kandinsky's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:4
- Helpful Votes:3,130
- Reviews Submitted:100
- First Review:November 26, 2014
- Most Recent Review:September 9, 2024
- Featured reviews0
Status:
Can you escape the mysterious musician’s melody?
Overall rating
2
/
5
24 of 30 found this review helpful
SOMETHING CHANGED WITH CADENZA AND IM SINGING THE BLUES
PostedMarch 19, 2016
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Adventure, Match 3
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
This is a tough one for me to review. I had so looked forward to it. I loved the first two games but in some part this relates to my liking for jazz and jazz clubs. This time it is Havana and in a sense the same formula is being used but with what seems to me insipid supposedly cuban style guitar music. Also the sense of place one had with New Orleans, and I have never been there so it is a matter of sense but they built up a real sense of being in a believable city. That sense is gone , for me at least ,in this game. Others have commented that the plot reprises that of a game I did not play. But beyond that it sort of is within the plot formula of the first two Cadenza games skirting the edge of the
supernatural. I like the change of playing a male character but beyond that the story seemed a little lamer than the first two.
The HOGs that seemed innovative in the previous games are alright but the Cadenza formula as usual and the puzzles I considerably skipped being in a hurry to get to the end of this ,in fact, rather brief game.
supernatural. I like the change of playing a male character but beyond that the story seemed a little lamer than the first two.
The HOGs that seemed innovative in the previous games are alright but the Cadenza formula as usual and the puzzles I considerably skipped being in a hurry to get to the end of this ,in fact, rather brief game.
Partly also it may be my gathering fatigue with the cliches of these games, finding oil cans to take care of rust, springs to make pliers work, coins for machines , gears etc, and all the fantastic emblems to fit into locks. You know.
I had wished Cadenza would have found a way to follow jazz on to Chicago and New York , and maybe some notes of Trane, or Bill Evans, or Ornette Coleman.
I had hoped Mad Head would seek ways of further innovation in game play , and finding more story lines... They have not.
The story line of the bonus game is amiable but ridiculous and boring. It does not save the day.
I had hoped Mad Head would seek ways of further innovation in game play , and finding more story lines... They have not.
The story line of the bonus game is amiable but ridiculous and boring. It does not save the day.
Considering what's out there this is a recommend but barely ..the two stars could have been three but I am not happy and...
I'm wailing the HOPA Blues ...
I recommend this game!
Hidden Expedition: The Fountain of Youth Collector's Edition
There’s more to this restoration project than meets the eye.
Overall rating
2
/
5
51 of 61 found this review helpful
Embarrassingly careless storyline
PostedJanuary 9, 2016
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
1
/
5
I never fully admired the little boy who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes, perhaps he was too literal minded and spoiled the world for others? Yet I find myself sort of in that position with this story. Where to begin? Perhaps read a simple account of Ferdinand Magellan's life at wikipedia or the like and keep it at hand as you play this game. You will see that we have not just exploration of possibilities in his life but a total ignoring of the life he actually lived and the substitution of someone in another world who made a very different voyage with very different purpose. There is no attempt, even a fanciful one,to explain why Magellan did not die in battle with the Lapu Lapu as survivors reported.
I think the reason must be the assumption that we don't care or know anything about history? Ponce de Leon? Magellan? Who cares? Similarly the city Magellan launched from, Seville, is repeatedly pronounced as if it rhymes with "level" as in "the Barber of Sevel". Again an assumption of a not caring target group of players.
The story repeats a pattern of previous Hidden Expeditions
in which almost until the end the heroine is thwarted but never finished off at every turn, making both the good and bad guys seem ridiculously inept.
in which almost until the end the heroine is thwarted but never finished off at every turn, making both the good and bad guys seem ridiculously inept.
I find that all somehow not acceptable. There is less there also than meets the eye in game play, a variety of HOGs but nothing new, colorful graphics but not somehow to my eye beautiful, puzzles ranging from easy to harder ones I skipped being a little burned out on puzzles maybe.
You may enjoy it and I do not want to dismiss the enjoyment of players who enjoyed, or will enjoy ,this game, but to warn off some who might not.
I don't recommend this game.
Travel with Ben in his journey through dreams and unravel the mystery of his late wife Elizabeth.
Overall rating
5
/
5
27 of 30 found this review helpful
A Truly Great Game
PostedDecember 30, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
This is a wonderful game.
