Разработчик: N-Tri Studio
Описание
Features:
Challenging mini-games
Wide range of difficulty levels
Intriguing story
44 quest levesl
25 hidden-object levels
Поддерживаемые языки: english, italian, spanish - spain, french, german, portuguese - brazil, dutch, polish, russian
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP, 7, 8, 10
- Processor: 1.7 GHz Dual Core
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series, GeForce 205
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 800 MB available space
Mac
- OS: OSX 10.8+
- Processor: 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: TI Radeon HD 4670, 300er Nvidia, Intel HD 5200+
- Storage: 800 MB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+
- Processor: 2.6 Ghz Dual Core CPU
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 8100 Series, Geforce 205
- Storage: 800 MB available space
Отзывы пользователей
nice game
This is cool little sci-fi HO game. The puzzles are challenging and so are the HO scenes, but not too much. It is old, so the graphics are sub-par and the resolution is standard. No hint/skip penalties for those 100% achievers.
Frustrating. Things don't light up or change cursor sometimes for no reason, and sometimes things are mislabeled in hidden object scenes. Multiple items of the same name also appear. Some puzzles are frustrating just to make you spend more time on them, and there's no real story. I just can't recommend this one.
I've bought this on a really cheap bundle and taking into account this is a really old game, I really enjoyed it. I played in Normal Mode and there's no help at all (I don't use hints). It's a very basic HOG, almost no cut scenes or voice over, you'll basically be looking for objects. I really enjoyed it though, it was very relaxing.
I also enjoyed the minigames, could do all of the except the last one, was pretty hard.
I recomend it in a bundle o in a big sale if you are looking for a VERY basic and old game.
Hidden object puzzles have several common issues. This one suffers from several of them. A big one is multiple objects in the picture matching the clue (I counted 6 wheels in a picture, they only asked for 1) another is regionally or wrongly named items (A gamepad called a joystick, a telescope where it said microscope). This game also has a few less common issues, formerly clickable areas sometimes still flash as if they were active, and some spots to click and zoom in for collecting items have no way of knowing they are there.
A short older style puzzle, but fun to play. HOGs were interactive and clever. Mini puzzles were puzzling and different. You play Rachel whose scientist father has been missing for 15 years. Lovely music and good clean graphics. Definitely buy on sale. No bugs. 7/10
I am going to give it a positive vote, but I didn't really enjoy this game. Some of the puzzles were interesting and fun, and others were boring. There are lots of hidden object games, and there were a few puzzles I couldn't be bothered doing so I skipped them. It is easy to get the achievements, and the game took me 3.4hrs. Buy only if very cheap.
Short version: 52%
Howlville is an acceptably B-grade hidden object game that focuses mostly on item searches— including some aggravating pixel hunting—over its generic puzzles.
Long version:
Howlville: The Dark Past is a typical low-grade hidden object game created with just enough enthusiasm and care to elevate it above of its mass-produced ilk. Probably the storyline is a great example: it starts in a clichéd abandoned town, where the protagonist is looking for her missing father, yet somehow we end up shooting a giant laser cannon at a Cthulhu wannabe.
While this sounds awesome, sadly, there is precious little actual plot between these two cardinal events. At least progression is linear, so the lack of map is not a sore spot while we press forward.
The majority of the content is hidden object scenes; they are so abundant that they banish over half of the traditional (and rather unimaginative) puzzles inside of them. They are also a bit too old-school, but their difficulty is nothing compared to the sheer amount of tedious pixel hunts on the story screen. Combined with the game’s limited hint system, they turn Howlville into a much less pleasant experience than it should have been.
This is the first hidden object game I've decided not to finish. It's just not fun.
It's a pretty serious pixel hunt to find the random things lying about on the ground that you need to pick up. Translations are awful. Hovering over a tire gave me the clue "The inflated tire." Obviously I needed to find an awl and puncture the tired so that it was no longer inflated. The hidden object scenes are similarly messed up. In one scene, the clue was "candle" and the object was a pyramid. I guess it was a pyramidal candle? The clickable areas in the HOGs are ridiculously small. One object I clicked half a dozen times at various times before finally hitting on the one small area that was "live". And the interactive parts of the HOGs are often inexplicable--and sometimes the interactivity is not even indicated. Since you have to find light bulbs in each scene in order to gain hints, you waste a lot of hints on these sorts of issues.
