The Esoterica: Hollow Earth

A really cool game with a cool lore and a nice gameplay. The whole game is pretty easy even on expert, but its still fun to play. The collectibles are really nice due to containing more lore about the world. The story is pretty nice too, Its kinda typical but still not boring. The cutscenes´ style is pretty cool even though its pretty hard to read everything, even for me. All in onre a really nice game. I can highly recommend it.

A cute but forgettable HOG with a fun premise and decent puzzles. Worth picking up on sale!

I just finished playing this game for the second time. This time for the cheevos. I was able to get all except for the video cards achievement. The last video card was there as you open the last puzzle. My problem was that the puzzle opened before I was able to take the card. It's a good game with challenging puzzles, except for this last bug. I am Very disappointed.

An interesting story, but few of the objects were not named properly, so you had to just click on everything to "find" them. The quality is a bit disappointing in that case.

find the object, reasonably well done. 7/10 . nice imaginative art of agartha. took about 4 hours, but it crashed and my save file got corrupted. had to start again.

Not a good HOG.
While the Hidden Object puzzles are as fun as in almost any other game of the type, the mini-games are what lets the side down here. Some of them are unnecessarily time-consuming; it's clear what you have to do it just takes ages. Some are really unclear as to what the goal is and in what way you need to manipulate to the tools in order to succeed. And others just require a trial & error approach. If you're the type of person who refuses to use the skip or hint functions in these games then this one will drive you up the wall.
Plus the storyline is really dull. It may be one of the cheaper games of the type, but there's a good reason for that: It's one of the worst.

Artwork: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Map: no
HOS: classic, find-by-shape, not much
Puzzles: few but sometimes mind-boggling

Nice artwork. The hidden objects are very easy to find. However, there were problems with the game.

Music. The music can abruptly change or be missing, Not game breaking but it was odd.

Puzzles. There are two major issues. First, like other hidden object games I have played, some puzzles are based on color. So for color blind people, this can be an obstacle.

The second is some puzzles appears to be buggy and just did not work. It could be that I am just stupid but I did what I think the instructions suggested but nothing happened.

Given the issue I had with buggy puzzle, I cannot fully recommend this. It is pity since I like the artwork and the music when it worked. Hopefully, their next game will be more polished.

Apologies to Alawar Stargaze but I cannot recommend this game. I really wanted to like it but I ran into too many issues with the game play. Visually it is beautiful and I like the arc of the storyline.

• The 1920's art deco concept of the game is very well executed.
  
• The artwork for the locations, hidden object games and mini-games is beautiful.
  
• Some of the mini-games are extremely tedious.
  
• I found three of the mini-games to be really cool with rotating elements in offset positions that needed to be aligned carefully.
  
• Some of the hidden object games have bad clues - like "watering can" when it should be "funnel".
  
• One of the hidden object games has a show-stopper issue if you are unlucky enough to get an impossible object - (the bottle in the storage locker).
  
• Some of the hidden object hot spots are very difficult to hit or are in counter-intuitive locations relative to the image on the screen. Alawar should issue a patch to address this issue - hour glass at the escape pod for example
  
• There should be an achievement for finding all of the gold cards but there is not.
  
[*]The film critic achievement is broken. If you skip the opening video once, it logs that against your profile. The only way to get the achievement after that is to start a new profile. What it should do, is clear the flag for having skipped a video when you start the game again with the same profile. It also should not count the video in the opening credits towards that achievement- who wants to watch that every time they start the game? I had a similar issue with The Saint by the same developers.

To get through this game and get all of the achievements, I had to monitor the saves.xml file and watch whether there was a value of 1 for the clip_skipped variable in the active profile. I used 7-Zip to archive the saves folder so I could reinstate it from a good location.

I rate Esoterica: Hollow Earth as 4 out of 10 - I would have given it 7 out of 10 had there been no issues. Given the problems I encountered, I do not recommend that you buy this game, not at full price, not on sale, not as an extra in a bundle.

This is a fun game for the sheer campiness of the time period sci-fi tropes, characters, and story. Kudos to the writers for pulling off the old style feel and art. Also, I enjoyed the HO scenes, and having to look for really old-fashioned stuff (telephones, for example).

There are some definite cons, however.
I was very disappointed not to be able to complete my 100% run through thanks to a couple of slightly buggy and/or oversensitive puzzles. It's not that I couldn't solve the puzzles - most are honestly too easy - but one puzzle refused to respond to the solution in my first run-through, and when I tried again, that puzzle worked but a different puzzle just would *not* "finish" and click into place.
Speaking of the puzzles, I never want to connect the dots for that stupid helicopter blueprint ever again. Maybe it's straightforward with a different input method, but with a mouse it's tedious beyond words.

