Escape The Lost Kingdom: The Forgotten Pharaoh

so for £0.67 on sale, it was cheap and fun.
the missing chapter for a collectors edition is inexcusable tho.
charming enough, nice art but low resolution. music was ok. story serviceable.
short

Old, simple but very well crafted HOG with some cool mechanics like different characters that have different tools to help solve the puzzles
At one point the characters get separated and you play their individual chapters, choosing the order .
Tho its old it still looks great and, together with good soundtratcks, creates a great atmosphere to the point i want to rewatch old Mummy movies from Universal and Hammer =D

Its not a colector edition, so no extras or bonus chapter, i recommend on a sale

It's a pretty short HOG. It is not visually appealing, but it has innovative elements brought to the HOG genre that I have not yet encountered in other games of this genre. Enjoy.

Good old fashioned HOG with mini-games. Excellent story that's well told throughout.

Has a lot of problems, makes no sense, apparently unfinished, false advertising etc. I still enjoyed it. There's a gimmick where you can put on red/cyan glasses for 3D effects in certain parts. It's charming enough.

First time playthrough: 1 hour 25 minutes
6/10

Another "escape" game, and it did not disappoint. I enjoyed the story and how it progressed quickly. There was constantly something to do. Unique puzzles, not the same old ones other games use repeatedly. Beautiful graphics. Nice music. You have a journal, a map, and tools, in addition to inventory. Loved the family dynamics. Well done!

I gave this game a thumbs up not because I liked it (I hated it), but because it's a kid's game, and as such, I suppose would appeal to ten-year-olds. It's not a game for serious players of escape or puzzle games, such as "The Room," or for anyone above about 13. It's really a hidden object game for kids.

This dialogue is horrible (but can be turned off, thank god) and the controls are silly and annoying. Every time you run finish collecting your hidden objects, it runs through the list one at a time with a flash and a horrible noise.

I really enjoyed Escape the Lost Kingdom:The Forgotten Pharaoh, particularly the dynamic where you have the choice to play as one of four family members. Each member is armed with a helpful device that aids in solving puzzles. A helpful map is provided, and you are told when you have cleared an area. The game is under 3 hours long, and mostly consists of hidden object scenes and collecting items on your route.

Although decent, a warning, however: The game ended on a major a cliff-hanger. I found out this game's Platinum Edition provides another chapter that rounds out the story perfectly. That's too bad, because the rest of the game was pretty good. I've experienced this with another Gogii game VOODOO WHISPERER that also ended on a major cliff hanger, with no chance for a sequel. I still recommend the first part - get it at a deep discount!

Terrible game , got 3/4s of the way through and there are several pieces of torn picture needed , the last piece was not where the walktrough says it should be, now I can't finnish the game ,also waisted several hours looking for it all over the game.

pros

+ good looking and colorful egyptian environments
+ voice acting good
+ three playable characters
+ easy puzzles (if you don't want to challenge)
+ cool egyptian background musics
+ 3 D option for hidden object scenes
+ hint system is very helpful
+ cliche but ok story
+ there is auto save

cons

- game could have been longer.
- there are no steam achievements
- game doesn't drop cards.
- game sometimes gives error and shut down.

Pretty cute little Hidden Object Adventure.
Saying that the game took me a solid 90 minuntes to complete I'd say not really worth the $5 full price,
(cause personally that would mean the game would need a solid 5 hours worth of entertaining gameplay within it)
but the price I payed ($1.24) is a little more along the lines of equal pricing for entertainment value.

Yes the game is a bit mono-tone with it's color pallet, but honestly what else are you going to do with a desert/mummy storyline? Not use sandy like colors?
Honestly when it comes to the color pallet I felt it fit perfectly, and made the game suck me in better.

I could live with the cutscenes being a tad more animated and less comic book like, but that's cause I'm so use to other games not having still images interact with each other and having it called a cutscene.

As for Storyline which has been said it's not entertaining enough to keep people's attention?
~ Yes it's slower than it should be to keep people's attention
~ Yes it feels like you're living the plot of Groundhog Day for the first half of the game.
~ Yes it's short
~ Yes it's a simple plot (Cat runs off, you get trapped in a Pyramid, you need to find your way out. Everything I just named you should know by 5-10 minutes into the game if that) but it's pretty cute reguardless.

The Hidden Object Scenes:
~ Are very mono-toned with the color pallet
~ Are somewhat repeative
But despite that I personally still enjoyed them


Over all, I recommend the game for the fact that it's simple enough to finish in a single afternoon so it's a really good "lazy day" game which in all honesty I play Hidden Object games when Im tired or too lazy to try to play something like a Puzzle Platformer xD
If you are turned off by anything I listed for the game, I'd say don't buy it cause if y discription of the game discourages you then it's clearly not your style and you're not going to be happy with it if you buy it.