It should be said this studio's other (later) games are rather better, though none of them is what I would call top of the line. I do also appreciate their support of Linux. It works flawlessly under Linux Mint, at least to the point where I've decided to stop.
This has got to be the single least intuitive, most illogical and poorly-planned point-and-click I've ever played. There are very few (if any) redeeming qualities to this game - the storyline and dialog certainly is lacking. The areas in which to find key objects are scattered and bizarre. The ovject simply cannot be found without mindlessly clicking around the scene. The hidden object games are no exception: none of the combinations have any sort of reasoning to them. It's quite literally matching random objects to other objects until something happens. Nothing is identifiable.
To top it all off, the title screen remained in (what I assume to be) Russian, despite changing the language to English. Don't waste your time with this one.
Warning! Spoilers might follow, and I have decided to not black it out either.
When I was getting far into this game I began to think in my head if I liked the game or not. I like most point and click games , but this one had a few things I had some problems with.
If we look at the positive side, this is a flawless game with nice backgrounds and items that are drawn in good quality. The music can be intense and it's often making the game feel more exciting. Everything works, and that is positive. I also like how the character is taken to many different areas, where new puzzles awaits.
Now for the other part of the game, that I don't like it's the constant clicking. Holy shit, there is alot of clicking. First of off, I completed this game without any form of help, but on several times I just turned it off because I was frustrated. Frustration is a big part of this game, because there are tons of things that are litterary impossible to see, unless you actually click at that specific place. You sit there, you know you miss a single item to get further, but you don't know where it is...so you start clicking on every single thing possible in the levels you got access too. I don't like that. I play these games by logic, which is what I like with them. Aimlessy clicking to find that small scene where an item to get further is, is really bothersome.
The puzzles themselves are fine I'll guess, but they can be annoying. I think it was also cool that they made small puzzles inside the hidden objects puzzles. Some of them were really hard to find sometimes, and not much logic was involved.
Now for the story I know exactly what to say, because I have played so many point and click games before. (Warning! Spoilers head). First of all, I never feel the character is in any danger...ever, I feel the character is spending most of the game alone aswell, except for a few ghosts popping up here and there. It feels lazily. Like you are only there to get further into the game, not to meet anyone special, but simply to find your way. It makes the game feel a bit empty.
Also the two only characters you meet is your dad and the evil guy, that....is a ghost? The evil guy does absolutly nothing else than rant about taking over the World...I like the places you visit, but I don't understand much of how this can be a good story.
I do recommend this game, but you have to be really patient if you wanna finish the game without help or hints like I did. The game is more for entertainment and getting further, than giving you a super deep and great story. The puzzles can be annoying, but if you spend enough time you will always solve them.
Howlville: The Dark Past is a hidden object game that comes very close to being a recommendation, but I just can’t. In fact, it’s hard not to because there were some neat parts about it. The fact that you don’t have to play more than once to get all the achievements, the artwork and the music. There wasn’t much music, and it was obvious that it kept playing over and over, but what was there, was good. The artwork was excellent. The hidden object puzzles looked neat and were fun.
My biggest problem was that the game bugged for me on the very last puzzle. As in I finished the puzzle, the game should go to a cutscene and finish. It never went to the cutscene. It just sat there. I ended up having to replay the entire game because saves are constantly overwritten.
The second thing that bothered me immensely was that one puzzle at the end was infuriatingly difficult for me. True, that’s just me, and maybe I simply didn’t get the logic of it, but the rest of the game was fairly easy, so it seemed out of place. I ended up skipping the puzzle. (And still got the achievement, which was a weird, but good thing!).
The last issue I had which was more of an annoyance than anything (but still annoying enough to mention) was the fact that the game is in 3:4 format. The game is from 2012, so I know that that isn’t new, but I also don’t think anyone was still using 4:3 screens back then. The last time I had one personally was ~2002. Now it’s fine to make a game that fits different aspect ratios – in fact most devs do that. Not this one! If you click “wide screen” it simply stretches the image so circles become ovals, doorways become wide and people become… Wider also.
In short, the game was mostly fun with minor annoyances until it bugged at the end. That did it for me. Had the developers allowed you to save at different points, it would not have been a problem. While some of it is good, there’s just better ones out there.
