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The last Cryptic Bundle I got through was in late 2019; I clearly go through waves of interest in HO adventure games.
Dark Angels: Masquerade of Shadows - A woman thinks she’s going crazy as she sees monsters lurking around, but it turns out she’s coming into her birthright as a member of an ancient order of monster hunters. This switches things up with a few visual novel elements (mostly dialogue trees) and fewer hidden object puzzles than the average. Then you travel through time and you have a standard quasi-medieval segment that could have been lifted from a different game. Also, you have a chakram for much of the game (that I constantly forgot about) and a series of potions that can be used to solve puzzles. I appreciated the variety. This was pretty good for the genre.
Black Rainbow - A white woman named Helen is exploring in deepest, darkest Africa when a local tribe is possessed by a dark force, and she’s the Chosen One who needs to save them. (Yeah, it’s kinda racist.) Most of the puzzles are either games of Simon or outright guessing games. (Or brute force guessing games because they don’t give enough details to actually derive a solution.) There aren’t any classic hidden object puzzles. The final area has a bunch of places where you just click to open things; apparently they just didn’t feel like adding puzzles or keys to a bunch of places. This wasn’t unplayable, but it’s mediocre.
The Esoterica: Hollow Earth - Stephanie’s uncle has made an amazing discovery of a lost city beneath the earth, but an evil count has kidnapped him to try to acquire it (or accidentally destroy the world trying to get there with a laser…his plans aren’t terribly clear). This is a gaslamp fantasy sci-fi mishmash featuring decent hidden object puzzles and brainteasers that are either easy standards or incredibly obtuse. Middling overall.
Shtriga: Summer Camp - A boy mysteriously disappeared from a summer camp and you’ve been sent to investigate; turns out a shapeshifting ghost witch is responsible. Horror-style and generally coherently-themed, this is a decent mix of hidden objects and puzzles, and is a bit more open in a bunch of places (allowing you to explore some areas in different orders before bottlenecking). The puzzles were generally decent until I hit a klotski puzzle and had to skip it; and there were a couple of points I missed something minor and needed a hint, but in general this was higher-end on everything but the plot.
The Saint: Abyss of Despair - Saved from a bullet during the war by the bible in his pocket, John is nicknamed “the saint” and becomes a priest. When his niece gets possessed in Africa, he goes to try to exorcise her. This is a mess, plot-wise, between the bad translation, the racist Africa tropes, the plot points that don’t really fit together and the jumpy scene transitions. The puzzles are decent (and there’s a good mix of them and HO scenes), but there are several points where it’s easy to get stuck because it’s not clear where to go next. It’s also very short, clocking under two hours. On the average it’s middling.
World Keepers: Last Resort - You play as a steampunk pirate captain, but that’s incidental to the plot, which involves an ancient evil getting free and needing to recruit five magical ragdolls to re-seal it. There are magical native Americans (exclusively called Indians and totally mish-mashing cultures), but the plot isn’t particularly more ridiculous than most of these games. The story segments are divided into chapters which make the item-combination puzzles a little more contained; a few of the puzzles are unnecessarily obtuse but there’s a decent variety. Several of the item clues in HO scenes are either misspelled or the wrong word entirely and that’s more of an issue. (Though I’m not certain there’s actually a penalty for misclicks.) Not bad overall.
Red Crow Mysteries: Legion - You wake up into a strange nightmare where the ghost of your mother says you’re being tested to see if you’re able to be the chosen one to fight against an evil called Legion. This one was made by a different developer than the rest, and it shows: The hidden objects are only the tools you need to find, there aren’t any separate scenes for them. The puzzles are heavily varied, including brainteasers, guessing games, Simon and a match-3 game. The pathing is fairly obtuse and the Hint button is much less useful than usual, as it only points out what you can interact with on the screen you’re on. (Normally, it will at least point you towards the screen that the next necessary step is on.) The story plays as prequel to a series that doesn’t exist, which means nothing really pays off. I appreciated the change-up to some of the conventions, but this is overall mediocre.
