Throughout Part 1 of this review, we met Evangeline
Glass, and we saw her father figure Ambrose Ink kidnapped by some evil Barber (that’s
the villain’s name, he’s not actually a barber), so we investigated the outside
of the Inn we started in, ended up in a zeppelin, landed in a castle backyard,
got caught, escaped easily, and found our way to the basement. There lies the
Tremor Machine used by Barber to cause earthquakes in the region. Our
protagonist has managed to do all this without ever applying violence to any
actual humans!
Okay, I can buy a giant mechanical spider, but a large machine right over lava? C'm'on. |
We are now in the underground area beneath Barber’s
castle, right above the magma. Sheesh, you have to wonder how the Hell he was
able to build that thing so deep into the Earth! And of course, the bridge to the
Tremor Machine has been removed so that Barber can work on it undisturbed, so
we have to find a way towards it. Should be easy, we just have to explore that
room with various robotic body parts, or maybe the room with that giant machine
and a cell, from which we can see Ambrose Ink peeking…
Oh hey, I found him! Well, that was easy.
But we need a robotic hand in order to open his jail
cell. Thankfully, there are many spare parts in a nearby room, which Evangeline
finds among a mess of other parts. Rule of a Hidden Objects game: Every single
place is a mess of objects.
Of course you're shown images of the items rather than names. How would you name every single piece needed to build the next thing? |
Another common occurrence in the game is in the form
of multiple similar items scattered around the unlocked zones, which must all
be collected to move forward. As an example, in the underground, Evangeline has
to find 5 pieces of electronics to put into the robotic arm she just built. Then there’s
a puzzle about putting all the pieces on the arm, with a spring. Then we can
use that arm to free Doctor Ambrose Ink. Or rather, we can now use his jail
cell to stage a sabotage of the Tremor Machine. Just need a chalk and a photo
of the actual machine.
Even the lock to Ink's cell involves a puzzle. Barber must really love those. |
Just... how? How is this gonna help? |
Ink devises a plan involving another caterpillar robot,
but we need to repair it first. Huh, why am I not surprised. Also, once it’s
reprogrammed to be on our side, its red eye switches to a green color. Again,
why am I not surprised. What is it with red being always associated with evil?
Are there really any heroes in red?
…Oh… yeah… Dammit I feel dumb sometimes.
Piece back together the old one like a puzzle, gather cement, make it wet, stick the broken piece there, find a silver ingot, boil it in lava, fill the mold, hop, new piece! |
Evangeline has time to go inside the machine, but
Ambrose gets caught by Barber and his mechanical hand before he can join.
Thankfully, once again, the interior of the machine has all the tools required
for it to be irreparably damaged by our Victorian Steampunk Spy Extraordinaire.
And damage it, she does! Next, she goes upstairs and sees a robot hard at work
nearby, and has a Barber emblem key to take control of it. Only problem, it’s
far away. Like that’s ever been a problem! We build a makeshift zipline to get
to the robot and take control of it.
That was the end of the game; with the robot,
Evangeline saves Ink, captures Barber, all off-screen. We only see them flying
out of the molten magma land. That’s all we get as an ending, but hey, I’m
satisfied with it.
Well, as interesting as basic pictures may be, anyway. |
Eh, it’s actually just an excuse for more puzzles. It
reveals that there’s a secret passageway from the church leading into the
castle, but he first needs to find 6 tokens to put on the chapel door to complete
yet another puzzle. This is a long task, but we manage to do it. And then,
inside the chapel, we must give each of four statues of Saints an item that
represents them, in order to unlock the secret passageway.
I do want to question just how come all of those tokens are in the possession of various people or hidden in very unlikely places, considering they open the chapel nearby. |
Hey, at least it shows that some soldiers are decent. |
Another puzzle follows, requiring a charged battery,
but all we can find is an empty battery. How to boost it? Why, arrange
something with a metal wire and a fallen kite, both hung to float over an empty
zone where lightning frequently falls! Simple, huh? MacGyver: The Steampunk
Edition. …Huh, I’m surprised I didn’t come up with that one earlier. Attaching
this battery to the stand in the center of the chapel and completing the final
puzzle unlocks the secret passageway.
This brings Ink into Barber’s Castle, right in front
of the elevator leading underground – and Ink uses Matthew and his built-in
camera to take images of the area, many of which turn out important when
Evangeline finds herself alone with only Matthew the robot-bird to help her.
Shame that the game won't, for some reason, let me grab a screenshot past the start of any cinematic sequence. Weird. |
By the way, if you want an additional puzzle on top of the whole game (in Evangeline's story, at least), you can look for robotic insects scattered around the game, one per important screen. Three achievements are about finding all of the ones hidden in each chapter. This isn't too difficult.
For the record, the first time I played this game, I
did it on Casual. For this review, I replayed it on Expert. I think I had an
easier time on Expert, because I had already played through all of the puzzles
and nothing else was actually any more difficult!
A quick look at the Steam page for Clockwork Tales
shows that it’s currently sold in a bundle with other Artifex Mundi games, each
of which seems to follow the same concept: Smart woman solves puzzles, uncovers
secrets in some kind of adventure with plenty of excuses to stop the plot in
its tracks to get an enigma or thingamajig solved. Which, you know, it’s their
niche, if that’s what the creators at Artifex Mundi do best, they can keep on
doing it. They’ve had a few more releases.
Nah, it's okay. Every time I see a Nazi wannabe, I want to punch their lights out too. |
Granted, it’s got some tricky sections. There are
items on some screens that you might not think about checking, which makes it
difficult to solve some of the item combination riddles. Thankfully, you can
always ask for hints (even on the Expert difficult) and you can skip every
solitary puzzle – as if the game wasn’t easy enough already. Yes, the
difficulty is set for children and pre-teens.
But hey, that’s okay. This game is perfectly fine for your kids – and in fact, you might enjoy it too.
That's all fine and good, but who's gona pay to repair the damage done to the Inn? |
Although, I have to say, I noticed a few spellig mistakes here and there whenever someone's spoken lines were written on the screen. I hate to point it out as it's not so bad, but in a puzzle game that prioritizes smarts and intelligence, these spelling mistakes clash with the theme. Was the spellchecker on vacation that day?
So yeah: Good game! Buy it for your kids, or try it
yourself. And if they like it, the studio has you covered with more games in
the genre. I do suggest you check them out. They’re not very challenging for
adults, but you could have fun playing through them at least once.
And that’s another review completed! Now… let’s see…
What to review next… Hm…
Ah, sure, why not another game I downloaded during my
early days on Steam. And maybe something that’s omnipresent on Steam… See you
then!
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