Alchemy Mysteries, Enigmatis 2, Morphopolis

HOGs & HOPAs For What Ails Ye

I’ve become increasingly interested in so-called ‘casual’ games, which are more complex and engaging than their detractors imply. Also, I thought I should at least attempt to live up to my reputation as a shitty casual.

Morphopolis started this particular journey. It’s a mellow, nicely-illustrated Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (currently 50c on Steam) about an insect exploring the world. It’s an enjoyable couple of hours and an easy perfect game. My only quibble is the ways to interact with the puzzles are not always intuitive. Remembering it’s a mobile port helped (when in doubt, drag).

I decided to try a more traditional HOPA I picked up a while ago, Alchemy Mysteries: Prague Legends by Jetdogs. The production values are iffy, but surprising care was put into some of the details. It has smooth background rotation and there are actually animated models that walk the streets in the background, for example. The CG, graphics, and voice acting are pretty dodgy and it has a goofy supernatural/arcane story I didn’t pay much attention to. I was surprised by the variety of puzzles and the number of helpful hint features. The hidden object scenes were cluttered with random objects. The puzzles were not very intuitive and there is a lot of backtracking. Lots of “jump scares” that are too slow/gradual to genuinely startle. Unsurprisingly, only about 35% of players cracked open the game–these games are often heavily discounted or bundled, so it’s an easy impulse buy. But 23% of players finish the game and 12% get a perfect game, which is a very good completion rate. I wouldn’t recommend that game but I was interested enough to try another. 

Artifex Mundi is widely considered the gold standard of HOPA, so I decided to play their highly-rated Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood next. (They all have silly names.) Huge jump in production values. It’s another over-the-top supernatural mystery, but it works as an interactive penny dreadful. The hidden object games fit the story and make thematic sense. The puzzles are more varied (although the game’s insistence on puzzles where one mechanism moves two pieces, and you have to align all the pieces in a particular order, was really annoying) and there are two types of collectible items.  It has multiple difficulty levels where various hint systems are restricted at higher difficulties. It employs fast-travel. Puzzles can be skipped and hidden-object games can be replaced with match games. I enjoyed it much more than I expected!

The cheevos reflect the niche status. While comparatively inexpensive, $9.99 is not necessarily an impulse buy. At least 57% of players have played, 40% sat through all the early cutscenes, about 12%-ish snagged the collectibles, and 6% achieve a perfect game, which requires at least two playthroughs since there are achievements for completing all the HOGs and all the match games and you can’t do both.

Artifex Mundi has a very loyal fanbase. Most of their games are rated highly by that base. I don’t know how many of these I could play, but I did make a point of picking up a bundle to try later. They are comparable to genre pulp, very much a type of comfort food, so some players will happily inhale the library and others might only tolerate a few before needing a palate cleanser.