robinbobbin's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:4
- Helpful Votes:215
- Reviews Submitted:25
- First Review:January 14, 2012
- Most Recent Review:April 10, 2022
- Featured reviews0
An artistic puzzle game inspired by 20th century Art Deco & stained glass artisans. Combine glass pieces to unveil themes from around the world!
Overall rating
3
/
5
7 of 7 found this review helpful
Fancy jigsaw
PostedJuly 4, 2017
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
This is a jigsaw puzzle game, using stained glass instead of traditional puzzle pieces. The pictures and interface are quite beautiful. I finished 2 puzzles and it told me I'd examined 2 out of 25; I would hope there'd be more than 25 puzzles in the game. However, the big reason I'm downgrading it is the lag time. There should never be a perceptible difference between my moving my mouse or trackball and the cursor moving on the screen, but in this game there was. It has nothing to do with my computer, I play much more graphics-intensive games with no issues. It was already kind of boring, the mouse lag made it tedious. If you enjoy jigsaws and don't mind or notice a lag you may like this game a lot.
I don't recommend this game.
The miracle of the Green Moon, which flourished with plants of all kinds, had lasted for only a few moments. A cataclysm made the Moon lifeless again. Find out why!
Overall rating
2
/
5
7 of 12 found this review helpful
Similar to Myst and just as frustrating
PostedMay 13, 2016
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
This was a very pretty game, but the set up was just not my cup of tea. You pick up all kinds of stuff, including things you don't need. You wander around multiple areas trying to figure out how to use the stuff you've found. There is a hint system that helps, but is often cryptic. Sometimes you can use things together, sometimes not. The main thing I didn't like about it was that when you reached certain game points, something would change in one of the places you've already searched completely. There are several locations, enough to make it confusing and tedious to go through them all yet again, but the 400 unique locations is actually 400 screens/illustrations, including several where nothing ever happens; they're just there to make it a longer trek to where you need to be. And I played nowhere near 48 hours, or even 8. You can die, and probably will, but there is an autosave as well as save slots. The only part I really enjoyed was in the tribal jungle when I spotted the pathetically obvious trap of a roasted chicken leg tied to a branch. I saved right there and grabbed the chicken; there was some rustling and then suddenly a pointed log came right at the screen, with a squishy thump as the screen went black. Obviously there are people who enjoy this type of game, but I regret using a free game coupon on it.
I don't recommend this game.
Help the adorable grim reapers Grimm and Rose defeat monsters, ghosts, evil bunnies and more using the power of words!
Overall rating
5
/
5
8 of 8 found this review helpful
Fun word game
PostedDecember 25, 2015
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Puzzle, Hidden Object, Word
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
I really enjoy this game. It's cute and fun, but also challenging. I like the many options to customize your game, especially the way it lets you personalize power-ups. Find the time trials too difficult? You can buy things to increase your time available. Have trouble with the hangman style puzzles? You can add extra guesses! Once you finish the story, you can keep playing for more points or to complete all the quests, or just to beat your own scores. Or, you can try the Endless mode, where you literally just play until you die. So far I've made it up to 26 monsters, hoping to get past 30. The game also tracks all kinds of stats; you can see how many words of each possible length you've spelled, your best-scoring words, how much damage dealt and taken, etc.
I recommend this game!
Solve 120 unique puzzles in 6 exciting rounds and win the Christmas world contest!
Overall rating
3
/
5
10 of 13 found this review helpful
Poor user interface, great puzzles
PostedDecember 30, 2013
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
I love griddlers, nonograms, paint-by-numbers, whatever you want to call them. They're an ideal type of puzzle to translate to a computer game, but most of the ones I've played have not been very good. This particular game, like the others in the series, suffers from two main problems: one, there is no thumbnail view to see the completed picture, nor name/title, so there's no sense of accomplishment and they might as well be random puzzles instead of pictures. Two, the player interface marks off completed clue numbers BEFORE you have actually finalized them, leading to errors and mis-clicks. For example, if the clue for a row is 1 1 1 1, and you place 2 single squares in the row, it will mark the last two 1's as complete. You don't really know yet if those are the right-most squares or not, but the game says they are. This wouldn't be quite as much of a problem if there was an auto-complete that would fill in the X-es on a row or column where all colored squares had been placed; but there isn't.
It also does seem like some of the puzzles are not true logic puzzles and either require guessing or could have multiple solutions. Given the many engines that have been written to create and check these type of puzzles, that's just inexcusable.
These games are usually super easy, obviously trying to capture people who haven't played this type of puzzle before. But they need to step up the playability or they aren't going to draw in enough people to support advanced level games.
I don't recommend this game.
Something wicked has taken over Fate’s Carnival!