Tags: Adventure - WC - Hidden Object
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: Kiddish in tone. Low resolutions. Walk clicker hybrid. 3D glasses integration feels gimmicky, mostly just acting as a help menu. Walk Clicker puzzle easily bruteforced with limited items.

Finished a chapter. The game changes things up on you fairly often. From using a unique item to see solutions to environment puzzles, to using one of three tools to clear obstacles, reconstructing items around a scene. The game probably has some sort of faint egyptian plot, probably related to the family cat. But the early plot hook is just chasing your cat who runs away, and then reinuniting the family that gets split in a cave in. It is rather mindless as often items can be nearly impossible to spot without using hints. WC puzzles with 3 items means its easy to rapidfire click each tool on each environment puzzle requiring tools as sometimes the game is not very intuitive on what it want (use a crowbar to clear pebbles from a crack instead of a shovel)

The game is fully playable without the 3D glasses which are optional which is a relief.

This game did not really do it for me. It is decent for the genre but the genre is highly saturated. Would rather skip to a higher quality title.

I didn't really give this game much chance, I admit. So take what I say with a huge grain of salt and maybe try it for yourself, if you get it cheap enough. (I.e. somewhere around 1-2 bucks.)

The graphics could be nice, but the resolution is too low, and I think it doesn't scale correctly for my monitor. So you might want to play in Window mode.

The idea of red/green glasses for 3D is nice, and as far as I can tell, they always ask you if you want to enable the 3D effect beforehand, so that's a plus.
It's not much to see, though, but that is more of an inherent problem with anaglyph 3D (and partially my eyes I think).

Interestingly, the depicted glasses apparently have the colors switched from what they write and use. Minor issue, but weird.

More troubling is the story itself, which at least at the very beginning isn't all that great. Who would complain "All this over a cat" when they're just about to enter a secret tunnel in an egyptian monument? Why not express wonder or at least fear?

Why does one of the characters apparently have glasses that can reveal hidden messages from the pharaos? Another gets an artifact that shows past times and doesn't express more than merely "wow, this is cool, too bad my cat can't see this" instead of at least telling the rest of the family about it, if only to shut down the obnoxious sibling bickering.

What had me stop, however, was that the SKIP button didn't work when I decided I wasn't going to follow the story and try to skip the rather boring cutscene.

That was, to use a fitting euphemism, the straw that broke the camels back.

With better graphics, and a few tweaks to the story it could be nice, I guess. Maybe a newer game engine could resample the textures?

I don't know why I often associated this game with another series but deep down, I knew it wasn't related. It was also time for me to play it and to stop letting it rot my backlog.

Henry and Laura, with their two children Emily and Francis, are visiting their aunt Amy in Egypt. However, when Jynxie the cat escaped, the family finds itself trapped into a lost tomb, separated from each other and forced to find a way to reunite and bring together their findings to escape a deadly trap set by a Pharaoh that killed his own brother and cursed his memory.

Escape The Lost Kingdom: The Forgotten Pharaoh is a casual adventure game, with hidden objects scenes and puzzles. Each member of the family has a special item: Francis has googles with glyph visions, showing him areas of interests, Emily has the Time Amulet, showing her the previous state of a room, Laura is holding the key to many enigmas thanks to Amy's diary and Henry is carrying with him tools (hammer, shower and crowbar). Each chapter is seen through Francis, Emily and the parents first, before the kids finding themselves and exploring their areas. In the end, the family is reunited for the final push: they're each carrying items needed (staff, torn painting, etc..).

Indeed, some parts of the game can't be access unless you have Francis's Googles for example. Besides, each member is carrying items found in their part that will be useful at the end, when the inventories will fuse together. The puzzles are relatively easy, though you may need Amy's diary to find out clues. I had to resort to a walkthrough twice because I couldn't see what to do. And it wasn't because I didn't read Amy's diary. It was mainly because I couldn't understand well the meaning of the enigma.

Escape the Lost Kingdom is clearly set in an early era of the genre, though it was transitioning, as it's not hidden objects scenes set as main gameplay. But when you clear a location, it's shown. The map is also an indication of that and isn't interactive at all.

However, while the story is only about escaping and not about the Forgotten Pharaoh (everything is explained in the beginning in other words and while you're expecting the main story to come back to that, apart one or two mentions by Emily, the Pharaoh is really forgotten), I would have expected a longer game. Even if you can choose who you'll play first when the whole family is splitted up (Emily, Henry and Laura, Francis), after that, the game is taking back the control: the kids will have to go through more trials than the parents as they found quickly the reunion point.