Bottom line? I had fun, and then I got frustrated. I'm still recommending because there was a lot good about it.
Fun (if campy) story, very nice art, good voices. It really felt like a period piece - and the movie clips were cute (though triggering the achievement is a problem).
Don't buy it if you are set on your 100% unless you bring some patience - you might get lucky, you might not.
Also, in one of the last HO scenes there is one bad translation and one bad "hit zone" for a required object: the "watering can" is actually a funnel; the hourglass CAN be collected, but you'll want to click several times to get it.

I really truly wish the devs would just fix the last couple of things wrong with this game. Buy on a deep discount and play for the HO scenes and the story/animation.

As others have said, the second half of the game has several bugged mini-games, which is a great shame as it's otherwise one of the better HOGs and definitely better than Alawar's usual fare. A missed opportunity - 5/10.

I am a big fan of HOG but this game was a disapointment. Had the potential to be a great game but a few things screwed it.
After a while playing the video scenes didnt have a voice anymore atleast we have it written but it felt incomplete. The story started interesting even more after you played as another character and learned even more but it got more and more complicated and boring. A few HO scenes were buggy where I had to clicka few times that it would register but the thing that killed the game for me and stopped me from finishing it was a problem which a few people seem to have.

The "BOTTLE" problem. In a HO scence you have to find a bottle which isnt that hard to find but it wont register you clicking it even after reopening the game. I read that it could fix the problem after restarting the game but it is at a part of the game wher you are already far into it (around 2 hours playtime) adn i dont want to start it from all over again.

If you dont have the problem and are an achievment hunter like me and are lucky that you dont have the BOTTLE problem, there is a tricky achievment. One of the achievments is watching all cutscenes but even if you watch all you wont get it if you skipped even once the intro after reopening the game.

Overall had potential but messed up dont buy it!!

Game Information

"The Esoterica: Hollow Earth" is a Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game. The game was developed by Happy Artist and published by Alawar Entertainment.

The Game Review

Game Visuals

I want to mention that the visuals in the game are well done. The visuals can be adjusted in the game's option menu.

Game Audio

I want to mention that audio for the game is well done. Even though the audio is somewhat simplistic and repetitive. The audio can be adjusted in the game's option menu as well.

Gameplay

There are two different difficulty game modes to choose from: Regular and Expert.

The notebook keeps track of progression in the game. Such as story events and clues.

There is no map available in the game. Plenty of backtracking from location to location.

There is no padlock feature available to lock the inventory panel in place to make it stationary. The inventory panel is stationary.

The hidden object scenes consist of the following: Shadow items and Traditional word lists. Some of these hidden object scenes may require little or no interaction.

The puzzles are fairy easy to solve without having the need to skip any of them.

There is a collectible item in the game, Golden Punch Cards, they are scattered throughout the game for the player to find.

There are six different achievements that can be unlocked from playing the game. Each of these achievements does come with some requirements that need to be completed before they can be unlocked.

Miscellaneous

There are five different trading cards to collect. Only three of those trading cards are given out by the game. There are several ways to get the rest of the trading cards: Purchased from the Steam's Community Market; Trade with friends; Booster Packs and its Booster Pack Creator.

Final thoughts: I have found the game enjoyable to a certain extent. The replay value for the game is low. I would recommend this game, but not at the game's full price value.

I’ve decided to be benevolent here and recommend this game, even though with some reservations. First of all, the game has some great graphics and sceneries themed in the 1930s. For a HOG, the puzzles are also very well done. The main problem is with the story – it starts well, bringing elements of the “Hollow Earth” theory that was popular in certain occult circles related with Nazis. However, in the second half of the game it gets somewhat erratic and confusing, and the ending left a feeling that the developers just got bored with this game and cut it short, making the good potential of the story utterly wasted. Disappointing, but still well worth playing if you’re a collector of HOGs (and as I said before, the graphics are really cool) and at a favorable price.

The Esoterica: Hollow Earth is a good HOG. I don't understand the bad comments. Besides it's quite cheap so one shouldn't wait for a HOG such as Artifex's games, for instance.
As far as my playthrough is concerned I did not encounter any bug. I was able to complete the game and get a 100% achievement during a unique playthrough, without using any cheat, any other gamer's saves or any other tricks of the sort.

