Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily kinda puts your detective work to work

Y’all remember when I snatched up that Humble Mobile Bundle from Artifex Mundi earlier this year despite not having the specific type of mobile phone required to play any of the games on? The one with 10 games when all was said and done? Good, good. Then I don’t need to rehash many of the details of how I’m working my way through them. However, I am happy to report that I’ve now completed two of these narrative-driven hidden object romps, the first being Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova and the second being the hilariously titled Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily. I’m not going to say I’m on a roll, but things are certainly rolling along.

Let’s just get into what Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily is all about. I bet you think it’s about a crime, as well as some secrets. You’re not wrong. A grim murder interrupts a private detective’s vacation plans to have some time alone at a secluded hotel in the snowy mountains. Alas, she only has one clue to work from: a mysterious paper lily attached to the victim’s frozen body. As anyone who saw The Shining a bunch of times could expect, a blizzard has cut off all communication with the outside world, leaving her to her own devices and curious wit–aka, your ability to click everywhere. The story is campy and melodramatic, but some fun is to be had at figuring out who is involved and how. It’s a more grounded affair, even going to the effort of scientifically explaining how our killer is quickly freezing his victims.

I never know what to think about these types of hidden objects games when it comes to graphics. Visually, Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily looks all right during the scenes where you are finding a list of objects, but poor elsewhere, especially the cutscenes or where action is supposed to be taking place. There are some animated effects that help liven up the frigid scenes, but every single person you encounter is factory-made, extremely stiff, and only capable of a limited number of facial expressions. The voice acting is no better or worse than it was in Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova, to the point that the game might’ve been stronger without it. Also, at one point after being away from the game for a few days, I got mixed up two characters until one of them died, cementing that I had him pegged incorrectly as the game’s villain. All of that is to say that the art direction, writing, and voice acting did little to make these people stand out from the crowd, let alone each other.

One feature found in Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily that I didn’t see in Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova are “crime scenes.” These are sections that must be thoroughly searched for clues. Instead of searching for a list of items, you must examine the scene and click on the elements you think are related to the crime. Once you find them all, you must then put them in chronological order, which, thanks to the inclusion of colored lines on multiple tiles, is easier than it sounds. After you arrange everything correctly, our detective will walk herself through the crime to see how it ultimately happened. It’s nothing amazing gameplay-wise, but it helps break up the puzzles a bit from the hidden objects scenes and mind-benders. Strangely, hidden object scenes can be substituted for a game of Mahjong if desired, but I come to these things for the hidden objects so I only tried this once, despite my affection for ruining games of Mahjong.

Steam Achievements–I got them all. This doesn’t happen often, and I actually missed one for Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova. Anyways, they weren’t terribly hard, with a number devoted to moments in the story, not using skips or hints for puzzles, and finding every collectible in the forms of snowflakes and origami. Origamis? Whatever. These were a bit tricky to spot in many of the scenes, but that wonky part of my brain refused to let me move on to the next scene until I scoured every clickable corner.

All that said, I’m not sure which title from the Humble Mobile Bundle from Artifex Mundi to tackle next. I’m leaning towards Eventide: Slavic Fable, but Mythic Wonders: The Philosopher’s Stone also sounds like a hoot, even if I already know it has nothing to do with that boy wizard that lived under the stairs. We’ll see. I’m beginning to head into that part of the year where I unfortunately don’t write as much about the games I play, and if the rest of these hidden object affairs from Artifex Mundi are, more or less, the same experience then we might just have to settle on review haikus and move on with life. It’ll be tough, but we’ll get through it, together.

Matching pairs of tiles and rotating never felt so good

I’ve been a huge fan of all things mahjong since the good ol’ college days when I discovered some Flash-based version online that I could play in a resized browser while having AIM conversations next to it with friends and girlfriends into the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning. It kept me active at a moment’s glance despite my angry eyelids wanting to shut and bring in Mr. Sandman. Conversely, I also adored the time I spent with Picross 3D. You might be wondering what the two of those have in common, and it is beyond evident once you sit down and give Microsoft’s Taptiles a go.

Taptiles, beside being a free download on Windows 10, is mahjong, but with a twist. Usually, a mahjong field is static, either from a top-down perspective or three-quarters view, meaning you can’t see what is behind a number of tiles until you clear the ones on top away first, working only with what is before you. This time around, you can rotate the stack of tiles Fez-like to see every clickable, decorated rectangle, which means you can’t ever really get stuck. Can’t find another tile with those squiggly blue water lines on it? Turn, turn, turn, and you’ll either see it on the other side or find another pair to make to clear the path forward. I’ve only run into a few spots where I ran out of moves, but the game just auto-shuffles the tiles for you.

There are three modes of play in Taptiles: Dash, Origins, and Relaxation. Allow me to sum each of them up in a few sentences. For Dash mode, it’s a race against the clock, with the only way to add more time to it by quickly matching tiles and using special power-ups to help you finish more rounds faster. Truthfully, I found this too stressful and not what I’m looking for when it comes to a game of mahjong. Origins mode contains larger, more challenging puzzles, as well as more relaxed time limit, though the later stages still expect you to move fast. This mode requires some quick thinking and reflexes, but is more enjoyable in the end. Lastly, there’s Relaxation mode, a.k.a. my mode, which offers calming puzzles without the pressure of a ticking clock.

