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Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures
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Graphics & Sound:
Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures is a game about a pair of royals who get kidnapped and must find their way out of their respective prisons, with or without each others' help. It is touted as a Hidden Object Adventure, but it is much more of a straight up Adventure that dabbles in Hidden Object. That being said, everything is crisp and clear and the things you need to locate are easy enough to spot and look like they should. I really enjoyed the aesthetics of the game because it had a slight mocking tone, as if it knew it was a cheesy fairytale-like story. The narrator sounds like a classic voice that would read a fairytale and the voicework for Prince Nathaneil and Princess Loreen was appropriately high and mighty. The background music was also really lovely.
I also really enjoyed the lush backgrounds for all of the areas where the game takes place and all of the little animated details that were throughout each level. You might see a spider spinning down its web or a rat scurrying about, but they added a nice sense of depth to things. Although you are relegated to a small number of rooms and areas during your journey, each one was lovingly rendered and looks fantastic. Nice little details like scrawled words on a prison wall or hanging artwork in a room add to the experience, especially when you can click on them and get some additional info, however trivial it may be.
Lastly, when dialogue is going on between characters, a little picture will appear to the side with that person's head and their expression will match whatever they are saying. It's not animated, mind you, but reflective of the tone of the text. Just another little detail that shows Orchid Games went the extra mile for Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures.
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Gameplay:
In Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures, you play as either Prince Nathaneil or Princess Loreen at different times, since both find themselves having been kidnapped and imprisoned. Although both are a little spoiled and selfish, they'll have to find a way to work together if they are going to escape. You'll begin as Nathaniel and you'll have to look around your prison cell to collect objects to help you escape. There won't be a list of things to find like you would normally see in a Hidden Object game, which is why this game is firmly seated in the Adventure genre. Instead, you'll gather items lying around and combine them to make other useful implements to aid your escape. You'll have to use your noggin, too, as everything isn't spelled out or handed to you on a silver platter, despite your royal standing.
Nathaneil and Loreen don't spend much time together and, consequently, you'll find them needing to communicate to facilitate their escape and using whatever is available. Often, this is a dumb waiter that conveniently goes between the levels where they happen to be stuck. One will find an item that the other needs and have to send it to them, and so on.
You'll come upon people in the castle that will hopefully help you and, often, they'll have a puzzle for you to accomplish. It can be something as simple as the peg game (like you would see in Cracker Barrel restaurants) or something more complex like lining up the planet symbols in a particular pattern or moving the barrels of a locking system. There aren't any hints for these puzzles, but you can skip them after a certain time, if you are totally stuck. Not skipping any puzzles will earn you an Achievement, however. |
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Difficulty:
If you find yourself stuck in an area, you can always click on the character's picture at the bottom of the screen, the one with a question mark. Here, you'll find a little journal which tells what is going on at that time and offers suggestions on how to proceed. Below each suggestion is a little question mark, which when selected will guide you further. You will have several levels to go before they actually spell out what you need to do, so it's a nice way to get a hint without ruining the fun by being handed the answer.
Although I will freely admit that I am not a fan of typical Adventure games, for one because I don't have a lot of patience, I really had fun with Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures and didn't find the puzzles frustrating. Most of them made sense and I was able to get through them relatively quickly and the one that I had trouble with (the locks) was one I was able to solve by just sticking to it and continuing to click until it all fell into place. There is another puzzle that gave me pause, although I understand that it is a standard one in Adventure games - the one where you have an amount of water and several containers, but none are the correct amount. By pouring it into the different containers, you'll eventually get the correct amount, but how about just pouring off the excess? Anyway, like I said, frustrating, but a standard puzzle. |
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Game Mechanics:
Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures is made up of tapping gestures for picking up and placing items. However, there is one mini-game where you have to clean off a group of badly rusted chains. I assumed you had to wipe across the chains, but when this wasn't too successful for me, I tried tapping and voila! It worked.
As you progress through different actions and areas, you'll unlock Achievements that you can also post on Facebook on the fly (if you are connected to the Internet). I'm not a Facebook braggart, so I just proceeded on without doing it, but it's a nice touch for those who like to show what they've been doing in their games. I enjoyed the names of the Achievements, again very tongue-in-cheek. My favorite was "But our Princess is in Another Castle!" Nice touch. There's even an Achievement for completing the game in less than an hour, which I apparently did, although I didn't realize it since I played across two days.
That being said, the game is either a little on the easy side or just so well constructed that I was able to do really well and enjoy it. Either way, I had a blast with Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures and it just may have opened my eyes to the beauty of Adventure games. Although it ended quickly, I had a lot of fun while playing Royal Trouble: Hidden Adventures, so give it a whirl.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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