Artifacts of the Past: Ancient Mysteries

Artifacts of the Past: Ancient Mysteries
by: Kranx Productions

available: Big Fish Iwin



Help Doctor Artifact launch an expedition! Equipped with
unique devices, research mysterious items and travel across the globe!
Strangers from around the world hunt Doctor Artifact down just to have
their relics examined. Carefully decipher the artifacts in a special lab
and watch as amazing and breathtaking stories unfold in Artifacts of
the Past – Ancient Mysteries, a fantastic Hidden Object game.

Click images to enlarge

Artifacts of the Past: Ancients Mysteries

Seems to be a straightforward, linear HOG at first

You have a choice of Easy or Normal mode, as well as whether or not you
wish to have a tutorial (which is very short and to the point).

Sound effects and music are adjustable separately, but there is no
option to turn off the custom cursor. You can have the game full-screen
(or not), and there is a magnifying glass available, should you need it.

Hints are refillable.

Dialogue and mini-games are skippable.

The hidden object scenes are "junk-piley", though not overwhelmingly so.
If you do not like it when items are hidden in weird places (ie. fork
in the sky, robot toy in an ancient Egyptian display), then you may not
enjoy this.

Gameplay is interspersed with story. Progressing on to my second hidden
object scene revealed that in addition to finding objects by list, we
have some fragmented objects to find.

At this point I exited the game and restarted from scratch. I had begun
the game on "Easy" mode to get the gist of the game, but during the FROG
scene, I was disappointed to see every item I was supposed to find
lighting up as soon as I moused-over the area.

I was pleased to see that the hidden object list is randomized, so I
didn't have to search for exactly the same items. I was able to breeze
through the first scene (and the subsequent mini-puzzle) pretty quickly.
Coming to that first FROG scene, I was disappointed to find that
certain objects (though not all) are STILL lighting up when I mouse-over
them!

I'm not a huge fan of FROGs to begin with (seems like all you have to do
is click on anything that looks out-of-place), and the hand-holding was
definitely irritating.

I continued the game, and with 20 minutes left on the demo, I uninstalled it.

PLEASE, developers, don't give us unsolicited hints! What's the point of
playing a game that shows you everything you need to do? We have two
difficulty levels, so why not actually make one harder than the other?

I will give this games thumbs up for one innovation: There is a button
that will allow you to change your hidden object list. Stuck and don't
want to use a hint? Click the circular arrow button to get a new list of
items to find (have two items left to find? Click the button and now
you have two different items to find).