I love the way the story develops through obstacles which are in a sense repetitive but which make sense in terms of the story line. I like the fragmented object games which take me back to the beautiful old Blue Tea games. As many note, the live acting in the cut scenes is right and strong.
I love the way the story develops through obstacles which are in a sense repetitive but which make sense in terms of the story line. I like the fragmented object games which take me back to the beautiful old Blue Tea games. As many note, the live acting in the cut scenes is right and strong.
In general not only is this a triumph as a game made by an "indie" studio , it is by any standard a success and perhaps even a landmark in the genre.
I would wish big fish had given it a fuller launch and allowed more players to be immediately aware of this game.But what we might surely hope for, is release here of the CE of this game. I for one will be in line to buy and play it again.
This is such an attentively made game and anyone who plays a lot of games looking for special ones soon realizes that attention is more important by far than the size and resources of the studio.To some extent I am afraid there is that problem that good game= attentively made = time expended. But hoping for more like this as soon as possible.
.
Gratitude for this year-end gift!
.
Gratitude for this year-end gift!
I recommend this game!
Your long-lost relatives are excited to welcome you to the family… or are they?
Overall rating
5
/
5
25 of 30 found this review helpful
A Special Game.and the Bonus Chapter is Key
PostedDecember 18, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
Its been quite a while since an Eipix game gave me a feeling of excitedly wanting to know what comes next and a urge to keep going back to the play of it. This one did all of that and then when the conclusion left me wondering if it all made sense finally, the biographical notes for characters and then the bonus chapter pulled it all together in a sort of epic structure.
An epic fully contained within one game rather than spun out as we have seen recently with another series taken over by this same developer from MCF. It is this game which shows how a HOPA multigenerational story can be told and without loss, or rather with gain in every way, in a single game. I hope developers will be able to put as much attention in game after game as went into this game or into the Cadenza games ...if so our genre has a future!
An epic fully contained within one game rather than spun out as we have seen recently with another series taken over by this same developer from MCF. It is this game which shows how a HOPA multigenerational story can be told and without loss, or rather with gain in every way, in a single game. I hope developers will be able to put as much attention in game after game as went into this game or into the Cadenza games ...if so our genre has a future!
I haven't focused on the game play aspect because others have sufficiently and also caught up in the story I skipped puzzles mercilessly. But I will say one more thing which is only really for some maybe but... Games that involve the supernatural and life after death can raise questions of believability as much for those who like myself believe death is not the end as for those who do not. I would say to an extent not usual in these games this story fits not, of course something I literally imagine taking place, but my sense of an order of things I could imagine being real. A story that can be somewhat psychologically and morally true as much as one could ask of a hidden object game creator.
I will still have a special place in my heart for fantasy games which offer places I would like to linger, this does not, but it is I think a remarkable game and urge you to try it and follow through to the end.
I will still have a special place in my heart for fantasy games which offer places I would like to linger, this does not, but it is I think a remarkable game and urge you to try it and follow through to the end.
I recommend this game!
Why would anyone want to stop Christmas from coming?
Overall rating
3
/
5
13 of 16 found this review helpful
CHRISTMAS NON MIRACLE
PostedDecember 7, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
1
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
First I am reviewing this for adults, for children it may work in a different way. But for adults this is a game which attempts the miracle of being childlike without being childish. When one does that the result is magical of course, Time itself is overcome and there is joy ,light and freedom of spirit.
It ,for me , only very intermittently achieves this and even then by an effort to enter that Christmas miracle of Time abolished. As a whole and certainly most of the time this is a game which an adult has to carry by such effort from beginning to end, The games and puzzles are graded down for children, which is not bad but removes them from the equation for adults. The color and atmosphere is beautiful ,except for the drawing of a rather wasted and neurotic looking Santa--his brother when he appears looks much better.
I honor the game for trying for a Christmas miracle but have to say that for me it falls too far short to be a recommend.
I honor the game for trying for a Christmas miracle but have to say that for me it falls too far short to be a recommend.
I don't recommend this game.
You're the last hope to stop the ancient curse!
Overall rating
5
/
5
16 of 16 found this review helpful
Full Marks for Pleasurable Hours of Play
PostedNovember 21, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
For me this is a five star game in spite of:
1)Hidden object games all the same format,
2)The usual sorts of things to find from gears to parts of keys and requiring counter intuitive actions and stocking up in advance with ladders and garden sheers etc one would never think to pick up let alone be able to carry around.
