Shadows: Price for Our Sins

Shadows: Price for Our Sins
by 8Floor Games - February, 2013

Available at:
Big Fish for PC
GameHouse
iWin
Steam as Bonus Edition (includes Wallpapers and Soundtrack)



It’s Halloween night, and Dylan and her fellow students have decided to throw a Halloween party at abandoned Stone Farm. Little do they know, their decorations aren’t the only things hanging around this spooky house. When the friends stumble upon an ancient artifact, they unwittingly open a portal to the underworld and release the souls of the Stone family, which were being held captive by Lord of Darkness Samhain! The enraged demon steals the souls of the students in revenge, but Dylan narrowly escapes his clutches. Can Dylan earn the help of the escaped spirits and save her friends? Play the game and find out for yourself – if you’ve got the guts.

• Thrilling mystical atmosphere
  
• 35 quest scenes
  
• 18 HO scenes
  
• 30 mini games
  

Click images to enlarge
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Shadows: Price for Our Sins (IHOG)

This game takes place on Halloween night, so it's the perfect game to play right about now.
  
Options include separate sliders for music, sound effects, and ambient sounds, and custom cursor.  When I originally started the game, I had full screen and widescreen options, but I have since made some adjustments to desktop options, and I no longer see these options!   Spooky!

There are two difficulty modes to choose from when you start:  Casual and Expert.  I chose Expert mode, which has no sparkles except to indicate hidden object scenes.  This cannot be changed during gameplay.  The tutorial is optional.

The cutscenes are voiced, and very important to the story... as is our journal, which contains extra story, and no unsolicited hints!   Speaking of which, there are many areas where actions need to be taken, but have NO black bar hints (remember that I'm on Expert mode)!

Hidden object scenes are interactive, with items listed in red needing some sort of action to be taken.  Watch the base of your cursor -- it usually glows yellow, but will start to spin (like the gears we're used to seeing) when there is something of interest.  There is NO misclick penalty.  The list shows eight items for you to find at a time, with the total number of items found/needed to be found at the top of the list.

Only three of the hidden object scenes repeated (later in the game), and when they did, items we'd found there before stayed gone.  These scenes are nicely balanced with the adventure portion of the game.

I really enjoyed the HOS in this game... I never knew what they were going to ask from me next!  Sometimes there were even mini-games within the hidden object scenes.

We have a jump-to MAP, which also shows locations that have actions available.  I counted 35 locations, which doesn't include the zoom-in scenes, puzzle, and hidden object scenes!

Using a HINT during the adventure portion will give you a directional arrow without discharging your hint.

Mini-games are varied, with instructions at the bottom of the puzzle, and are skippable... but here's something I've NEVER seen in a game before:  There is a question mark at the top right of the puzzle, and if you click on it, it explain what you need to do in detail!  How cool is that?   This gives us the ability to fully understand the mechanics of the mini so that we don't have to skip it!  As a side note, one of the mini's is a 10x10 nonogram, which I know some of you love.  Not only do you have to figure out where to place things, but it's by color, too!

Another cool thing about the game is that the devs took the time to EXPLAIN why we need to do some of the tasks:  Why don't we just reach our hand inside the jar?  Why can't we just slide the pot out of the way?  Answers!  Thank you, 8Floor Games!  Finally, devs who address the reality of the situation and give us believable reasons for our actions!

Shadows: Price for our Sins has everything that I love about this kind of game -- a complex and non-predictable story, a heavy adventure feeling, nice graphics, good voiceovers, great gameplay, and long!  There is so much more that I'd like to tell you about, but it would require spoilers, and I don't want to ruin anything for you.

This is an awesome game, and I highly recommend it!

Wonderful review, Genki! I'm picking this up with a PCC on Monday.
ETA - Ha ha, I placed it in my cart and it looks like I'd already purchased it a while ago...   Never played it though, so now would be a good time to download it and start playing!

Excellent Review genki!

Interesting & Engaging
    

BASED ON COMPLETED GAME


A HALLOWEEN party goes horribly wrong, and you are left to pick up the pieces. It is a BOARDGAME that releases the EVIL SHADOWS that have kidnapped your friends, but there is much more to discover. Find out why the farm has been CURSED, help the ghosts of the people who once lived here to move on, and SAVE YOUR FRIENDS.

There’s a lot to learn and a lot to do in this adventure, and I found it a very long game to play. There is a LOT OF (OPTIONAL) STORY, presented mostly in diary pages, with some conversations with the several ghosts you help.

There are also a lot of HO SCENES with LISTS where about half the items require EXTRA STEPS. The locations for each segment of the game, and therefore the HO SCENES, vary tremendously from each other, giving the game a lot of VISUAL VARIETY.

The PUZZLES were mostly fairly EASY, some of them quite unusual.

The game is well put together, with CLEAR GRAPHICS, a INTERACTIVE JUMP MAP, HELPFUL HINT, and  JOURNAL.

The SOUNDTRACK includes FORGETTABLE MUSIC and INESCAPABLE CRYING & MOANING. This was interspersed with dogs barking and other farm related sounds, but it was the child crying that drove me nuts. She kept it up even when we found and rescued her doggie!

VOICEOVERS were not used for all the conversations – usually it was dialogue boxes – but when it was it was very well done.

The boardgame at the centre of all this is an interesting and fun approach, and is great at helping to structure the game.

I can’t give you a logical explanation, but the feel of this game was quite different from other games, and worth a trial just to check that out.

I found it a very entertaining game.

I Recommend This Game

I wanted to copy this conversation over from the Featured Game thread so that it can easily be found again:

RenaissanceMom wrote:In the boathouse HO scene, I can't open up a box b/c the game won't allow me to press the correct buttons. (That is, I can press them but the game won't recognize that I have.) So I can't get the necessary items to progress through the game. I have closed and re-entered the scene. I have closed the game and re-opened it. I have checked the walkthrough. Nothing works to get me past this glitch.

