The Clockwork Man: The Hidden World

well that was easy. finished the whole thing in just 4 hours. and the ending was crap..... just a giant cut scene. puzzles were good but there were glitches, like parts of the postcard not being on the screen etc. was ok for killing a saturday, but wasnt worth paying for.

hidden objects is my favourite game and although this game is getting on in years it srill holds some surprizes it is a good starting point for a newcomer

This was an entertaining game to play. A great concept that builds on the previous title. Beautiful artwork.

i didnt enjoy this game, not quite clear but i manged to finish it tho lol .. :) i think those who like the real challange will enjoy this

I bought this game a couple of years ago but could never get it to work until now. That said, it still gave me some trouble and I had to restart it a couple of times when the HOG scenes crashed. This is a true HOG game without a point and click side to it. There are some puzzles though that are fun. I enjoyed this game much more than the other one in this series. If you expect an Artifex Mundi Style game, this is not it. If you are looking for a more pure HOG experience, go for it.

Very so-and-so - not super bad but not good enough to recommend.
This game tries to break a few conventions... sometimes well executed... sometimes not so much :|

- Ambiguous objects in HO scenes
- Weird storyline
- Solutions to puzzles 30 pages back in the journal
- scrollable and zoomable scenes are bad HO scenes... it is super annoying when you cannot be sure if the objects are visible (please avoid this, devs!)
- some bad non-standard mini games with bad explanations

+ some nice non-standard mini games
+ artstyle is neat
+ loved the "animation" style
+ many HO scences
+ a few non-linear regions
+ sprocket <3

short and nice story, a lot of look-and-find scenes and the one or the other challenging puzzle.
some funny characters and nice, beautiful drawn locations.

i completed it in about 6 hrs.
required some modification (compatiblity mode set to windows 7) on windows 10 to play.

An engaging HOG with high production value

• A mix of HOG and point-and-click problem solving.
  
• I mentioned high production value: excellent art, music and voice acting throughout.
  
• A simple but interesting story.
  
• Some scenes let you scroll or zoom for more searching, which is fun. Takes some getting used to.
  
• Dialog between characters is fun enough that you won't just click through it. This is helped by the excellent voice acting.
  
• Throughout the game, the main character keeps a journal that serves as summary of the story and a reminder of what needs doing next. It's well written and beautifully illustrated.
  
• As in the first game, there's an elaborate hint system where you can choose how exactly you want to be helped: a preview of what objects look like, a radar that highlights items, a straight-up locator, and a narrative hint guide.
  

• Probably the worst offence of this series is how objects might be partially obstructed behind other items in the scene, sometimes in a way that hides their defining features.
  
• Although this problem is not as prevalent here as in the first game, you still occasionally need to find objects that end up looking nothing like what you expected. A shovel or a saw will end up looking like very strange variations of each. Not what you imagine in your mind at all. A hint system allows you to see a preview of the object, but why should have to use that? But, this rarely happens, unlike in the first game where it was just terrible.
  
• Also improved from the first game but still present: some tiny, tiny objects and fiddly clicking.
  
• The point-and-click sections necessitate pixel hunting and mouse sweeping, unless you're willing to use hints. Later in the game, a hint allows you to see all interactive items for a short time.
  
• Related to the above points, I again get the feeling that they really want you to make use of the hint system as part of your experience. That's because the hint system is well developed and kind of fun to use, they probably wanted to capitalise on it.
  

• Not widescreen, no high resolution
  
• No Steam integration (overlay or screenshots or achievements / cards)
  
• Can't Alt-Tab away from the game (if you're in fullscreen); the screen will flash a bit and then put you back inside.
  
[*]Game wouldn't run on my PC, I played it on another PC (runs fine in Windows 8) and the developers were nice enough to try and help in the forum.

It's always annoying when technical issues get in the way of enjoyment of a game. I'm doing this to compliment or complain about design decisions, not coding errors. Where's the fun in pointing out that someone forgot to add a colon somewhere in the thousands of lines of text that make up the framework of a game? Still, sometimes games are so badly compromised that it must be mentioned. Clockwork Man: The Hidden World is one such game. It tells the story of Miranda, a young scientist bent of uncovering the secret behind her parents' disappearance nearly a decade earlier. She'll travel to Thule with the help of her clockwork robot sidekick - a small golden droid who speaks entirely in bleeps and bloops, turning him into a sort of combination C-3P0 and R2D2.

Sadly, this journey is hampered by both design errors and technical gaffs, which I'll detail as we move through the... Hidden Object Criteria!

Criteria 1: To what degree do the puzzle screens look like a thrift store vomited on my monitor?