3) A plot that goes ,as in previous of this series, through a series of problems , each disposed of predictably and similarly without any twists or turns of the story.
4)A story that ends abruptly without a moment even to rest in the pleasant resolution of things. These writers might ponder the example of the Oz books each of which ends with a party!
1)Hidden object games all the same format,
2)The usual sorts of things to find from gears to parts of keys and requiring counter intuitive actions and stocking up in advance with ladders and garden sheers etc one would never think to pick up let alone be able to carry around.
3) A plot that goes ,as in previous of this series, through a series of problems , each disposed of predictably and similarly without any twists or turns of the story.
4)A story that ends abruptly without a moment even to rest in the pleasant resolution of things. These writers might ponder the example of the Oz books each of which ends with a party!
But outweighing all that for me is that the story provides a sort of comfort food for the mind maybe. It is a long story with well imagined scenes, ranging from a pastoral meadow with horses and a well, to the Escher like rooms of the Castle of Madness.
It is an adventure game which brightened a good few hours for me in this last week, and that is more than most of the recent games have provided me. I think maybe somehow you may enjoy it too.
So, understanding that reviews in the world of these games are not graded in the way that book or film reviews are and need be, I am giving this game five stars for the pleasure it gave and recommend it fully!
I recommend this game!
Can you find the key to Ravenhearst's resurrection?
Overall rating
3
/
5
27 of 33 found this review helpful
Underwhelmed
PostedOctober 29, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
2
/
5
I read the first reviews and they were from people who enjoyed the game so much and expressed themselves so vividly that I thought that, well, even though I haven't much enjoyed recent games from this developer, I had better get this.
In fact it seems to me a very ordinary game with little to commend it beyond the by now familiar Eipix bag of tricks and the name Ravenhurst which attaches to a HOPA classic which probably should have been left as a completed story arc after the last time Ravenhurst was burned down and Charles Dalimar sent off to the next world. That next world apparently has no principle of supervision to keep villians who have become bores from returning yet again to harass the living. If that were the case in the afterlife all the more developers should step in and put a stop to things.
Anyway that is my feeling after a long trek ,attacked by countless puzzles, and finally coming to an abrupt if predictable conclusion with a sigh of relief.
This review to, while acknowledging the technical competence of the game, add my voice to that of those underwhelmed by the all too familiar characters and story.
If you are a Ravenhurst devotee you ought probably try it, to as a fan cheer or jeer. For those like myself who are not so much fans, this is a no recommend game.
I don't recommend this game.
After falling asleep in the cinema, you wake up in the movie. Solve the mystery of the missing film crew and finish the movie.
Overall rating
4
/
5
22 of 23 found this review helpful
So BAD it is ALMOST GOOD
PostedOctober 21, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
This is like one of those B movies that can become a camp classic for watching at midnight. I do not know if it is at all deliberately so but the number of disconnects in plot, and the whole plot itself is the sort of thing one could sit back with friends and perhaps liquid refreshment at hand and happily jeer. The ending is the most prime of all as without segue it turns into what might have been intended as a bonus chapter before giving up on making a CE of it, and well , how to not spoil it for you, someone pushes a button (the viewpoint character, the player?) and a vehicle begins to move. who is in the vehicle if not the one pushing the button? and why for that matter is this happening?
The characters interaction is a hoot.
The failed hint system, a guide is promised from the developer to be out as I write and it is needed, makes a real challenge to the players ingenuity and adds to the perverse fun. There is a new puzzle used many times and involving rotating a silhouette. I tired of it but after a few tries a skip option opens , well before the set skip option is loaded, and I used it.
If I knew this were all deliberate and the devs had been using cheap vodka to fuel their imaginations I would give it five stars.
Cant easily do that otherwise. Hesitated between three and four stars but reading my own review I opt for four. Enjoy if its for you, maybe you will know who you are.
Cant easily do that otherwise. Hesitated between three and four stars but reading my own review I opt for four. Enjoy if its for you, maybe you will know who you are.
I recommend this game!
Join Esther as she attempts to influence the past in order to change the future and learn the secrets of the Ambrose family!
Overall rating
5
/
5
17 of 17 found this review helpful
BACK TO THE FUTURE
PostedOctober 16, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
This is a slightly older game, 2013, and i enjoyed it immensely and am giving it five stars.