Me:
I'd hit one of the buttons before I had the whole "code", and didn't realize that one of them was still depressed!  Make sure you have the right three depressed, then make sure that none of the others are still pressed down!

RenaissanceMom wrote:Well I finished the game, kind of. The final scene went black so I didn't see anything happening. After a while, I hit the "skip" button (the only thing I could see) but the credits began rolling. I got the gist of it, but missed anything that was said or occurred amongst the main characters. Oh well.

Me:
Oh, MAN!  Well, you didn't miss a lot.

Spoiler:

I would have liked to see a bit more closure, but perhaps 8Floor was planning to revisit the story and pick up from that moment in a sequel. 

Spoiler:

Despite these qustions, I REALLY enjoyed the game, which is why I recommended and featured it!

RenaissanceMom wrote:
Thanks Genki and you're right - I didn't miss much! LOL
But what about

SPOILER:

I loved the beginning of the game best and thought the storyline got sidetracked a lot.

SPOILER:

But then again this sort of thing happens in games all the time. 

Me:
About Samantha, you did miss something:

Spoiler:

I agree that the original creepiness of the story lost its luster as we progressed, but I enjoyed the game regardless.

Yes absolutely! The setup and much of it was near-perfect Halloweeniness.
But now I want to play Cruel Games: Red Riding Hood again!

Steam now has this as a Bonus Edition, with includes Wallpapers and Soundtrack.  Currently on sale for $4.99

Got this game in February, & had a lot of fun with it.  Great game for Halloween time!

Halloween BUMP~!

Shadows: Price For Our Sins (IHOG)
2013 review updated after playing Steam version, 2019

A gem that was ahead of its time.  Don't let the negative reviews throw you off of this fun game!

Options include separate sliders for Music, SFX and Ambients, Full-screen, Widescreen (NOT default) and Custom Cursor.  Choice of Casual or Expert Mode, which cannot be changed during gameplay.  I had a few technical difficulties, but nothing game-breaking.  Read on to learn more~!

Story:

It's Halloween night, and Dylan (female) has plans to meet her friends at an old farmhouse for a Halloween bash, but of course she is late.  Shortly after joining her friends, she leaves the house to answer her phone, and all hell breaks loose... Literally!  Her friends unwittingly opened a portal to the Underworld, releasing a demon's captured souls... and so he takes their souls in exchange.  Now it's up to Dylan to save the souls of the living... and the dead!


I highly encourage you to check Journal often, as there is quite a bit of extra story in there!  The diary entries and cutscenes are also very important to the story.  Unfortunately, one of the first - and most pivotal - cutscene lags terribly, and part of the scene gets chopped off at the end.  This wasn't an issue when I played it six years ago, so I'm guessing that it's a problem with Windows 10.  The cutscene is here, if you'd like to watch it all the way through (the link will go straight to the cutscene in question):


Gameplay:

We have an interactive MAP with insta-transport, as well as directional HINTS if needed.  There is only occasional backtracking for most of the game, but this increases towards the end.  There is a really great flow to the gameplay, making it feel very natural to be going back to these locations.  I counted 35 locations, which doesn't include the zoom-in scenes, puzzle and hidden object scenes!

The Hidden Object Scenes, themselves, are interactive junkpiles, with not only items needing some kind of action, but also containing zoom-ins and occasional puzzles during the HOS.  There is NO misclick penalty, but random clicking won't get you far, since only 8 of the items you need to find will be listed at any given time.

Only three of the hidden object scenes repeated (later in the game), and when they did, items we'd found there before stayed gone.  The HOS are nicely-balanced with the adventure portion of the game. 

Mini-games are varied, with instructions at the bottom of the puzzle, are skippable, and there are additional instructions at the top right of the screen (click the ?) if you need them.  This is the first HOG I ever saw with that option!  There IS one mini with incorrect instructions (color doesn't matter):


Something I really appreciated about the game is that the devs took the time to EXPLAIN why we need to do some of the tasks:  Why don't we just reach our hand inside the jar?  Why can't we just slide the pot out of the way?  Finally, devs who address the reality of the situation and give us believable reasons for our actions!

A board game is central to both the story and the gameplay, though I don't want to get into spoiler territory by explaining how.  Suffice to say that I enjoyed the mechanic, and it fit in well with the story and the gameplay.

Sights and Sounds:

The 3D modeling leaves a lot to be desired, but cutscenes aside, I love the character design.  Beautiful, creepy, goth, cute and even scary, I just really enjoyed them.  The game's locations are environmental, and the sounds/music complement the spooky atmosphere beautifully.

Bonus Edition Content: (Steam version)

• 5 Wallpapers in 3 sizes (up to 1920x1080) + additional artwork
  
• 10 Music Tracks
  

This bonus content cannot be accessed directly through the game.  To find these, right-click on the game name in your Steam Game Manager, then choose Properties.  Click on the Local Files tab, then choose Browse Local Files.  Go into the VipPack folder to find two additional folders - one for the wallpapers, and one for the soundtrack.


Verdict:

There are some technical issues with cutscenes (and one puzzle with incorrect instructions.  I can see why this game has negative reviews, but these issues are far outbalanced by the good.

Shadows: Price for our Sins has everything that I love about this kind of game -- a complex and non-predictable story, a heavy adventure feeling, nice graphics, good voice overs (albeit not well-synced with mouth movements) and fun gameplay.  Despite taking advantage of the interactive map (a lot!) and having played it before, it took me about 4.5 hours to complete!  A truly enjoyable and spooky treat for Halloween.