Where Angels Cry – Something mysterious is happening at a monastery in the 1200s, so the Vatican sends you to investigate. Same developer as Legion, and the same style, but somehow made worse by the fact they don’t tell you what you’re looking for in each scene, so there’s a lot of blind clicking. They have most of the same puzzles, and these versions are often more irritating, which is made up for by the fact there seem to be fewer of them. The dialogue is poor quality and all over the place and the mishmash of Christian mythology makes me wonder if this was made in Asia. Lousy overall.
Sacra Terra: Kiss of Death Collector’s Edition - Mark was about to propose to you, but got distracted by a cursed book you happened to leave lying around and was kidnapped by a succubus. You need to rescue him from the cursed island of Sacre Terra. The plot is amusingly stock for how fragmented the scenes are—you need to go through portals to rescue the succubus’ prisoners from their personal nightmares. This game got on my shit list early because the very first HO scene has several very unintuitive combinations and a really bad hitbox on a knife you need to collect. It gets credit for having a map that alerts you where you need to do or find things, but the combinations are often unintuitive and the hitboxes on a number of items (in HO scenes are not) never get better. When doing the correct thing takes guessing and you can guess correctly but be off by a pixel, it makes for a particularly frustrating experience.
Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner – You clearly hitched a ride on the wrong steamship, since this one has a cursed amphora aboard that traps the crew as spirits. This game is also an oddball by a different company: The graphics are done in a 3D CGI style that aims to be slightly more realistic; the story is more contained to the various staterooms of the haunted ship; you generally can’t pick up things you don’t need yet; there are several “action” sequences of scaring off rats and steering the ship; and the hidden object puzzles are more prone to Highlights-style trickery. The protagonist’s stupidity was on the level of most games, though: Despite there being a clearly-visible fire extinguisher in the first hallway, you need to assemble a bucket on a rope and drop it overboard to fill it (twice!) to put out a fire. I found this a bit more annoying than most others.
Overall: Dark Angels and Shtriga were the best of this lot, though nothing was amazing. By this point, it should be obvious this is a shovelware genre. I have another ten games in the Alchemy Bundle whenever I’m next in the mood; I think they’re up to Cryptic Bundle 10 at this point but I stopped buying new ones a while ago.
Dark Angels: Masquerade of Shadows - A woman thinks she’s going crazy as she sees monsters lurking around, but it turns out she’s coming into her birthright as a member of an ancient order of monster hunters. This switches things up with a few visual novel elements (mostly dialogue trees) and fewer hidden object puzzles than the average. Then you travel through time and you have a standard quasi-medieval segment that could have been lifted from a different game. Also, you have a chakram for much of the game (that I constantly forgot about) and a series of potions that can be used to solve puzzles. I appreciated the variety. This was pretty good for the genre.
Black Rainbow - A white woman named Helen is exploring in deepest, darkest Africa when a local tribe is possessed by a dark force, and she’s the Chosen One who needs to save them. (Yeah, it’s kinda racist.) Most of the puzzles are either games of Simon or outright guessing games. (Or brute force guessing games because they don’t give enough details to actually derive a solution.) There aren’t any classic hidden object puzzles. The final area has a bunch of places where you just click to open things; apparently they just didn’t feel like adding puzzles or keys to a bunch of places. This wasn’t unplayable, but it’s mediocre.
The Esoterica: Hollow Earth - Stephanie’s uncle has made an amazing discovery of a lost city beneath the earth, but an evil count has kidnapped him to try to acquire it (or accidentally destroy the world trying to get there with a laser…his plans aren’t terribly clear). This is a gaslamp fantasy sci-fi mishmash featuring decent hidden object puzzles and brainteasers that are either easy standards or incredibly obtuse. Middling overall.
Shtriga: Summer Camp - A boy mysteriously disappeared from a summer camp and you’ve been sent to investigate; turns out a shapeshifting ghost witch is responsible. Horror-style and generally coherently-themed, this is a decent mix of hidden objects and puzzles, and is a bit more open in a bunch of places (allowing you to explore some areas in different orders before bottlenecking). The puzzles were generally decent until I hit a klotski puzzle and had to skip it; and there were a couple of points I missed something minor and needed a hint, but in general this was higher-end on everything but the plot.