Besides, it's not the graphics that will reconcile people with hidden objects games as they're kinda giving the feel of being outdated. While I appreciated the drawned cutscenes, Francis seemed really an angry child and Henry very serious, where the girls are smiling. And given the scenario, it's sad that you don't have any change in their expression. I would have appreciated Emily's rolling her eyes when saying that she's a big girl now.

The soundtrack is nice, like the voice actings. That's why it's just sad that the emotions aren't matching.

The feature that showed me how old the game is (and it's not even so old) is the mention of 3D glasses use. You can play the game with it. As I don't know where my old glasses are (from the middle of the '90, mind you), I couldn't try it.

Anyway, should I recommend it? Yeah, even if I feel like the game is missing something: too short, not many use of the tools typical to each character, no real freedom of choice despite the beginning, what about the Forgotten Pharaoh and outdated graphics. But it's still an enjoyable moment to pass.

However, buy it during a sale or in a bundle. Five bucks for it seems too much for the content.

Another game I desperately wanted to like. It's enjoyable with plenty of voice acting that is good for the most part. The puzzles and hidden objects scenes aren't high res but are challenging and interesting. The game mechanics where each character has a job to do .... journal for Mom, tools for Dad, a magical item that sees the past for the daughter, and special googles that allow the son to see otherwise invisible interactive areas, make the game a little more unique for the genre. The story splits and has different chapters for each character as well, which makes it unusual.
Now the bad.
It's only about 90 minutes long. The introduction cut-scene that introduces the game, has almost nothing to do with it's content. The low res graphics, that are passable, made me think I was playing a game over 10 years old, but I was shocked to find out it was released in 2014. The version of the game on Steam is missing the entire final chapter, which explains why it feels unfinished. The ending is abrupt, with no pay-off ... it just fades to black with "game over" just as things were starting to get interesting!
The game isn't expensive and it's not a bad game, but even cheap, I can't in good conscience recommend an unfinished product that is only just over an hour long (if you are experienced with the genre.)

It's cute, I'll give you that. And easy. But that's kind of the problem. Start to finish (without breaks for a sandwich) it probably took me less than an hour. The plot was nonexistant as well. Lots of POTENTIAL for cool stuff, but it didn't actually go into ANY of it. Seems like it should have had a pre-quel AND a sequel. It's nice game but, even for the sale price of $1.24, I expected more.

Short version: 71%

Long version:

Okay so I used to play these sorts of games a lot since my mom was into them and I didn't have many other puzzle games, so I bought this one for a nostalgia kick...but this game.
I started off annoyed with the little boy, frustrated at how godawful their version of history was, weirded out by the creepy art, and mostly bored with the puzzles.
None of the seek and finds are very challenging, neither are any of the 'puzzles' and I was pretty much bored all the time but I was a bit curious about the plot with the daughter.
So I get to the end, I get all the items and clear everything out, I get this item called the 'Staff of Time,' and I thought it was important, but I finished the final 'puzzle' and I got a limp cutscene and a black screen with 'Game Over' on it.

I never used the staff, so I figured that hey, maybe I got an alternate ending. Since my safe starts me at the final cutscene I have to make a new file and play through all over again. Again, not HARD, but annoying. But I get to the end and go through all the rooms trying to find the thing to use the Staff of Time on, but I found nothing, so I decided to look up (I use guides sometimes, I don't feel ashamed about it) and I find this whole list of rooms that weren't on the in-game map. I try to get there in the game itself but I couldn't get in there. Also, there's no alternate ending, there's no closure to the whole plotline with the daughter, it just STOPS.

I may have only spent a few dollars on this game but I feel ripped off. It's unimaginative, boring, annoying, it wasted my time and money, it sucks.
Screw this game.

This is a recommendation only because there is no "meh" button.

I enjoyed the puzzles and HO scenes very much. The music and voice acting was decent.

However, there are two distinct strikes against this game. The first is that it is EXTREMELY short even by HO standards; I clocked in at barely above an hour. At the time of review, I have 1.4 hours on record and probably a full third of that time was actually me fighting with my display (note that if you have a 4k monitor, you may need to disable display scaling in order to have fullscreen cover the whole screen).

The other issue is that the plot falls flat on its face, with an abrupt ending that leaves the game wide open for sequels that I don't believe ever were made. So essentially it was dissatisfying to finish and not feel like you're actually finished. That said, the plot was formulaic enough that you can essentially fill in the blanks in your head and call it good.

So that said, it's barely squeaking by with a recommendation based solely on my enjoyment of the individual puzzles and not on the overall plot or playtime. It is NOT worth full price with the short length of the game (barely a third of the length of other standard HO games). But if you can get it on sale and don't mind a cliffhanger that will never be resolved, pick it up for a short, casual experience.

