Reviews

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  anrkyuk

  Jan 10, 2022

  I've played worse, far worse, that sadly doesn't make this a good game. First the bugs. If you Alt+Tab to desktop and do not switch back to the game quickly enough, the game will lockup, you will not be able to switch back to the game, it will be stuck running in the background and the cursor will be unusable on the desktop. I almost had to do a hard reset, but got lucky trying random things, and using Alt+Enter to switch the game to running in a window crashed the game, and normality resumed without turning off, or a restart. Trying to start the game again however, caused constant CTD's on startup, spamming Alt+Enter as soon as I clicked the play button thankfully got things going again. It seems that trying to run the game windowed causes a CTD and after trying to force close from my earlier lockup, it reverted to starting in a window which caused it to crash. The game will also constantly CTD when starting the game up if you start recording with Geforce experience before you load the game. So if you want to record, do so after starting the game, not before. If you check out the discussion boards there are numerous other bugs people are reporting, and not just relating to problems starting up the game, there also appears to be at least one game breaking bug, and also at least one puzzle that can be broken, although thankfully skipped. The game breaking bug, first reported in 2016, still appears unresolved with people reporting it still in June 2020, thus unlikely ever to be resolved. Gameplay... I'm about 1/3 of the way through the game so far, perhaps a little further. Puzzles are simple and few in number. Hidden object scenes are sparsely filled and have frequent recycled items, the more scenes you play the quicker you will be at completing them... well you would if it were not for translation issues. Every scene has 1 or 2 items that do not match their description, the last I recall was a "Trumpet" which was actually an angled piece of pipe. As a result almost every scene will likely end in a clickfest. There is a reasonably unique torch mechanic, that allows you to see in dark areas, while a nice touch, it is however rarely used and little more than a gimmick, I'd much rather they had put the effort into better puzzles or hidden object scene translations. If you do decide to purchase, I strongly advise you make yourself aware of game breaking bugs before starting, I'd also advise not to Alt+Tab back to desktop while playing (obviously) and given the issues I've had trying to launch the game I'd advise to trying and get it over with in one sitting.
• 

  thE_AtHe!sT

  Nov 20, 2022

  Bad HO game
• 

  Artscapades

  Jun 12, 2016

  If you play a lot of these style of games you might get a bit frustrated like I did at times. The key is to keep an eye on the map feature when you get lost and be willing to not have names match some of the items in the hidden object sections. I probably wouldn't pay full price having played through it once given that I play a lot of these games and even though the artwork and voice acting is quite good the otherall game is a lot more frustrating and clunky than I expected given that it is twice the price of what I usually pay. All in all not awful but a few minor things let it down in the end and the ending is completely unsatisfying and unimpressive for something I just spent 3+ hours playing because I wanted to know the story. This game is very almost exactly what I wanted when I found it. So close, but I wouldn't consider it a waste of my time.
• 

  shiaakuma

  Jun 22, 2016

  I was so looking forward to playing this, and I ended up being fairly disappointed. There is a lot of good in the game in terms of artistic value and plot; it's exactly the sort of dark, mysterious story that I like. Some of the imagery was spot-on wonderful. Sound and voiceover work wasn't terrible comparatively speaking. However, that said.... I cannot make a recommendation on this. The puzzles are the usual fare for this style of game but seem to be far easier than most. I feel like puzzles should be...well, puzzling. At least a little bit. Some were also tedious to complete even though the puzzle itself was easy. The worst thing is the rampant mislabeling of items in the hidden object scenes. There are a LOT of scenes in the game (which is great!) but there needed to be a lot more quality control before they released the English version, at least. A few randomly misnamed items or typos don't bother me in the slightest, but this was in almost every HO scene and sometimes more than once per scene. It was too much even for me, and I'm generally pretty laid-back about things like that. Examples include wrenches labeled as keys (and keys as wrenches!) and a slingshot labeled as "forked stick" but there are far more examples and I could fill a page with them. Some are just irritating but some make it almost impossible to finish the scene without getting hints (i.e. a piece of pipe labeled as a "trumpet" is where I gave up and started hitting the hint button). It's not an expensive game and it has a pretty long playtime compared to comparable games, but the rampant errors and the boringly simple puzzles make it a "no" for me. That said, if the type of story appeals to you and you don't mind hitting the hit button constantly (or random-clicking and hoping for the best), you may still enjoy it. This is a title that could really use the "meh maybe" option for recommendations rather than yes or no!
• 