Reviewing is not simple. I should say that I was predisposed to like this game by three factors at least. One that the Grail literature is something I have spent a good deal of time with and any story that has Merlin and Nimue in it has my attention from the start. The idea that Nimue is the daughter of Vivien is not in accord with the literature in which Nimue and Vivien (and some would add Morgan) are names of a single character, loved by Merlin. Well that to the side. The character of Merlin was at least not absurd and I enjoyed the story.
Secondly it was a week when I needed diversion and was thankful to have the game on the computer.
Thirdly predisposed now to like almost any slightly older game because the new ones lately seem to me so sadly lacking in features of interest.
But setting aside all this , I think it really is quite a good game and you likely will enjoy it too. The Time travel back and forth takes a bit of getting used to but in fact assures us of not being bogged down interminably in one place.
The graphics are great and the story somehow brightly colored to match. I like the conclusion very much indeed, it is , in Tolkien's word a "eucatstrophe', an ending with real resolution.
But there is no reason to play the bonus chapter which is no more than prequel to the main story.
Reviewing is not simple. I should say that I was predisposed to like this game by three factors at least. One that the Grail literature is something I have spent a good deal of time with and any story that has Merlin and Nimue in it has my attention from the start. The idea that Nimue is the daughter of Vivien is not in accord with the literature in which Nimue and Vivien (and some would add Morgan) are names of a single character, loved by Merlin. Well that to the side. The character of Merlin was at least not absurd and I enjoyed the story.
Secondly it was a week when I needed diversion and was thankful to have the game on the computer.
Thirdly predisposed now to like almost any slightly older game because the new ones lately seem to me so sadly lacking in features of interest.
But setting aside all this , I think it really is quite a good game and you likely will enjoy it too. The Time travel back and forth takes a bit of getting used to but in fact assures us of not being bogged down interminably in one place.
The graphics are great and the story somehow brightly colored to match. I like the conclusion very much indeed, it is , in Tolkien's word a "eucatstrophe', an ending with real resolution.
But there is no reason to play the bonus chapter which is no more than prequel to the main story.
I call this Back to the Future not only for the time travel aspect but in the hope that somehow the fun and interest of games past may be added to the techniques of games present to make better games future.
"Why do we always seek to add what we once had to what we now have?" goes a wise old lament. But in fact that is what i want for HOPA games and ,developers, make the most of it!
I recommend this game!
Help John explore a Sinister City and save his bride, Nina, from vicious vampires! Travel to the astral plane and save your love!
Overall rating
5
/
5
6 of 7 found this review helpful
Fun In an ailing genre or two.
PostedOctober 7, 2015
kandinsky
fromNew York. Hudson Valley.
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Adventure
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
This came out a while back, in 2010, and as other reviewers note it is quirky , campy, fun made in and of the genre of Vampire films which is sort of played out with vampires who may hardly know the taste of blood and vampire fighters whose weapons are more like props made in taiwan. Will John save Nina? Why is her family so dysfunctional? Will their love be indeed undying?
Yes the mechanics of the game are those of five years ago but for me the wit and the style of the game carried me along happily clicking on everything in sight. There are online walkthroughs which are sufficient to smooth any rough spots in the flow of the game.
I enjoyed this game so much more than the several recent games from the most heralded and active developers which I have played that I am thinking it is not only vampirism which can seem played out but also our own hidden object/puzzle/adventure game form which all too often seems just about played out.
What can save us from endlessly recycling of game plots and tasks and images? I would say attention and creativity and that can be expressed in many ways , but here is an example of one way and , hoping against hope for better new games, I offer this with the recommendation to Enjoy!
Yes the mechanics of the game are those of five years ago but for me the wit and the style of the game carried me along happily clicking on everything in sight. There are online walkthroughs which are sufficient to smooth any rough spots in the flow of the game.
I enjoyed this game so much more than the several recent games from the most heralded and active developers which I have played that I am thinking it is not only vampirism which can seem played out but also our own hidden object/puzzle/adventure game form which all too often seems just about played out.
What can save us from endlessly recycling of game plots and tasks and images? I would say attention and creativity and that can be expressed in many ways , but here is an example of one way and , hoping against hope for better new games, I offer this with the recommendation to Enjoy!
I recommend this game!