Well, this game isn't terrible. It is on the lower side of average overall. The puzzles and HO scenes are fairly decent, though easy, the voice acting isn't terrible and the extra elements of using magic items and tools is a nice touch.

It's way too short however. Which might have been fine if the story was completed by the time the game was over, but no. It starts out with a cutscene showing an epic battle between two ancient pharaohs and speaks about how the murdered one waits in his tomb for the right people. The game itself is about a family of four who gets lost in the temple raised for this pharaoh and about how they escape. That's it. No continuation of the starting cutscene, only a 'Game Over' slide ("huh? really, did I just lose the game?") that feels like a 'To Be Continued' that just never continues. There is no sequel.

You play a family who gets separated in an ancient temple and have to find a way to get back together and out of the temple.

For some strange reason this game has scenes that can be used with redblue 3d glasses for 3d effect. I did not try this, and I really don't see the point.

There is a lot of backtracking and iirc no map that you can use for teleporting. Be aware that quite a few of the puzzles in the video on steam is not in the game, but most probably in the collectors edition that has more playtime which is not available on steam.

I also felt the game was sexist with giving the dad all the useful tools and the mum a book that's mostly useless and tells about stuff you've already done.

This was super quick and very easy. The store is kinda....weak and the puzzles are simple but it was interesting. I wish it was at least three times longer and bit harder because the variety in the puzzles was really interesting. Still, if you want a quick rainy afternoon game, this is for you. Get it during a sale though.

Short (around 2h), but very cute game and very enjoyable for people that are fans of both Egyptian culture and indie games. The graphics and the story are nice and the scenes have subtitled dialogues. The game has rather simple puzzles and the few hidden object scenes support 3D vision which adds a nice feature to it. I recommend this game for those that enjoy hidden object games and a feeling of Indiana Jones adventure.

[quote]More reviews on the Lilly's Corner Curator page[/quote]

"Escape the Lost Game: The Forgotten Ending"

I find it really unfortunate I can't in good conscience recommend this game. Visually, it's quite a nice looking low res. casual game, it's fully voiced, and even has a decent adventure/hidden object mix. And it's about one of my favorite subjects, ancient Egypt, to boot.

Why can't I recommend it then?

Easy. The ending chapter isn't included. Apparently it was part of a Collector's Edition not available on Steam. Normally that's not much of a problem, but the store page here clearly shows content nowhere to be found in this game, and the main story introduced in the opening cutscene is hardly even referenced again, let alone fleshed out and wrapped up. At first I thought I somehow missed something despite all of the map's rooms stating they were cleared. The only way I was able to figure out where these missing scenes were was to search on Google, which I find very sloppy to have not been at least mentioned on the page. It doesn't help the non-CE ending is a sudden, out-of-nowhere black screen with a simple white lettered "Game Over." No credit roll. No feeling it actually ended and you hadn't somehow managed to screw up a hidden object game. Very disappointing, especially since the rest the of the game is pretty great for the genre, despite its short length (1.5 hours, not rushed, listening to all the dialogue and enjoying the scenes) and a few quirks.

Pros:
-Nice, but low resolution artwork
-Pretty good atmosphere for a casual title
-Fully voiced
-Gameplay is a nice mix of adventure and hidden object, complete with standard hidden object search areas and a full inventory you carry room-to-room
-Potentially had/has (perhaps in the Collector's Edition) an interesting brother versus brother story, quite fitting for an Egyptian setting considering the importance of Osiris and Set (two gods who were also feuding brothers) in their mythology

Cons:
-Not the Collector's Edition and is missing content displayed on the store page
-An hour and a half long
-The main and most intriguing story is ignored after the opening cutscene, with sparse and minimal exceptions in the form of other characters vaguely mentioning a second, forgotten pharaoh
-Few quirks, particularly in dialogue, such as misaligned text and oddly shifting the spelling of the name of and gender of the cat

For its current sale price of $1.25, sure, go for it. Full price? Probably not. You won't even realize you successfully completed the game and will be left wondering where some of the awesome looking store page scenes are.

I honestly wish there was a neutral button on Steam, as I wouldn't necessarily say, "Avoid this." Rather, be aware of how oddly it ends before you get there, and be aware some particularly interesting bits (the video shows you playing Senet, for example) are not included in this edition.

Still, solid 3/5 for gameplay and the partial story it includes, plus the intelligent, interesting use of objects in scenes (and finding objects you'll actually need) and inclusion of some real ancient Egyptian mythology. It would've been an easy 4/5 (for the genre) if the non-CE ending wasn't so abrupt, and the store page only showed content actually in the game.