The Saint: Abyss of Despair - Saved from a bullet during the war by the bible in his pocket, John is nicknamed “the saint” and becomes a priest. When his niece gets possessed in Africa, he goes to try to exorcise her. This is a mess, plot-wise, between the bad translation, the racist Africa tropes, the plot points that don’t really fit together and the jumpy scene transitions. The puzzles are decent (and there’s a good mix of them and HO scenes), but there are several points where it’s easy to get stuck because it’s not clear where to go next. It’s also very short, clocking under two hours. On the average it’s middling.
World Keepers: Last Resort - You play as a steampunk pirate captain, but that’s incidental to the plot, which involves an ancient evil getting free and needing to recruit five magical ragdolls to re-seal it. There are magical native Americans (exclusively called Indians and totally mish-mashing cultures), but the plot isn’t particularly more ridiculous than most of these games. The story segments are divided into chapters which make the item-combination puzzles a little more contained; a few of the puzzles are unnecessarily obtuse but there’s a decent variety. Several of the item clues in HO scenes are either misspelled or the wrong word entirely and that’s more of an issue. (Though I’m not certain there’s actually a penalty for misclicks.) Not bad overall.
Red Crow Mysteries: Legion - You wake up into a strange nightmare where the ghost of your mother says you’re being tested to see if you’re able to be the chosen one to fight against an evil called Legion. This one was made by a different developer than the rest, and it shows: The hidden objects are only the tools you need to find, there aren’t any separate scenes for them. The puzzles are heavily varied, including brainteasers, guessing games, Simon and a match-3 game. The pathing is fairly obtuse and the Hint button is much less useful than usual, as it only points out what you can interact with on the screen you’re on. (Normally, it will at least point you towards the screen that the next necessary step is on.) The story plays as prequel to a series that doesn’t exist, which means nothing really pays off. I appreciated the change-up to some of the conventions, but this is overall mediocre.
Where Angels Cry – Something mysterious is happening at a monastery in the 1200s, so the Vatican sends you to investigate. Same developer as Legion, and the same style, but somehow made worse by the fact they don’t tell you what you’re looking for in each scene, so there’s a lot of blind clicking. They have most of the same puzzles, and these versions are often more irritating, which is made up for by the fact there seem to be fewer of them. The dialogue is poor quality and all over the place and the mishmash of Christian mythology makes me wonder if this was made in Asia. Lousy overall.
Sacra Terra: Kiss of Death Collector’s Edition - Mark was about to propose to you, but got distracted by a cursed book you happened to leave lying around and was kidnapped by a succubus. You need to rescue him from the cursed island of Sacre Terra. The plot is amusingly stock for how fragmented the scenes are—you need to go through portals to rescue the succubus’ prisoners from their personal nightmares. This game got on my shit list early because the very first HO scene has several very unintuitive combinations and a really bad hitbox on a knife you need to collect. It gets credit for having a map that alerts you where you need to do or find things, but the combinations are often unintuitive and the hitboxes on a number of items (in HO scenes are not) never get better. When doing the correct thing takes guessing and you can guess correctly but be off by a pixel, it makes for a particularly frustrating experience.
Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner – You clearly hitched a ride on the wrong steamship, since this one has a cursed amphora aboard that traps the crew as spirits. This game is also an oddball by a different company: The graphics are done in a 3D CGI style that aims to be slightly more realistic; the story is more contained to the various staterooms of the haunted ship; you generally can’t pick up things you don’t need yet; there are several “action” sequences of scaring off rats and steering the ship; and the hidden object puzzles are more prone to Highlights-style trickery. The protagonist’s stupidity was on the level of most games, though: Despite there being a clearly-visible fire extinguisher in the first hallway, you need to assemble a bucket on a rope and drop it overboard to fill it (twice!) to put out a fire. I found this a bit more annoying than most others.
Overall: Dark Angels and Shtriga were the best of this lot, though nothing was amazing. By this point, it should be obvious this is a shovelware genre. I have another ten games in the Alchemy Bundle whenever I’m next in the mood; I think they’re up to Cryptic Bundle 10 at this point but I stopped buying new ones a while ago.