Oh, it's bad. Extremely bad. While the game tries to keep the items true to the steampunk Victorian setting, there is no excuse for how absolutely covered in garbage the game's screens are. One particularly dire example gives a quaint Irish cottage the character of a trash yard, with empty pots, furniture, and bits of food scattered over every concievable surface. Then there are rampant cases of size-cheating - in one case I was asked to look for a pocket knife which was hidden in the spokes of a wagon wheel, making it something along the lines of eighteen inches big. This is all made worse by the developers' decision to include 'scrolling' hidden object screens, in which the player is forced to scroll the screen up/down or left/right to find all the items. I'm baffled by this choice, since it takes the baseline concept of hidden object games - put 20 items on a screen and have the player look for them - and increases the amount of trash-covered space they have to look through by threefold. Absurdly, this massively increased difficulty is accompanied by one of the slowest-to-recharge hint buttons I've ever encountered. Also, during once stretch of playing the game the hint button glitched out on me and flat-out refused to recharge, stranding me alone with some of the most annoying difficult hidden object scenes ever.

Criteria 2: Are the searches justified by the premise/story?

Absolutely not. This is classic 'find a load of nonsense, get one useful item' design. Occasionally the game offers some meagre justification, such as 'clean up all the bottles in this yard' or 'help me find all the food I've squirrelled away', but by and large there's no rationalization given for any of Miranda's searches.

Criteria 3: How well do the various puzzles and object searches meld together to form a coherent whole?

It's a compelling enough narrative - villains are on their way to Thule, where Miranda's parents were last seen, and she's got to go along to stop said conspirators from ruining that paradise undisturbed by history. The journey isn't structured particularly well, opening with Miranda exploring a mine, then flashing back to an extended sequence of searching through offices and attics a few weeks earlier. The developers are trying to use the cinematic device of starting with the action and then zipping back to tell the story, but the mine exploration isn't notably more thrilling than searching for old documents and artifacts hidden in a house - this is a hidden object adventure, after all, and the 'thrilling' scale is only ever going to get so high. While the hidden object puzzles don't usually make the most sense, at least the puzzles hit in nicely with the setting. Repairing a submarine and unlocking alien technology seem like the kind of things that could be solved with clever puzzle design, and they are - but the lack of a skip button could prove terribly frustrating to players looking to just enjoy a pleasant story and some object hunting.

Clockwork Man: The Hidden World has too many missteps to easily recommend. The HOSs are needlessly complicated - beyond their sheer size, they also feature parallax scrolling, meaning that different planes of the background move at different speeds, covering items at different times. Good luck finding a snake when it's only visible for a few degrees halfway to the right edge of the level! Glitches in the hint system mean that sections of the game drag on far longer than they're welcome, and sometimes the music gets stuck, and continues playing a single set of atmospheric effects in every screen. It's a mess, and the story just isn't good enough to be worth slogging through to experience all of it.

It's better than the first game, but that's not saying much. The first one was absolutely terrible, while this one is merely awful.

The hidden object scenes very inconsistent in difficulty. Most of the objects are glaringly obvious but there's often one or two that are tiny and blend with the background, making them almost impossible to see. This is only made worse by the low resolution. The difficulty progression is also way off; many of the early scenes are far more difficult than ones later in the game. The items in the scenes are quite boring and the player is often required to find multiples of the same object. Some objects are mislabelled, quite badly so in some cases.

The puzzles are for the most part pathetically easy, although, again, some are much harder. And again, this seems to have nothing to do with progression through the game; some are just randomly hard for no apparent reason. Some puzzles lack context, meaning that the only way to solve them is to randomly try things until something works or just wait for the hint bar to charge.

The story is fairly bad, although well acted, and the ending is just rubbish. Perhaps the most annoying thing about it is that it has nothing to do with the story of the first game and in no way addresses the cliffhanger ending from the first. I thought that perhaps it would tie in later on, but nope, it's like the devs just forgot the first game exists. Which in all honesty I can't blame them for since the first game is so atrocious.

Apart from the gameplay itself there are numerous other problems with this game. There are instances where puzzle elements appear almost completely off screen; and by almost completely I mean that only a single pixel is visible. Some objects in the hidden object scenes are behind parts of the interface and so are not visible at all. The click detection is frequently so picky that it refuses to acknowledge that the player has clicked on an object unless the exact couple of pixels that it is happy with are clicked, leading to a great deal of wasted time looking for objects I had already found and clicked on a few times. Also the sound is somewhat bugged. I found numerous instances where lines of dialogue did not play, and at one point the ambient sound in one scene got stuck in a loop and continued to play in every other scene after that.

