Today's game for Club Members, tomorrow's game for all.

You can download Alicia Griffith: Lakeside Murder here.



As always, please remember to come back and tell us what you think.

Happy gaming!

Thanks Marian!

I just changed the description of this game to adventure lite, as I am reading that there are no hidden object scenes. If someone finds out differently, please let me know.

THanks, Marian!

Ana

"Please, return award winning turnip" is a notice on a bulletin board outside of the sheriff's office, a plea I thought both funny and a way of explaining and enhancing the small town setting.

Voice acting of the main character is abysmal; I would have preferred a better actor whose English was terrible to the leaden tones of Alicia Griffith as voiced. Additionally, the demo plays like an extended tutorial, and the puzzles are way too easy, even for the beginning of a game. Nevertheless, there is potential here because some of the comments on clickable objects actually advance the story or are reasonably amusing asides instead of the usual boring remarks on how to use an object.

I will use a coupon code on Alicia Griffith.

I am playing it now. It's a good little game, and, as you said, no hidden object scenes.

Doreen

Thank you both for your comments on the game.

I'm playing it now, too, and am really enjoying it.
Plus it's none the worse for not having any hidden object scenes

That's good to know, Mad. I used a coupon code on it but haven't played it yet. Always nice to have a pleasant game to look forward to.

Yes. I used a "code" myself .... thanks very much to the generosity of our latest Big Fish code donor

I'm just about to do the same Mad, also with the code from the same lovely donor.

I'm playing it now and can't figure out what to do with the crystal in the crypt. I click the hint and take the crystal, then click the hint again and wants me to put it back? What do I do here? Thanks.

We are very lucky, meryl !!

Sorry, TLC, I haven't reached that part yet so Can't help

No problem, Mad.

TLC, I hope someone that has played the game will be able to help you out.

Thanks Marian, I finally figured it out, I had to put the crystal in a different spot, then put it back. But I am stuck again. lol

Out of the frying pan into the fire.

Nearly finished this game now and I would heartily recommend it !!
A well made "lite" with an interesting story

I'm looking forward to it.

"No HO scenes?" Wheee! I'll check that out. I don't have the uninterrupted time these days for a full-on PC game, and haven't been all that excited about the ones I've seen, so a casual is just right to fill in the edges.

I hope you enjoy it, Reenie.

What is the difference between a hidden object scene and pixel hunting in an adventure game?

That's a good question. From the standpoint of the developers, in a hidden object game their trying to keep something hidden is intentional. In an adventure game that's a pixel hunt, I don't think that's always (or even most of the time) the case.

In my experience, the two genre evolved completely differently. At the inception of the purely HOA games, the hunt for hidden things was all there was to the game function, aside from a tissue paper "plot" to give the game its raison d'etre. Gradually, the genre has been evolving to be more "Adventure-like," with the HO part reduced to periodic interruptions requiring you to look though piles of nonsensical stuff to find a few arbitrary bits (that usually bore no relevance to the plot of the game, such as looking for a pair of ice skates when your story was set in Africa). Even that has evolved and improved. Now, the HO you are searching for might be the tool you need to move on with the game, so HO games are becoming more like an mini-Adventure game in that respect. Still, you pretty much are on a "track" in these games, with one scene leading to the next, and only recently did they provide more open-ended play.

In contrast, "pure" adventure games were story-driven from the beginning, since they began life purely as text games on the earliest computers. When they became more visually graphic, searching for objects was added, predicated on the need to find tools to interact with the game environment. The games were wide open, and you always needed to take notes of where you were and what was happening in an Adventure game. Their complexity demanded this. When I played Anachronox and Outcast, I compiled a 3-ring binder as I progressed through the game. There are complex character interactions that can change the game's outcome, depending on how you respond to them. Their focus still remains more on exploring the environment based on a plot. In some of the recent ones I've played, there was very little pixel-hunting.

Just my impression of the differences. I'm simplifying, I know, and this turned into a comparison between the two genre somehow. ha ha

With a pixel hunt you can't see what you're looking for and have to click around with your mouse to find an interactive hotspot.

Usually the "hidden objects" in so-called "hidden object games" (at least in the older ones) are not hidden or are only partially hidden, and you can find them by carefully searching the screen with your eyes. This can still be challenging if the objects are small or dark or blurred or otherwise obscured.

Some of the newer "hidden object games" do have pixel hunts because of having "interactive" hidden object scenes. Objects that require "interaction" before collecting them are usually listed in a different color from the regular objects, and may or may not be pixel hunts. For example "lit candle" might require you to use matches on a candle before you can collect the candle. But a different interaction might require you to open a box before collecting an object inside -- and no way to predict that object would be in a box. You would search the screen with the mouse until the cursor changed to indicate possible interaction. But you have to explore with your cursor, just like with a pixel hunt in an adventure game, to locate the interactive objects that aren't clued.

I prefer the older type of hidden object scenes -- either lists or silhouettes -- where the objects can be found 100% by eyeballing and don't require scrubbing around with your mouse, looking for invisible interactions. Although I don't mind something like "lit candle" where you can see the candle and matches on the screen, there are some newer games that take 4 or 5 interactions to find an object, and the object you're looking for has no obvious connection with the first few interactions, which are all "do it because you can and see what happens."

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A discussion of the differences between hidden object scenes and pixel hunts probably deserves its own thread. I expect anyone who regularly plays hidden object games knows the difference.

But I may be in the minority in preferring the older searches that didn't require interactions -- at least not multi-step try-it-and-see-what-happens hidden object searches. I may be in the minority in thinking that the multi-step try-it-and-see-what-happens hidden object searches are more like pixel hunts (and less desirable) than the hidden object searches in the older games.