Review by Cordia, Nov. 7, 2010I was trying to decide between this game or Vacation Mogul, and decided to continue the theme of games based on romance novels.
Nora Roberts: Vision in White was developed by I-play and Floodlight Games. These two developers teamed up on the James Patterson: Women’s Murder Club games, and Floodlight also developed the game Special Inquiry: The Hand That Feeds. I-play has a larger catalog of games, including Deadtime Stories, Buried in Time, the Dream Day Wedding series, and Classic Adventures: The Great Gatsby.
Vision in White is a straight Hidden Object game with mini-games to break up the hidden object scenes. The scenes are junk pile, but so beautifully done that I did not let it bother me. I finished this game over the course of about a week. It has excellent voice acting to add life to the story. I have never read the novel, but I hope it feels more fully developed than what was told in the game. The game seems to try to tackle the entire plot of the book, rather than just the main story, and so it was harder to get invested because of how scattered and thin it felt. I actually really liked the music. Admittedly, it did get a little repetitive, but otherwise it was very soothing.
There are two modes of play, and one has a timer. I played the timed version for the added challenge. I had to replay a couple of scenes and cut it close on a few others, but the timer seemed pretty reasonable to me. There are also a limited number of hints per scene or chapter, I can’t recall. Each scene provides the opportunity to earn another hint, and the hints do carry over. However, finding the hint objects are quite difficult and they don’t seem to be worth the time (at least not in the timed mode) to find. The hint objects take the form of four letters, spelling the word “VOWS” and there were several scenes that I simply could not find at least one of the letters. In order to pick up the extra hint, all the letters must be found.
The mini-games all relate to the story in some way. Some of them were too vague about the object for my comfort, particularly the game that involved taking pictures, and I was not too fond of trying to seat guests, but it wasn’t especially difficult. The one I had trouble with was placing flowers in a bouquet based on a pencil drawing of the bouquet. The flowers looked too similar and the controls were a little clunky.
In addition to having a timed option, the scenes have some variation in object placement, which should add to replay value. If I ever get through my current backlog of games that I’ve picked up and never finished, I think I might actually play this one again. I honestly do not know how to explain this anomaly- there really is no reason this game should appeal to me, but it did. The scenes also remain fairly vivid in my mind. I liked the story well enough, but that doesn’t seem like enough to set it apart from other junk pile Hidden Object games out there.
You might not enjoy this game if:
- You are not a fan of Hidden Object games in general.
- The game simply does not draw you in upon trying it.
Too Long; Did Not Read: I suspect this game has some sort of subliminal messaging in it, because I found it to be inexplicably enjoyable. It is a junk pile Hidden Object game with what feels like it could be a great story attached. There are two modes of play, one without a timer and one with. The mini-games are interesting but not always well explained.
Have you played or trialed Vision in White? What were your impressions of it? Did this rather awkward review effect your desire to trial Vision in White?
