Created: June 30, 2019

Mystery Masterpiece: The Moonstone

This is a very challenging pure hidden-object game. Unfortunately, it's difficult mostly because many of the objects are very, very small, and require extremely pixel-perfect clicking to register the find. Casual gamers would surely find this frustrating. But persistent hardcore hidden-object game fans might rise to the challenge and feel satisfied by completing it.

That said, it seems that many scenes have at least one object that's hidden using pure evil. It might be an object just a pixel wide (the resolution is less than 1024x768), or in a color that is almost identical to its background, or it might be mostly obscured by another object. Don't be ashamed of hitting the "hint" button. Because, when it comes down to it, this kind of object hiding is simply unfair. It discriminates against people who might have cheap, blurry monitors, clumsy mouse skills, etc. It might sound like I'm joking, but I'm seriously annoyed that finishing some of these puzzles honestly is out of reach.

There is no significant story to this game, and it's definitely not an "adventure". However, the premise is that you are detective looking for clues, and that fits quite well with this genre's gameplay. The little story there is works well enough... as long as you understand that the game consists entirely of hidden-object scenes.

All in all, I enjoyed it despite some of the frustrations about unfairness. I love hidden-object games and appreciate the challenge. It felt like quite an achievement to complete the game!