  SailorDeath

  Jun 27, 2016

  It took about 4 hours to finish, its was a good game but has some big preoblems. Sometimes when the search says a word it does NOT mean that word. It would say literally bottle but mean the coke can or say key and mean a wrench. but then in the next puzzle say key and mean a doll. But other then that it was a nice little time waster
• 

  AggroFoo

  Jun 28, 2016

  The amount of mislabeled items in this game is so far beyond acceptable. Nearly every single HO scene contained items that were mislabeled so far from what they actually were the only way to complete the scenes was to repeatedly hit the hint button or randomly click around. Maddening. I'm not talking about simple mistakes... I'm talking about plumbing pipes being mislabeled as trumpets... and fishing rods mislabled as winches. The puzzles were brain dead simple too. Difficulty level on this one is incredibly low. Aside from the many dysfunctional gameplay elements and mechanics, the story itself was interesting, and the artwork isn't half bad.
• 

  Atarun

  Jul 16, 2016

  I really wanted to like this hidden object game, especially given how useful and pleasant the map system is (it prevents backtracking, which is for me the major flaw of the genre). But absolutely nothing makes sense. Among things that made all suspension of disbelief impossible for me: [list] [*] An armed sheriff decides not to go look for the missing girl (who was just abducted) with his deputies but instead ask Random_private_detective. [*] Random_private_detective goes on the hunt for a dangerous psychopath and his victim armed with only her id card and her high heels (also, her attire isn't appropriate for the task, the location or even the weather). Oh, scratch that, she leaves the card in the car, so she only has her high heels. [*] Random_private_detective has never heard of forensics, so she manipulates all the evidence without gloves. To her defense, seeing the behavior of police, I doubt this fictional world has a court system. [*] The armed psychopath knows full well that Random_private_detective is trying to corner him and save his latest victim, but instead of running away or getting rid of the evidence, he sneaks around Random_private_detective for hours. During that complete waste of his time, I counted 4 miserable attempts ([spoiler]the falling tree, the well, the fire and the box[/spoiler]) at Random_private_detective's life that he did not bother to follow through because... because. Meanwhile, Random_private_detective who does not seem to be a psychopath, has no hesitation [spoiler]gunning down the bad guy who has let her and Emily live[/spoiler]. [*] Random_private_detective seems to have enough foresight to guess which items will come in handy to open mysteriously sophisticated locks before seeing said locks, but she will again and again get rid of useful items like hammers for the pleasure of seeking new ones later on. Oh and she has never heard of brute force algorithms, so forget trying to crack a 3-digit code. [*] The bad guy keeps closing doors right in front of Random_private_detective, but a second later, when she tries to open the door, she finds out its lock is broken and its parts are scattered around the property... How does that work? Why did he prepare so many locks and scatter their parts? Did he never lock anything before Random_private_detective arrived or is he continuously breaking and repairing his own locks for fun? [*] Random_private_detective, despite her attire, is actually customer of the year at Home Depot. She spends so much time dismantling and building stuff, I bet her agency is called DIY Detective. She will however rarely break objects to get their content, because it makes much more sense to rummage through the area for hours for a key (or even create one with a mold) than cut or break open a bag, book or coffin. Especially considering that [spoiler]the victim is still alive and could have been killed any minute if logic existed in this world[/spoiler]. [*] Most mechanisms make as little sense as the characters. Most puzzles left me speechless because there seems to be absolutely no link between the solution and the opening of the container. Worst offender: [spoiler]the puppet show... I mean, why does it move on its own? how does it detect that you give the right items or not?? how come you get an eagle figure at the end??? HOW DOES ANY OF IT WORK?![/spoiler] [*] Despite her considerable DIY expertise, Random_private_detective is no MacGyver. Not only can she never substitute a component with another (why on Earth would one need specific branches to fix a rope ladder? [spoiler]and need to cut them with a chainsaw? with a killer sneaking around and planks laying around everywhere[/spoiler]), she sometimes has clearly suicidal tendencies... Worst offender: [spoiler]Would you go down into the well the killer just threw something in instead of using the hook to try to get the objects back up? Once stuck in the well, would you destroy its walls in the hopes that it would fill quickly enough for you to get out but not cave in on you?[/spoiler] [/list] So, the story is complete nonsensical BS, the characters act like they have expired yoghurt instead of brain cells, most of the puzzles make no sense... but even the hidden object scenes are a bit flawed: item names are often used to mean different things from one scene to the next. A bow will be a bow tie in one scene and a violin bow in the next. A key will be a regular one in one scene and a monkey wrench in the next. And so on and so forth. Those flexible definitions would not be a problem per se, if there was not regularly multiple items fitting the same definition in a single scene... The game will often ask you to find a key or mask, present you with 2 or 3 of them and then you have to try them all to find which one the game arbitrarily decided is the right choice. All in all, I cannot recommend this game. It was clearly made by a motivated team who (mistakenly, imo) think they understand what hidden object games are all about, but it is a mess.
• 

