they'll need to sustain that same level of innovation for quite a while to overtake the aforementioned, big name developers. Here's hoping that they will!
Every time I got one of those 'tasks' that makes me groan 'oh god, not this again!' such as 'free an object that's trapped in a thorny bush' or 'guide these coloured balls through this maze' they'd pull the rug out from underneath me by adding a new twist that I hadn't seen before. Keep it up!
My chief complaint about this game, and the main reason that I didn't rank it at 5 stars, was the fact that they over-relied on a minigame that I really cannot stand. It's that 'rotate all these objects until they form this pattern or colour' minigame. GrandMA has come late to the party with this whole HOA game phenomenon, but suffice it to say that re-using an overused mingame is a really, REALLY bad idea if they want to stand out from the crowd!! These minigames weren't original, they weren't fun (for me) and yet, they made up about half of the minigames in Dark Architect. I hated them; they bored me, so I skipped every last one of them. And that cut right down on my gameplay time. The lesson to be learned here is, if you're going to reuse minigames from other devs, you should at least re-use ALL of them, so that jaded players like me get a chance to re-play a minigame that they actually enjoy!!
In between all these mindnumbing 'rotate objects' minigames, they also had a couple of minigames that were a bit more enjoyable. These ranged from stupidly easy (rearrange objects in ascending or descending order) to the head-bangingly tough (line up zillions of hexagons so that all their sides align). The hexagon game was waaaay too complex, and with only a couple of hints there is probably no way anyone could finish it in less than 2 hours. And during that whole time you're listening to a repetitive little 4-bar tune that never changes. To me, these games show that little or no beta testing was done on any of them, and that's a shame. It's the only thing that lets Dark Architect down.
The length is super, at least 5 hours but it would have been longer to finish if I hadn't skipped all those minigames :/
Dark Architect was challenging but not all that tough for a HOA, but I did spend a lot of time admiring the scenery and taking in the storyline, so it is much more enjoyable than the usual fare. Give it a trial and see for yourself!
Trapped in the past, Sarah must find a way home.
Overall rating
2
/
5
12 of 18 found this review helpful
Don't take the bait.
PostedJune 22, 2016
This game starts off with very high production values and a dramatic intro - that's why I bought it. But after roughly one hour the graphics take a swan dive and the storyline does, as well. I wouldn't recommend it to any serious HOA fan, because it represents poor value and frankly, a cynical attempt to get customers to part with their money without ever getting the goods that they were promised. In this case, that would have been a fulfilling storyline that kept up consistent high quality throughout the game.
I don't recommend this game.
The royal couple's honeymoon turns sour when an evil lord enters the picture, and now it's up to you to rescue them (or laugh trying)!
Overall rating
5
/
5
5 of 5 found this review helpful
Funnest, cutest, funniest HOG ever!!
PostedMarch 25, 2016
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
I wasn't sure about this after seeing the ad, but I downloaded a sample and what a treat!!
Apparently, this developer hardly makes any games but, if you check out the reviews for those that they do make, you'll quickly realize that these people are perfectionists about what they do. Royal Trouble: Honeymoon has everything you want in a HOG adventure... but all of it comes in the exact perfect balance! It has a VERY funny storyline, simple but gorgeous scenery, great dialogue, cute music, never a dull moment... and most importantly, NO aimless trekking around to find pointless objects that have nothing to do with the storyline!!
I was amazed at how they managed to integrate virtually every single task into the storyline, and connect every single object to the action. WHY don't more devs do this??? We want hidden object games where we're involved, not ones where we're reading an interesting story yet performing unrelated tasks! This should be obvious, but Royal Trouble is one of the only games I've found so far where the dev understands that this is how things should always be done. I will be impatiently awaiting the sequel.
The puzzles were perfect for me, and had the right balance of logic and intuition. Interesting, but not impossible.
The relationships were realistic, but also sassy and satirical enough to match the surreal situations in the game (which the characters spend a lot of time making fun of).
There are constant twists, the man and the woman both do equal amounts of work... and best of all, they bicker enough to be a believable couple lol.
I won't write anything more glowing than that because I don't want to ruin the fun of discovering this game for yourself... you should just try it!
The only possible downside might be that, if you're a fan of doom and gloom, you won't like this too much. It's an uplifting game that more or less parodies the dark side of the genre. But I think that's what is so brilliant about it! Give it a whirl, you won't be sad you did... because you'll be too busy laughing!
I recommend this game!