Overall rating
5
/
5
1 of 5 found this review helpful
Excellent Game, some small issues
PostedDecember 7, 2013
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
This is an excellent game. The graphics are good, mostly based on Madame Fate. The gameplay is great; not only are the complicated multi-step puzzles back, but they have a "puzzle hint" button that will help you out with just one step, so you don't have to skip the whole thing! This is a huge improvement, and so welcome. Lots of options; my favorites are the ability to adjust volume on each track separately (I always mute voices if I can) and the gamma slider to brighten up the visuals as needed. A jumping map, which is awesome, but brings up my first 'nitpick': after a while, the bubbles that indicated an action in a location started sticking. They would stay up at a location where every action had been completed. Just before I finished the game, one action from winning, I checked back and still had several bubbles up. So that was a minor annoyance.
Second nitpick was the inventory. When a task needed multiple pieces gathered, each piece showed in the inventory as a separate item. This made the inventory very difficult to navigate at times. I have played other games that handled this well: when pieces are picked up, they bundle together and either show you (2/5) or just (2), but still allow you to place the pieces without gathering all of them.
Third nitpick is there were technical glitches. Like someone playing dubstep with the graphics files. Closing and re-opening the game cleared it out each time, so they were minor for me.
Fourth nitpick: Storyline. I much prefer that my games play well than that they have a good story, but there is a point where the story becomes so bad that it interferes with my enjoyment of the game. The whole Ravenhearst/ Dalimar connection flirted with that point. There was no need to drag them into this game at all, but since they did, they should have made some attempt at continuity. In the first Ravenhearst game, Charles Dalimar built Ravenhearst to impress Emma, his 'one true love' that he was so obsessed with that he took up studying magic to find a way to keep her forever. Eventually he killed her and trapped her spirit for a very long time, until you show up and release it. It showed him at the end as a spirit himself, also long dead but still obsessed with Emma. The time period of their lives was deliberately vague, but definitely pre-WWI, possibly as far back as early 1800's. Then Return to Ravenhearst said that after Emma died he had switched his obsession to extending his own life, kidnapping his maid Rose and her daughters, forcing Rose to bear his child, Victor, and then killing them and using the energy from their trapped spirits to keep himself alive. (So not actually a ghost in game 1?) You meet Victor as an old man, and it's hinted that Victor's life has been extended with the same power. You release the spirits and turn Charles back into a ghost, but Victor escapes. Escape from Ravenhearst I refused to buy, but I understand from reviews that it was more of the stop Charles from gaining power. Now in this game, his father Alister suddenly shows up and was a powerful necromancer all along? Dueling with the contemporary character Madame Fate over a magic artifact, when she is at least 2 generations younger than him, probably more given the magical life extension on his son and grandson? Constant references to Ravenhearst, the mansion that did not exist in his lifetime, as if he grew up there? Not to mention it refers to both Charles and Victor as his sons? Silly, pointless, and distracting.
As far as the basic story of Madame Fate's enemy cursing the carnival and torturing some of their spirits while using others as henchmen, that was fine and worked well with the gameplay. I just wish they'd given the enemy a different name. :)
Second nitpick was the inventory. When a task needed multiple pieces gathered, each piece showed in the inventory as a separate item. This made the inventory very difficult to navigate at times. I have played other games that handled this well: when pieces are picked up, they bundle together and either show you (2/5) or just (2), but still allow you to place the pieces without gathering all of them.
Third nitpick is there were technical glitches. Like someone playing dubstep with the graphics files. Closing and re-opening the game cleared it out each time, so they were minor for me.
Fourth nitpick: Storyline. I much prefer that my games play well than that they have a good story, but there is a point where the story becomes so bad that it interferes with my enjoyment of the game. The whole Ravenhearst/ Dalimar connection flirted with that point. There was no need to drag them into this game at all, but since they did, they should have made some attempt at continuity. In the first Ravenhearst game, Charles Dalimar built Ravenhearst to impress Emma, his 'one true love' that he was so obsessed with that he took up studying magic to find a way to keep her forever. Eventually he killed her and trapped her spirit for a very long time, until you show up and release it. It showed him at the end as a spirit himself, also long dead but still obsessed with Emma. The time period of their lives was deliberately vague, but definitely pre-WWI, possibly as far back as early 1800's. Then Return to Ravenhearst said that after Emma died he had switched his obsession to extending his own life, kidnapping his maid Rose and her daughters, forcing Rose to bear his child, Victor, and then killing them and using the energy from their trapped spirits to keep himself alive. (So not actually a ghost in game 1?) You meet Victor as an old man, and it's hinted that Victor's life has been extended with the same power. You release the spirits and turn Charles back into a ghost, but Victor escapes. Escape from Ravenhearst I refused to buy, but I understand from reviews that it was more of the stop Charles from gaining power. Now in this game, his father Alister suddenly shows up and was a powerful necromancer all along? Dueling with the contemporary character Madame Fate over a magic artifact, when she is at least 2 generations younger than him, probably more given the magical life extension on his son and grandson? Constant references to Ravenhearst, the mansion that did not exist in his lifetime, as if he grew up there? Not to mention it refers to both Charles and Victor as his sons? Silly, pointless, and distracting.