+ Artwork
+ Achievements all work and only require one playthrough.
+ Music/Sound
- Buggy
- Does not properly support anything but 4:3 aspect ratio
- Horrible animation – even for a HoG
- Bad voice acting
A n older, modest seeming game that was a ton of fun.
I really love the obvious attention that went into the superb graphics and a story which moved along and kept one engrossed.
Yes, it has HOGS but they are the fun kind with plenty of puzzles and interactive items.
PLUS the items are relevant for the most part.
Lot of interesting mechanical puzzles and and quests.
Recommended.
This is your casual hidden object game - and there are many HOB scenes in there.
I reached the end it in 3+ hours. Got all achievements in the process (they apparently trigger upon completing puzzles - didn't skip any so I don't know if it affects getting them when skipping)
There's no map but it would be completely useless as there's no going back to any visited place anyway.
Biggest issue, for me, was the interactivity of some objects in some scene that would be turned on after a given action. So, to make it short, you're in for a lot of scanning the whole screen several times per scene ...
The hint system is new to me : the player must locate light bulbs, in various scenes, which are hint units (one bulb for one hint). I ended up with 10 or so - and used 3 or 4 hints. Yes, I used hints in some scenes where I gave up scanning the entire screen again to locate what had become interactive ... I also used one hint in a HOB scene because an object was behind a hat that was NOT showed as movable when moing the mouse around...
Anyway, it was pleasant enough going there. I experienced no issue playing this game - it was on Win7 64bit.
This is a marginal thumbs up. What this game lacks in story, it makes up for in hidden object puzzles, of which there are many. They run from medium to hard difficulty. Pretty much every HOP had at least one item that took me a while to find.
There are also a variety of other types of puzzles which run from easy to really irritating. I dislike musical follow the sequence puzzles, so I skipped that one. I found the "shoot the ship" puzzle to be irritating and it felt really out of place among the other types of puzzles.
A few complaints:
* The game is not consistent about representing areas that you can interact with. There are several places where there should have been a hand icon to indicate an interaction. Because it was missing, I ended up having to randomly click around until I found the unmarked hot spot or used a hint.
* Areas that have been completed continue to sparkle, which can make it confusing about whether there's anything left to do in a scene. Also, in the church, after completing one action the rotating gears still continued to appear when hovering over that area.
* In a scene with a car, the popup text said something about a missing handle when what it meant was missing spark plugs.
* In one HOP, a required eyeball is hidden behind a welding mask. You can't see the eyeball, and the hot spot is tiny.
* If you skip a puzzle, you will still get the achievement.
None of these problems prevented me from finishing the game. They just added some frustration.
If you really enjoy hidden object puzzles, you'll probably enjoy them in this game. Buy it on sale.
There is everything, the search for objects, puzzles. The scene with the search for objects here is really a lot, and the passage of the puzzle that gets stuck in the search scene of the object. The scenes are not very complicated, but there are some difficult moments.
Great game, good management. Bugs in the game did not find. Nice graphics and management. The game does not lag, eats little cpu.
Nice game about mystery, i think its the best game about mystery which i play
"Howlville: The Dark Past»
Dark adventure in the genre of "hidden object".
Gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6og4hxEouo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDSEdbt6Yeg
Plot:
In the mine of the city of Howlville was discovered a mysterious artifact. While studying it something went wrong, a strong earthquake began. The city was made a closed area, and scientists who worked on the study of the artifact, was declared missing. The daughter of one of them seeks to find the missing father. She escapes from a psychiatric hospital, where she was placed by the government, and arrives in a closed zone of the gloomy city of Howlville…
Graphics and sound:
All at a decent level. There are animated video inserts, music and voice! Voice English, but the game has support for Russian subtitles.
Rice quality. All locations are detailed with animated elements (clouds float in the sky, glare sparkle, not the wind swaying cobwebs, dust rises, and the branches of the bushes moving leaves).
Another gem for my collection of Hidden Object games. Everything is simply amazing in this game - very touching story, great graphics and HUGE amount of puzzles. Puzzles are very interesting and sometimes pretty hard to solve. Recommended!
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Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | N-Tri Studio |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 20.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 75% положительных (20) |