These days the casual games market is becoming saturated with hidden object games and it's only a matter of time before the genre splinters off into a myriad specialized sub-categories. No doubt we'll soon see survival horror, shooter, maybe even competitive multiplayer hidden object games. In the meantime, the most obvious direction for casual hidden object games to evolve in is toward the traditional point and click adventure game.
Twisted Lands: Shadow Town, the latest hidden object title from publisher Alawar Games, challenges casual gamers with some true hybrid gameplay that's a clever mixture of old school adventure, puzzle solving and hidden object scenarios. The game tells the tale of a couple out at sea, seemingly for a recreational day cruise. The wife, Angel, is noticeably chagrined when she realizes the trip isn't just for pleasure and is motivated by her young husband Mark's greed; his plans involve treasure hunting. She tries to dissuade him but before she can, they are attacked by a mysterious creature and shipwrecked on a nearby island.
You play as Mark, who awakes on the island to find his wife missing. He sets out to find her and discovers not only evidence of a previous shipwreck, but the remains of an abandoned village. As you make your way through the village and the spooky forest surrounding it, you begin to uncover clues to the fate of the island's inhabitants as well as hints regarding a mysterious monster that may have been preying on them.
You don't call a game Twisted Lands: Shadow Town for nothing and obviously, the game is going for scare factor. It succeeds in presenting some suitably eerie environments and as you creep furtively through dusty rooms and damp caves, you may find yourself jumping at sudden movements. Although the game is labeled a hidden object title, the ratio of adventure play to hidden object play is roughly 65/35%. Much more of your time is spent unlocking things and finding items and information than playing through what can often be seen as momentum-killing hidden object scenes and that's all to the good. Granted, there's a lot of ground to cover and so there is perhaps an inordinate amount of clicking going back and forth among scenes. Thankfully, if you're the impatient type, you can keep hitting the hint button and it'll tell you which way you should go.
The gameplay is the best thing about Twisted Lands: Shadow Town. The next best things are the art and the story. Of course, the worst things about Twisted Lands Shadow Town are...the art and the story. On one hand, the game succeeds very well in terms of atmosphere, visual effects, environment art and creating a compelling, mysterious plot that sucks you in and keeps you in suspense. On the other hand, the cutscene character art is well, scary (the characters look like mannequins that stare glassy-eyed past one another) and the cutscenes appear fuzzy and compressed. This is extremely jarring when seen in comparison to the sharp-as-a-tack in-game art. And while the story starts out with two interestingly spooky narrative threads, in the end neither of them amounts to anything.
The game's original cliff-hanger ending is confusing and nonsensical, but getting through it unlocks a "Bonus Chapter", which is in actuality, the real ending. This Bonus Chapter gives you perhaps an hour more of gameplay but once again, disappoints with an abrupt, unsatisfactory ending that fails to address any of the interesting plot points brought up during the game.
Twisted Lands: Shadow Town is an ambitious title that offers some solid adventure/hidden object gameplay--but in terms of the narrative, falls short of the mark. This is not that much of a problem if you're more of a gamer and not a stickler for story continuity. The Collector's Edition, currently available on Big Fish Games, Alawar Games and countless other casual game sites, is available for $19.99 and includes a full walkthrough of the game.
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