  Ashercroix

  Sep 8, 2016

  Hope Lake is a pretty dodgy HoG. There's a lot of laughable logic (which is nothing new for the genre, to be fair), mislabeled items in the hidden object scenes (which is annoying AF), weird word usage ("caster" instead of "wheel" - though I guess it's nice for expanding your vocabulary) and the same song plays from beginning to end. The art is nice enough at least, the puzzles were fine, and the story was okay. It didn't smack you over the head with explanations, but I actually kind of missed the usual narmy *find clue* "Gasp! This must be why the villain is such and such!". Anyway, if you play a ton of HoGs just kind of on principle, this is perfectly acceptable, but there's a lot better out there. I wish there was a "take it or leave it" option, but I guess I'll go with not recommended since I'm not exactly raring to get people to play it. I'm just trying to make leaving reviews a habit from now on.
• 

  Ultrudeus

  Nov 14, 2016

  This game is frustrating. Many MANY objects are mislabeled. Examples: Pipe labeled as a trumpet Key labeled as a wrench Wrench labeled as a key Can labeled as a bottle or jar Graple hook on a coil of rope labeled as a hook, the hook wasnt visible, only the coil of rope was And the story is lame. I don't even care mostly about the story in these games, but this one was just really boring. Mostly it was told by reading notes that are way too much small type squeezed onto a too small page, so it is annoying to read. If you can get it on sale for $3 like I did, then maybe buy it if you really really like HOG but otherwise skip it.
• 

  Woofie

  Dec 8, 2016

  This game has many flaws. First being that many of the objects hidden are mislabeled. Pipe labeled Trumpet Soda can labeled jar Rope labeled as hook Some of my other complaints are: The mouse moves at a slower speed for some reason. The transitions are special effects are disorienting. The objects are cut and pasted from stock images of different resolutions. Some things are hard to click on. Tl;dr: It is not worth $7.99. Super nice HO games are available from artifex mundi for like 10 bucks, this game should be like 3 bucks tops.
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  Faudraline

  Jan 3, 2017

  I remember playing [i]Dance of Death[/i] some time ago - another HOG published by Alawar, yet ended up in the repertoire of RunServer for some reason or the other. That game left me with a bad taste in the mouth, so I wasn't expecting much of a miracle from this one either. [i]Hope Lake[/i] presents a somewhat similar experience with the small developer team Far Mills + MysteryTag, and with a more mystery, less supernatural undertone... ending up quite supernatural anyhow. Sure, it has a better environment mapping and far longer gameplay stored, but it is similarly halfway done. Now that I played the game, it is safe to declare that it is 2/2 miss for games hailing from RunServer catalog. We are a random lady detective - detective Kelly Wells, if you are awfully curious - invited to investigate the kidnapping of Emily Lynch, a young women recently disappeared near Hope Lake. Why we are to be sent out to the woods by the sheriff of the area, in the middle of the night, without arms or backup to track a kidnapper exceeds me, yet here we are. Apparently, there was an old boarding house run by a mean Mrs. Braun back in its day in the area, and our investigation conveniently leads us to the said boarding house. We are soon to discover the involvement of a well nurtured psychopath in this kidnapping, in an attempt to exact revenge for an old crime. Be warned, supernatural - even though not the richly depicted kind - is yet again the primary element of this half-baked story. Okay, again for the record, I actually love hidden object games. I'm all in for some mindless entertainment when it comes to sparing an afternoon to fetch some items and solve some basic puzzles with a story undertone. Yet, even I expect a certain quality set within the boundaries of the genre! The story is ridden with countless logic errors, undermining the skill and IQ level of both our detective, and the perpetrator. Every turn we take, we basically stumble upon the mystery perpetrator, and he manages to escape by a neck - 6 times or so - yet he still keeps running about without destroying the evidence, hiding the kidnapped girl or dealing with the detective properly. Oh, come on! It's a single woman with a .38 in an abandoned house in the middle of the woods, which you supposedly spent all your life in! What kind of a bad guy you are? This guy is a dozy, I tell you. The display is the better part of this game, with decent artwork and somewhat appreciable atmosphere. Voice acting is subpar - do not expect lip-synch or anything - and there is only one soundtrack piece running in the background again, and again, and again... Now, that gets annoying pretty easy. Illustrations are not various, but they are quite alright. One would prefer better cinematic pieces though, considering the tone and the atmosphere. Gameplay is nothing extraordinary. It is your millionth HOG, with wrongly labelled items on awfully shady environments at every scene. Every single HOG scene that I encountered included a wrongly labelled item or two, so after a while, I started clicking on random items until the scene is done, considering there is no misclick penalty either. Puzzles? They are all really easily and some are only time consuming. Nothing creative or even remotely challenging. Okay, let me state you one favorable factor: there are lots of areas interconnected with a decent map that would present you available action indications. So, there is no backtracking at all - which would be a huge plus in this genre normally. Sadly, it is not enough for me to recommend the game. For some automatic achievements coming with the game, the full price is a monstrous exaggeration. I highly recommend for you to grab this on a heavy sale, if at all. Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ladystoryteller#curation]here[/url] - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!
• 