Having played many HOGs I feel I have a good basis for comparison and I would have to say that this one is not worth it. Not even if it were free. There are many other HOGs that are far better and much more deserving of your time.

Clock Work Man (Hidden) I have asked three times for help in the puzzle and nothing. I have restarted three times and still puzzle is not working. Too many hours and a dead end. Now I can't find the refund button, so I'm just going to throw the money away and delete it.

Interesting hidden-object game.
Somewhat different mechanics and, original puzzles.
Story is ok. Graphics also.
Excess of cinematics, IMHO.

Excellent story but a very shaky flash implementation that really detracts from the experience. Many crashes that required a hard reset to recover from. To be honest I would not have purchased it if it was clear to me that it was written in flash, so I guess I see why they didn't tell me...

Worth playing but just be aware.

Managed to make it through the first episode :o( because had to have that to install this one. Not bothering to complete this game too frustrating. Again I am looking for tiny objects and the hint/help button doesn't work just makes a noise with no results it just goes to reload for the next time. Don't bother with next time the other indicator says they is no help for this location. Have to go online to use a walkthrough if I want to complete it. Too many object searches with not actual travelling through cities, buildings with hallways etc. just leaping from single places and rooms over maps with no roads or paths, adventure lost. Into the my krap file it goes.

This sequel to The Clockwork Man is a significant improvement. It has more and much better puzzles, and a bit of old-fashioned point-and-click adventuring.

The name, by the way, makes no sense, because there is no clockwork man: he was destroyed in the first episode.

I'll copy-and-paste some things from my review of the previous episode, because they are all relevant here:

Some hidden-object scenes are innovative, in that they involve zooming (dumb) or scrolling (cool). Otherwise, they are of moderate difficulty, and sometimes not quite fair.

Another innovation is in the hint system, which involves constantly upgrading your robot helper. But ... the whole point of playing such games is to avoid the hints and enjoy the hidden-object scenes! I never used the robot, so this innovation was lost on me.

I'd like to thank the developer for supporting Linux, but unfortunately the Linux port isn't good. I could not activate fullscreen mode (though at least I could maximize the window) and could never quite get the sound levels right. (The default sound level has the music as loud as the voice acting, which makes it impossible to hear what people are saying.) The game seems to be have been developed in Flash -- which I don't mind, as long as the final result works. As it stands, it's all a bit sluggish and buggy (I have a very powerful PC, so hardware is not the issue).

This is a review for both "Clockwork Man" and "Clockwork Man: The Hidden World" since I played them back to back and they share the same lead character. Actually, I've played both these games many times on a different PC before I got into Steam. So my playtimes you see for each will probably be less than a normal playthrough since I can whiz through the games by now. We'll start with game #1:

Pros:
- Nice graphics and good character designs. The main girl, Miranda (YAY, she has my name!), is quite lovely.
- The voice acting is also good, for the most part. I really like who they chose for Miranda. Some of the others can be a bit cheesy but it is amusing rather than irritating.
- Interesting story.
- Both games have a very neat hidden object feature. Scrolling and zooming. Not every scene but many allow you to move around the area. Some items are sneakily hidden behind others but just one click to the left or right will reveal them.
- Both games also have an interesting hint system. You travel around with a little robot man and he'll help you locate those tough to find objects. He starts out with the ability to just tell you where a random something is. Then a little into the story, he learns how to give you an item's silhouette (which is the hint I prefer if I'm stuck). Further in the story, he gets other abilities. Like briefly highlighting each metal object on your HO list.
- In both games, the music isn't spectacular but it's pleasant to listen to. Actually, in #2 there are a couple places with very lovely melodies.
- When you beat each game, Freeplay opens up. This gives you random hidden object areas. Good for if you're in that "I have a craving to find stuff" mood.

Cons:
- Neither game is connected to Steam while you're playing. So you won't be able to chat with friends or take steam screenshots.
- Unfortunately, both games have issues when it comes to clicking on items. You'll find you need to be very precise and occasionally you'll need to click more than once or try clicking on a different part of the object. It doesn't happen TOO often or else I wouldn't be able to recommend these games.
- Both games are short. Boo.


Now I'll list the differences in Clockwork Man: The Hidden World:

- The length is longer. Because of the higher difficulty, possibly much longer.
- This game has a journal where Miranda records her adventures and anything of note. You WILL need to use this journal to solve quite a few puzzles.
- There are many more puzzles in #2 and some of them are downright devious. There are no skip options either. Also, it's easy to miss things that you need in some scenes so you might get stuck for awhile. I love this game but it IS a bit aggravating sometimes. Those who enjoy a challenge will have fun. :D
- The story has no tie-ins with the first game. The Hidden World's plot is much more involved than #1 and, in my opinion, fascinating.
- The voice acting, again in my opinion, is better than the first game. (Miranda is still the same, which is good!)
- Maybe it's my imagination but it seems the graphics are better in #2, though I'm pretty sure they used the same game engine.
- When you finish the game, you can rewatch any of the cutscenes.