There are also daily challenges. Five, to be exact. Each day, of every month. They range from easy to difficult, and the better you do at them, the more points you’ll earn, which helps increase a progress bar towards acquiring bronze, silver, and gold medals. To be honest, I’ve only logged into the daily challenges a few times to do the easy puzzles; I’m not finding anything worth investing heavily in with this feature, though, for some, I’m sure it’s a cool addition for bragging rights.

I’ve noodled with a few of the timed modes, but my main go-to in Taptiles is Relaxation mode because it lets me play like the good ol’ days, where I can leave it open and do some mindless Internetting, returning to it now and then to clear out a few tiles and watch the board get smaller. Sure, I’m not racking up any sweet non-stop matching bonuses, but that’s never been what mahjong is about. At least to me. I clicked really fast for a bit there and got the Achievement for a speed bonus chain of 30; that said, don’t expect me to pop the one for 150, as that is far too stressful on both my heart and eyes.

How do you prefer to match up a whole bunch of bamboo, character, and circle tiles? With or without a timer? In real life, on a tabletop? As a means of therapy for battling dementia? I honestly want to know.

Loading up my 3DS with some new and old gaming experiences

Suddenly, there’s a whole bunch of new stuff on my Nintendo 3DS, and some of it I actually want to play–I know, pretty crazy times right now. Duck and cover!

Basically, I was finally able to get the eShop running the other day on the little handheld that couldn’t and decided that I would buy $20.00 worth of…$20.00 for shopping purposes. Yay, no more pointless points! Except, strangely, at the very end of my buying blitz, I still had an annoying $0.73 leftover, now doomed to sit unspent for–most likely–many months. Unless Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version drops tomorrow. But yeah, $0.73. Kind of like how I still have 10 Microsoft Points in my account, and there’s nothing I can spend it on. Oh well. For some reason, despite downloadable games for the Nintendo eShop being priced like so–$1.99, $3.99, $7.99–I kind of forgot to factor in tax, so my $20.00 splintered quickly, leaving my “account” to have some change left standing.

Let’s do a quick rundown of the shiny new:

Excitebike 3D

It’s the same ol’ Excitebike, but with a 3D coat, which no one is forcing you to wear. I tried it on and then took it off quickly. Didn’t do much except make the towering ramps stick out a bit. The classic levels, sounds, and controls are all there, and it’s still a blast to hit a ramp and land successfully, and it’s still not a blast to crash and yell at the little pixel dude to “Hurry up!!!” It’s hard to complain too much about this as it’s a free download from now until some time in late July. A nice new feature is the ability to save your course creations.

Pokédex 3D

Another freebie, but this one seems to be a freebie for all eternity. You start out with a random selection of Pokemon and unlock more via SpotPass and StreetPass and PokePass and a thousand other ways. You can organize as you please, but its best feature is that all the ‘mon are animated in 3D and look gorgeous. Audino never looked so huggable. Still, I’d have loved to have seen some kind of bonus interaction for us portable gamers that actually had a copy of Pokemon White/Black as a nice “thank you” for buying the game. Maybe special skins for the Pokedex based on how many you’ve caught in the retail game or something like that. I dunno. It’s nice and fun to click around on, but it can only do so much.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

It’s been a struggle, but I’ve resisted playing this so far, and here’s why: I’d like to cover my first 30 minutes with it for The First Hour as it’s a game I’ve never played, but–judging from screenshots only–seems to play a lot like my absolute favorite videogame of all time (OF ALL TIME!). That would be The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, naturally. Hopefully soon I can find a pocket of time and a place with air conditioning to take notes.

Music On: Electric Piano

I nabbed this based solely on a suggestion from the comments. It’s a keyboard simulator with some drum tracks and knobs to play with. A fun, silly time-killer, and cheap to boot. You can speed up and slow down background beats, as well as pitch the keyboard notes to high heaven. Haven’t figured out how to record anything yet, but will do so eventually. And then it’s on to music stardom, headlining for Lady Gaga and singing about how we’re all beautiful, inside and out. Can’t wait. Tour starts Winter 2012.

Simply Mahjong

The game’s title says it all: it’s mahjong. But here’s the thing; I’m a closeted mahjong addict. Something about the match-two-but-with-strategy gameplay gets me every time. I’ve done a couple of puzzles so far, and it’s exactly what was promised. There’s three sets of difficulty, which each tier getting its own bundle of puzzles to complete. I’d say there’s probably over 100 in total. What’s funny is that when you type in “mahjong” in the 3DS eShop search box, you get like five different titles, all of them more or less the same thing. I closed my eyes and picked this one, but I’m sure any of them would be satisfying.

Classic Scrabble

Ahh, yes. The game of words for wordsmiths worldwide. Love me some Scrabble. I played one game so far and dominated my A.I. opponent, but that was on default difficulty. Gotta ramp it up. It’s nice that every word played also gets a definition so you can’t call BS on words like EDS (education) or LING (a heath plant). Only weird thing is you gotta turn the device sideways like a book to play it. Not a deal-breaker, but odd nonetheless.

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And that’s about it for now. It’s nice to have some extra games to fiddle with on the go other than Find Mii or Face Raiders (which isn’t always playable depending on where you are playing). I do look forward to Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version, as well as the free download of The Four Swords in September, but other than that, not sure what else I’d be interested in getting. Unless they dropped a ton of SNES games for download, which I doubt will happen. Please happen.