As far as the basic story of Madame Fate's enemy cursing the carnival and torturing some of their spirits while using others as henchmen, that was fine and worked well with the gameplay. I just wish they'd given the enemy a different name. :)
I recommend this game!
Who is responsible for your children’s disappearance? Follow the trail!
Overall rating
5
/
5
1 of 1 found this review helpful
Beautifully made, a little short
PostedSeptember 21, 2013
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
I have not purchased this game yet; I think I will, though, even though it's short. It's beautifully crafted, with perfect illustrations and interesting tasks. I really like this kind of HO scene, with a clear list and some interaction. Gameplay was well done; nothing was sticky or glitchy, no tasks were shockingly stupid/illogical, things were generally in reasonable places. Few cut scenes, and they were skippable. (yay!) Big thumbs up to the developers, make more like this, please!
I recommend this game!
The residents of Bitterford, Maine have fallen prey to a terrible curse. It’s up to you to unravel the series of mysterious events that led to the town’s downfall and uncover the evil that was responsible.
Overall rating
3
/
5
4 of 7 found this review helpful
A little less conversation would be nice
PostedNovember 20, 2012
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
3
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Demo only, because I don't see that this is worth CE price.
Although the cut scene with the reality show host was funny, really, devs, if I wanted to watch tv I'd watch tv. Quit with the constant cut scenes already. They weren't badly acted, like some, they're just pointless and time-consuming. Put the money towards making a game that actually takes more than a couple of hours to play. The interactions with the psychic didn't seem to be skippable, either, and ate up a lot of time in a pretty short demo. Once again, no separate voice volume, so you put up with the annoying characters to hear the good atmospherics or you mute your speakers and put on your own music.
Twice in the demo period I had inventory creep. Once I picked up an item, but after completing an unrelated task the item disappeared from my inventory and I had to go pick it up again. Once I picked up an item and it left an empty shelf behind, but after walking away the shelf suddenly had a new item on it. Sloppy.
Loved the map; a jump map should just be standard for any adventure or part-adventure game, and I've been disappointed that a quality series like MCF didn't have them in the past. This one is very nice so far. They seem to have parceled out the locations so you are jumping between big areas, but still walk back and forth between a few rooms. Very thoughtful.
The only 'puzzles' so far are matching drawings to locations and one jumbled picture. I liked matching the drawings to the locations, but didn't like that the only way to actually see them was to pick them up out of inventory, and they couldn't be put back without an annoying "wrong move" noise. Also, it creates a lot of mess in the inventory. It sounded like it might be a major part of the game; if so it would make sense to have a separate inventory space for pictures.
The jumbled picture was annoying. Making the mechanics difficult and fiddly is not at all the same as making the puzzle more challenging. It didn't even fit; if it was supposed to be difficult to move because we're sharing a psychic vision, lining up ghostly overlays makes more sense than a looped gif cut in precise squares, each square rotated 90 or 180 degrees.
A minor annoyance: I couldn't lock my inventory up, and it kept hiding itself when I wanted it and popping up when I didn't. I really prefer having the option to lock the inventory in place.
I skipped 3 out of 5 'story' cut scenes and none of the psychic chats, and finished the demo in 35 minutes. Not promising; in my experience most games that limit the demo do it because they're short, and the end of the demo is often about 1/3 to 1/4 of the total game.
Bottom line: better than most of the games out there, vastly better than the LAST MCF game "mighty morphing power objects", but still falls short of the expectations raised by their standard-setting back catalog. I'll wait for the SE, and play it with my speakers off.
I recommend this game!
Join Claret and a lovable cast of characters explore, build and battle your way through a tale of magic, metal & mystery!
Overall rating
5
/
5
11 of 12 found this review helpful
Very nice game, hope there's a sequel
PostedJune 30, 2012
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Word, Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
5
/
5
I haven't played a lot of RPGs; I love the Aveyond series, but by the time I finish one, I'm sick of the gameplay style and will avoid them for a while.
This game really hits a sweet spot; maybe a more experienced player will know several other games as good, but for me so far this is the best RPG I've seen.
The graphics are excellent. Yes, the actual gameplay is entirely the blocky 16-bit style, but it's beautifully done. The character 'icons' and in-battle monsters are wonderfully illustrated. The character faces change expression during battle to reflect their status, getting angry or scared, according to their personality, as their life runs low.
