Deadly Puzzles: Toymaker (Straight HOG)

Deadly Puzzles: Toymaker
by Grey Wizard Innovative / Artifex Mundi - Feb. 2014

Available at:
Artifex Mundi
Big Fish
GameHouse
iWin



Toymaker is a hidden object game featuring challenging hidden object scenes and a thrilling crime story about a quiet town shaken by a series of murders.

When a mysterious serial killer begins murdering young women, authorities are left running in circles trying to figure out the madman’s devious games. His grim calling card is the strange toys he leaves at the crime scenes, leading the media to nickname the killer “Toymaker.”

The detective leading the investigation sees no hope in catching the madman, until everything changes when he receives a package from the killer himself containing a video.  
To find the psychopath, our heroine must examine crime scenes for clues left by the killer, and find the plot connecting each of the Toymaker’s victims.

Does accepting the killer’s challenge mean taking on a race against time she is sure to lose? Will she discover the killer’s identity and stop him from committing another gruesome murder? Or has she only put herself in his sights?

• Challenging puzzles and addictive mini-games
  
• Interactive location map and journal
  
• White-knuckled crime story with thrilling plot twists
  

Click images to enlarge
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I really enjoyed the beta for this. I don't usually go for straight HOGs myself, I used to get them for my 85 year old "mum" who used to play with me. But this one I'll be buying even without her, because it just 'works' somehow. Is an interesting story and an interesting style of gameplay.

Excellent HOG!*****

BASED ON BETA & DEMO

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
It’s been a while since we had a truly exclusively Hidden Object game. It’s been worth the wait. This is a marvelous whodunit with all the flavour and quality of a HOPA without the added stress and confusion associated with complex stories and quests. Here we follow the investigation from HOP to HOP with a smooth and easy transition that will delight true HOG players.

SIGHTS & SOUNDS
Sadly, this game is not made for wide-screen, but it does have an aspect correction option, and in any case looks quite good stretched. Good quality ‘painted’ graphics make items easy to see – once you look at them the right way, of course!

They are accompanied by fun ambient sounds and an excellent voiceover who keeps us up to date without too much waffling and stating of the obvious (yeah, sure, there is a little of that of course). The bad guy is fun, clear voiceover, and the way he hides his identity is a giggle. I love how subtle the music can be – for instance, the ‘Asia lover’s’ apartment has ‘Asian’ music that is for once not overdone.

One feature I first found in the beta (done eons ago, I thought this game was doomed), that really tickled me, I found the overhead fan’s steady whup, whup, whup, annoying. Out of pique I clicked on it as if that would shut it up, and it did!! Though in the demo, we aren’t tortured by that noise, we can turn the fan on, if we want or need to (full realism here, it’s hot so we need to). What a wonderful touch! We are also expected to take a little care of that office of ours, so click around. *wink*

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
A serial killer calling himself the “Toymaker” is playing games with us. He leaves clues and video recordings at the scenes of his crimes, taunting us. As the detective in charge of the case, we must follow his clues to various locations and find what he has left for us, solve his cryptic puzzles and track him down.

GAMEPLAY
This is suitably simple. We work in our office. And travel from there to the locations on the map.

Each location has something the Toymaker has left us, which forms part of a puzzle we need to solve. Or sometimes the clues are brought to us from other sources, such as emergency phone calls. Either way, we always find more and more locations to investigate. So each chapter consists of us receiving an initial clue, pointing in the direction of one or more locations. In each we conduct a HOP to find another piece of the puzzle. Once all locations have been cleared, we must solve the puzzle to move on.

There is a hnt button, that works in your office, but it has very little it can tell you there. It is sometimes useful in the HOP scenes, which contain objects that are cleverly disguised, although obvious once you see them. The game has a notebook, where details of the puzzles are kept, but not the dossier information on suspects that I would have liked to see recorded after they are displayed to us. While most HOG players aren’t much interested in story, this game has a great one, and a dossier on suspects or similar would have added to the fun.

My one serious criticism is that the cursor is way too big.

COMBINED IMPACT
This is a neat game, both in design and production standards. I would absolutely have to own it were I a primarily HOG player. As it is, despite preferring HOPAs, it goes straight on to my wish list.

I recommend this game!

Just a note having just completed this game.

The promise shown in the demo is proven true throughout. A very nicely put together game - easy, relaxing and just interesting enough to keep your attention without truly straining the brain cells.

Very much in the manner of classic HOGs with a chapter with a number of locations, interspersed with a puzzle at the end of each. Locations revisited. But it doesn't go on and on forever the way those classics do.

The thing I really like about it is it shows the imagination and professionalism of a HOPA, without the effort. My main objection to the Big City Adventure games et al, is that they have not improved their production values to compare with the other great HO games out there now.

This game is an answer to that criticism.

I was debating if I should have gotten this game last time we had the Artifex Mundi 1/2 off sale and didn't.    I won't pass it up next time.