The Esoterica: Hollow Earth deserves to be known and played, for it has many positive aspects and some of these are quite rare in the whole game industry.
Above all, the general idea is quite good : storyline and game ambiance are great. They are well rendered by beautiful graphics and nice musics.
-The story is interesting and very catchy. I don't want to spoil it, I'll only say that it reminds me a bit of Syberia and Sokal's universe, to some extent. Thus it really should please Jules Verne's novels' fans as well.
-The atmosphere is gigantic from a human point of view. It's somewhere between magical hopes and robotic performances and it's full of mysteries.
The historic period looks like the Belle epoque and the art style of the game really reminded me of the Art Nouveau style. Many background drawings and decorations look like Alfons Muchas' paintings and posters. Architectural shapes are round, using metal and glass such as those during the Industrial Revolution. My guess is that Industrial Revolution, an important chapter in history, is the period that inspired the story. The plot might take place in the period just afterwards. Being a great period for scientific discoveries and creations, in those times when science was trying to meet most human dreams, when crazy and ambitious inventions where trying to reach the infinite human imagination, many things which until then were unconceavable became real and many other things seemed possible,even magic. One can sense this humankind greatness while playing The Esoterica: Hollow Earth.
The art style of the game goes along with it, especially the graphics.
Voice acting is fluctuating. Whereas the feminin main character voice is ok, others, such as NPC's voices, can be rather shoddy.
Puzzles difficulty is from easy to medium. Some of them might be painstaking or tedious and hence require patience, but they're not hard to beat.
HOS are beautiful and depict many objects accordingly to the whole art style of the game. I liked them, except for 2 points:
- They are a bit repetitive since many scenes use the same place with only slight modifications.
- There are several silhouette HOS, which I personnaly don't enjoy. I play HOG mainly to improve my English vocabulary the funny way, since English isn't my native language, so when it comes to finding objects from their silhouette i quickly get bored.

Sadly the end comes a bit abruptly but I finished the game with a very positive memory for it was an enjoyable and beautiful experience I'm willing to share.
I wish there were more games with such a great ambiance.

This game has too many issues, hence I cannot recommend it. First of all, the game is so buggy that some puzzles despite you arranging them correctly, will need you to restart the game for you to complete them (happened to me with the bird mosaic). The video achievement is buggy and everytime you open the game you have to watch fully the introduction video in order to get it. Another major drawback is the repetitive HO scenes, that is you keep viewing the same room three times (!) and you keep revisiting the same locations a lot. HO objects are reused continously, which means you will be looking for the same scissors, kettle, sword through many scenes and it gets to a point you memorise what doesn't belong to the enviornment and automatically spot it. I do enjoy the art and space-like music, but I find the story all over the place. Last but not least, if you are going to make game translations and have the game auto detect your language, make sure there are no mistakes - my Polish version had mistakes not only in the story (which is w/e) but also in HO scenes and I was looking for ages for "kataloi" and googling it - which was meant to be "katalog".

Imaginative plot based on the hollow earth legend. The game is casual in every way. No stress and mostly relaxing. I like hidden object games. What I don't like about hidden object games are the timed achievements. This game has only one, which is a positive for me. Overall it is entertaining.

It came in a 6-games bundle.
Graphics and story aren't bad at all and, a couple of puzzles are original.
Main complains are about the help system, which helps nothing and, a lack of some sort of map to fast travelling to sensible areas. Sensible objects areas are a bit fuzzy. You can find yourself clicking over an object and, the game doesn't see your are clicking over it.
Average game

Wowza. Such potential for this game with a sorta Indiana Jones theme that does so well and then...stops. Actually, numerous things stop. For some reason halfway through the game the voice acting stopped (thank goodness the music worked and I had text on screen), the back half of the puzzles became excessively buggy to the point I could not complete a mosaic puzzle and had to click the damned 'skip' button thereby missing the achievement. Previously closing the game and reopening it fixed most issues but this one tested my patience big time. So, the final thing that stopped was the story because blink and you'd miss the sweeping resolution for everything in the space of 15 seconds and credits roll. Felt a bit of a cop out when you were just getting invested in the characters, and up until that point I was really enjoying the story (hindered by those bugs grr). Puzzle mix was good, hidden objects fine, music was terrific but overall the game ruined by bugs and a forgettable ending. Damn.

Despite nice graphics and music, as well as flavorful cut-scenes, this casual point-and-click adventure is underwhelming. The story is poorly constructed and often silly, and many of the mini-game puzzles are just tedious rather than clever.