  A Gelatinous Cube-Z-

  Feb 9, 2017

  There is a game-breaking bug where if you have an item out of your tool bar and click to go to a different scene, you lose that item and have to restart. You have been warned.
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  LuvMyP&C

  Feb 12, 2017

  This game was ok, but it was very confusing when it came to the seek and find portions. The list is telling me to look for a "Key" so I look all over for it and can't find it. Finally, I accidentally clicked on a "wrench" and it clears it. Likewise, when it asked for a "wrench" then I was looking for a key. Come on folks. I don't care what country you're from, a key is a key and a wrench is a wrench. I was hoping it would be a bit more challenging, but other than the aforementioned confusion, it was pretty easy.
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  Feena

  Apr 2, 2017

  The game has an interesting story, amazing art, nice detective style BUT there is a huge bug you'll encounter in the first two hours of the gameplay in one of the hidden objects scenes, you will be unable to open a box and to solve this bug, you MUST restart playing the game, sadly. This is the box http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865409570 Aside from that I really enjoyed the game which I gave a chance after almost two months from leaving it due that bug, seems the developers doesn't really care about fixing it. You can find a thread on the discussion section of this game about it. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=896458992 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=896363902 Pro: +Beautiful graphics, especially the ending cutscene. +Interesting story with a good pace. +Mystery/detective style. +Voice acting is OK +Good journal style with to keep tracking of the story, journal art is pretty. +Fast travel map. +Steam achievements. Cons: -A very annoying bug which requires you restart the game (A hidden object bug) -There is only ONE track of music which keep going over and over and over until you finish the game. It isn't bad, but quite annoying to keep hearing it from the beginning of the game until the end. -Short game. -Puzzles are extremely easy. The ending felt like an open one, plus [spoiler]He shouldn't be the only one to be punished! the girls did kill the governess and he witnessed it as a child, they were bullying him as he did to them so both of them are guilty.[/spoiler] I recommend this game if you'll tolerate the bug and willing to restart the game after a couple of hours of gameplay. The game is short itself, around three hours and a half to beat. [quote]𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/32399565/]𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒[/url][/quote]
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  Pvt Stock Holmes

  May 15, 2017

  Frame rate is waaaaay too high (in the 350-450 FPS range), especially for a game like this. Have to take frequent breaks so the game doesn't fry my computer. Game settings are minimal at best with zero options to adjust graphics for performance. Story is pretty good and the clues you find along the way add to it. However, the technical issues make this a big nope.
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  Dakturis

  Jun 3, 2017

  I normally enjoy this kind of game, but I can't recommend this one. The story doesn't make a lot of sense. Most of the puzzles are too simple, though one challenging (and one was glitched). Even the eye-spy parts were kinda of broken because of poor labeling. Half of the time the game tells you look for a wrench when in means a key, and vice versa. There are better games like this. Cannot Recommend.
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  Tildy

