Occultus: Mediterranean Cabal

This is a casual point and-and-click adventure with a few hidden-object scenes and puzzle mini-games.

Skip this one.

While the storytelling is OK, the game engine is rough, awkward, and buggy. You have to click and drag objects, which is already an annoying mechanic, but often clicks won't register and you will miss objects and actions even though you did the right thing. Map navigation is a nightmare.

Even without the clunky engine, game design is unreasonably difficult. At some point I lost interest in even trying to understand the logic behind the puzzles and relied on the hint button to move forward. You are not rewarded for carefully thinking through the puzzles. Instead, you need to just use every object with everything until something works, which is not only tedious but also frustrating when the game engine won't register your clicks.

The puzzle mini-games are also poorly designed. One memorable disaster involves putting 5 weights in order so they balance on a scale. Except that carefully trying to deduce the relative weights will reveal that the rules of physics don't apply. You simply have to try all combinations. Thinking will be punished!