So in closing, I really enjoy both these games so I'm definitely recommending them to hidden object and puzzle fans. But, because of their short length, you should wait and grab them when they're on sale.


Important Note! The games might not load up for you, which is an issue I had. Right click on the Clockwork Man title, click on Properties, click on Local Files, click on Browse Local Files (which will bring up your program files for the games), right click on the Clockwork Man title again, click on Troubleshoot Compatibility, and finally click on Try recommended settings. I did that for each game and then they worked just fine.

This is the second in the series and if you liked that one then you'll like this one as it's just more of the same. Hidden object scenes with puzzles and adventure elements galore. Very pretty graphics, engaging storyline if just a tad predictable. Worth a look for HO fans.

This is stylistically similar to the first game, with many of the same positive qualities, and many of the same flaws. The scrolling, zoom-able hidden puzzles are just as challenging (and frustrating, and messy), the music and art are just as beautiful, and the voice acting is just as over-the-top.

The plot is also just as convoluted (although this one feels more like a campy homage to the classic film "Journey to the Center of the Earth," and less like "we just didn't think this through"). I was honestly expecting the story to be a direct continuation from the previous game, but it does not seem to connect at all, aside from starring the same main character and a similarly-named villain.

I feel like this game had slightly more of a focus on the point-and-click adventuring and mini-games, which helped to add a level of depth and content that wasn't entirely present in the original. These elements were clever and intuitive, and blended seamlessly with the hidden object puzzles to produce a more well-balanced and interesting game.

Overall, this was a fun, sometimes frustrating game that is worth buying on sale. I would give it a 6.5/10

This game is a big step up from the original Clockwork Man, but doesn't quite go far enough. It's more involved with the story and puzzle-solving, almost like a direct rip-off of the Samantha Swift series in that regard, but towards the end, you solve a series of rather challenging puzzles, then it just ends abruptly. The visuals are better this time around with limited animation in some scenes and more varied settings. If you're a huge fan of hidden object games and can get this really cheap in a sale, it's a "maybe", but I don't strongly recommend it. You're better off with Midnight Mysteries, Alex Hunter, and Samantha Swift.

While the adventuring aspect of the story is okay, I wasn't very fond of its morality. I think it's weird that a child-friendly hidden object game is making statements about how it's wrong to want to live longer and death is great. The first Clockwork Man's story did the same thing. I would've like to have seen more focus on its Steampunk elements than all the philosophizing about the human lifespan.

What a lovely game!

A prematurely silver 21-year-old engineer named Miranada repeatedly and politely puts down any sexism against her from the male characters with her competence and confidence.

There's an adorable robot.

There's an adorable squirrel. The interactions with the squirrel made me nostalgic for the Ken and Roberta Williams days of the old Sierra King's Quest games. Very clever; great attention to detail.

The art is beautiful.

The puzzles are interesting and engaging.

For a Hidden Object Game, the plot is absolutely spectacular and the characters are rich and entertaining.

Great casual, low stress game for next time you're stuck in bed sick for the day.

The Hidden World continues the story of Miranda Calomy and her clockwork-friend, Sprocket. Like its predecessor, the basic goal is to search a series of beautifully drawn scenes to find a bunch of hidden objects. However, the sequel increases the scope of the original, both in length and gameplay. Where the first game lasted maybe 2-3 hours, this one seemed a bit longer (maybe around 3-4 hours, depending on how slowly you take things). The interface and quality of the puzzles have also improved as well. This time, the puzzles are much more involved, and actually require some real thought at times! Amazing, I know. It's a nice improvement. However, with that change, one positive trait of the first game is now lost - the sequel is no longer kid friendly. Thinking back on it, there are probably a couple of puzzles in here that younger kids wouldn't be able to solve on their own (one involving classic works of literature springs to mind), and most of the puzzles are at least a bit more difficult overall. So, while the hidden-object scenes are still great for kids, they might need help with some of the puzzles that connect them. If you enjoy hidden-object games and are looking to fill a few hours with (mostly) mindless, casual fun, you'll probably like this. Again, my only issue against recommending this fully (assuming you like the genre), would be the price. I feel like it's on the higher end for what you get, even considering the potentially "endless" replay of randomized scenes. So, just take that into consideration when considering a purchase, or maybe wait for a sale. Otherwise, as with the first game, if you don't care for mindless hidden-picture games or puzzles, move along, there's nothing to see here.