  Jun 30, 2017

  It's not a bad game, necessarily, but not good enough to recommend. The English translation is kind of iffy and often doesn't quite match the narration. The puzzles are interesting and fun, but objects are frequently misnamed, which makes hidden object scenes more difficult than necessary. At one point there was a hidden object scene with two ropes in, and the game asked you to find one rope. It had to be the one specific rope though; the other one had to stay so you could find it again later on down the line. The graphics are needlessly complicated and it can take a long time to transition from one scene to another, which is a problem when you only need to do one thing in an area and then leave to go elsewhere. Fortunately there's a fast-travel option, which cuts down a little on this. And the story, while interesting enough, is just kind of jumbled. The opening cutscene makes it clear we're looking for a missing girl. Okay, got it. A few scenes into the game, once the tutorial showing you how to gas up your car and inflate your tires is done, you find a drawing of what appears to be a witch scratched on a table. "What a terrible drawing," the main character says. Okay, looks like atmosphere-building. Sounds good. But if you check your journal it shows you that same drawing along with a caption that says, "This must be how the girls saw Mrs. Braun!" Wait, who's Mrs. Braun? What girls? Are we at the boarding school already? Nothing is established. I feel like this is the kind of game that needs a better opening cutscene, that rolls down the suspects and victims and actually introduces the characters we're going to be dealing with. Finally, after I exited out of the game, it just stopped working. Now trying to start it up gives me the black screen-o-death. But nothing is actually dead--task manager says the game is still running, and keyboard shortcuts still work. I still haven't decided if it's worth my time to try and fix it.
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  shadree

  Aug 6, 2017

  Get it cheap. It was not the worst game I've played but marred by too many mistakes. ARGH! So frustrating! These HO games need a proof reader! I kept getting clues for things that didn't match which objects I needed. Spanner is a wrench is always fine but when is a Trumpet a L-bend pipe? Darts > dartboard key > monkey wrench etc. The worst was when it happened twice in a row: A key that is actually a spanner and a spanner that's actually a key! On the plus side, I did learn some new words like ampule and petard. To make it even worse, clicks would often not register on HO scenes. At least there was no penalties.... There were a lot of the usual annoyances that you have to put up with in these kind of games: HO scenes appearing out of nowhere - but at least they're located on the map Having items in the scene/location but not the ones the game wants you to have. Having to use an item once sometimes but multiple when the game chooses. Non-specific or slightly incorrect clues (bow > violin bow, cog not a gear) etc. The story actually intrigued me but it was handled poorly. It had the potential to be a decent (albeit cliche) horror story.
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  SpidyM

  Aug 6, 2017

  Firstly i dont hate the game...it is playable and some fun.... however the glitches with the game and next to no settings options make this a no no.... There are no resolution settings....its full screen or a windowed option... I barely had fun with it.... some of the puzzles were ok but sometimes clicks werent registered...ie one game i had to use hint button because and had clicked on the item it showed me 5 times!! ... and also names didnt correspond with items ?? (for example... since when was a house key a wrench???) anyways this has been my least favorite hidden object game.
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  Wuzzerator

  Jan 31, 2018

  Ok, so I started out really quite liking this game. It was dramatic and pretty visually good. The music was ok too. Yes, the story was all a bit standard about some nutter kidnapping women and I had to solve the case, but all in all it looked like it would be ok. Then I started getting tired of all the usual failings of a hidden object/point-and-click adventure game. The fact that you have to return to locations just because a new version of the hidden object puzzle has now activated is typical of many but the more you see it the more you realise how lazy it is. And then there are certain points where the game is just sloppy and broken. One hidden object puzzle requires you to put two keys in a chest to get an object inside. The keys are very close to the back arrow, and low and behold if you accidentally click on those you can no longer get the object inside and so not complete the puzzle. The solution to this common problem (see Steam forums)? To restart the game from the beginning and do it all over again! As the game goes on, the development gets even sloppier. Hidden object puzzles with objects that simply don't match their description. I have to find a cog? Ok, so I'm looking for something metal, round and with teeth. What? You want me to click on a brooch? How was I ever meant to know that was a cog??? And WHY do I get a puzzle which has a bow as an object to find and yet the perfectly serviceable bow tied in ribbon simply isn't the one I'm lookng for, it's actually the violin bow. How is that fun??? I hate leaving games incomplete unless I can help it, or there's a real chance of throwing my monitor through the wall, but it doesn't really get any better from this point. It will kill a few hours, but given there are so many of these types of games, you could definitely do better.