This month, casual game developer ERS Game Studios tries to repeat the magic of the first Puppet Show game, Mystery of Joyville--and falls considerably short.
ERS first caught our attention not only with Joyville, but with beautifully creepy hidden object game Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue. Both games offered gamers an intriguing plot and lots of interesting hidden object gameplay as they played the role of detectives hunting for evil.
Souls of the Innocent also makes gamers into detectives, this time seeking the reason behind a strange sleeping sickness that's affecting the children of a small, picturesque village. Rumor has it that the affliction's related to the death of a local toymaker and the appearance of his mysterious niece. 
Aside from one weeping mother, the village is deserted and it's your job to piece together the clues and discover the culprit responsible for the toymaker's death. Things start out well; the game's artwork is strong, the music suitably eerie, the hidden object gameplay and puzzles fun and absorbing, the many mechanical dolls are totally scary.
(By the way, unlike Pixar's Toy Story series, which makes the idea of sentient toys cute, the Puppet Show series with its spider-baby dolls and menacing mechanical mannequins makes your worst doll-related nightmares come true.)
There are a few nice twists on hidden object gameplay that could have benefited the game if they were used more; one scene in particular alters your visibility by making it possible to switch the lighting back and forth. Overall though, ERS seems to have employed the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to game design.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but where Souls of the Innocent goes wrong is in the story, which often feels like a half-hearted rehash of the first game. Unlike Joyville, Souls never really integrates the setting and story with the gameplay. The disturbing puppets feel more like window-dressing here since the plot only kind-of suggests the need for them. Gamers are likely to be disappointed with the end of the game too, which is very abrupt and offers really no reward for arriving at it.
Regardless, the game still offers some entertaining scenarios and cool puzzles and is worth playing if you love the Puppet Show world and don't mind a half-baked ending.
Puppet Show: Souls of the Innocent has a playthrough time of about 3-4 hours and is available on Big FIsh for $6.99 regular or $19.99 for the Collector's edition.
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