The characters have been well-thought out by their designers, and speak and behave consistently with their personalities and stories; although the player may not know the whole story yet. :) There are a wealth of non-combatants wandering around who are informative or funny or both. The main characters' dialogue is well-written and the story, though essentially dramatic, is also given quite a bit of witty banter.
The battle system, and by extension the weapon and armor system, have obviously been meticulously designed. I readily admit they are more complex than I want to deal with; and it's another big point in the game's favor that I was perfectly able to enjoy it without getting deeply into the strategy and stats. You can choose your general battle difficulty from the options menu, a very nice feature. I chose easy, and although it was still interesting and challenging to me, I didn't have the frustration I've had with other RPG games, where the need to fight constantly to level up enough to advance turned the game into drudgery.
Another excellent feature was that battle wasn't the only way to collect experience and level up. Tucked away in various corners of the landscape are sparkly experience nodes that reward you for exploration. Especially nice when you're wandering a maze and starting to feel frustrated; oh, hey, I wasn't lost, I was gaining experience!
There were only a few side quests, which were very enjoyable. I wish there had been more. One quibble is that there's a major side quest that is built up as though it's part of the story, but isn't necessary to complete the game. It's easy to get swept along by the demands of the story, knowing that you still have that big thing to accomplish, and feel blindsided by a seemingly abrupt ending.
I only have two other issues with this game, both minor. One is that there are only 4 save slots. This is plenty for one person, but my teenage daughters like RPGs too, and 4 save slots is not enough for all 3 of us! The other is that there IS a lot of story here - good story, enjoyable story, but NOT gameplay. It does make the beginning of the game very slow. It would be nice to be able to skip some or most of that during the limited time trial or when re-playing.
Well, ok, I have one more "issue" with the game - it wasn't long enough! ;) Playing all the side quests and going to what I hope was every single area, I played over 11 hours; and still wanted more! And there were a few loose threads at the end, which I hope means a sequel will be in the works. All in all a very enjoyable game and one I recommend completely!
I recommend this game!
Rescue your canine companion, and solve the mystery of Houndspoint!
Overall rating
4
/
5
4 of 9 found this review helpful
Decent game, just not overwhelmed
PostedJune 30, 2012
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Word, Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Demo only review. Not commenting on story since I skipped all cutscenes. Adventure graphics are fine, nothing spectacular but nothing too awful. The animated dog at the beginning creeped me out, it was so close to being realistic yet so very far. It looked ok, but the motions were all off, like something wearing a dog skin to throw you off guard.
HOS graphics the standard 'painted' set of objects. I don't prefer this set because the realism is pretty low, which makes it harder to recognize things, so they are made out of proportion and bigger than they need to be to show the details. Clues were good, no bad translations or misnaming that I noticed.
Puzzle play was good; beginning puzzles were easy, but I'd expect that. They were enjoyable types and didn't repeat yet.
This game got a 4th star because it had a jump map, which is necessary in an adventure game and should be encouraged wherever possible, and no voiceovers, which are terrible and should be discouraged. Or at least, if you must have voiceovers, an option to silence or disable them should be included. I guess some people actually like them. :) There was nothing truly bad about the game, but I didn't find it spectacular either. Better than the recent average, definitely. Would probably buy the SE.
I recommend this game!
An endearing 1930s love story set around a traveling circus.
Overall rating
4
/
5
2 of 2 found this review helpful
Nice game
PostedApril 28, 2012
robinbobbin
fromGrand Rapids, MI
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Word, Hidden Object, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
3
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
I liked this game.
No adventure elements at all, strictly hidden object and puzzle, which is fine with me. The hidden object scenes were nicely challenging. They were not too small and the graphics were fine. The people were drawn awkwardly and perspective on them was off, just as in an old-fashioned "primitive" poster, but the inanimate objects you're searching for were mostly well done. Sometimes the hidden objects were out of scale with the rest of the scene, or blended in with other items. These are features that make the scenes challenging for advanced players, and I enjoy them. I did experience a couple of times where the click-sensitive area was slightly off from the picture; so I thought I was clicking, say, something that looked like a hat, but it accepted the click for the canoe behind it. That's always disorienting, but it happens in a lot of games.
The music was fun; it didn't start to repeat until about 40 minutes in, which is more than you can say for most games' mood music. :)
In the hour demo I played about 12 scenes and 12 mini-puzzles, and I only saw 3 different mini-puzzles - memory matching, find-a-word, and spot the difference. However, they were enjoyable (even the spot the difference!) so I didn't mind. They weren't very hard, though.
I usually skip the story and I did here as well.
I'll probably buy this, because it's a nice little game and looks like it has a lot of play time, and sometimes I get tired of dramatic stories and quests and inventories, and just want to find some objects. :)
I recommend this game!