In a far off mystical land lives a young woman who was raised by a powerful alchemist, Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom lets us step into her shoes as she returns home at a very inopportune time. Her land is in chaos under the rule of a seemingly mad king. This hidden object game has a very intriguing story accompanied by fun gameplay and beautiful graphics. Using your knowledge of alchemy, you can create many useful potions to progress in the game. Can the apprentice solve the mysterious around her and bring peace to land once more? Only with your help, of course.
Our heroine returns home from school to the master alchemist that raised her after her mother’s death and father’s disappearance. As if timed by fate, her house is broken into by a masked thief searching for a magical amulet. It’s this event that starts the ball rolling as the story quickly develops into political intrigue and family secrets. I won’t spoil how things turn out, I will say that while some parts are predictable it was all very well written and more in depth than most games in this genre. My only issue with the story was the main villain's motives. While this person wasn’t totally evil and believed the ends justified the means, it didn’t explain why they nearly destroyed the entire kingdom to do it.
Credit: World-Loom/Artifex MundiThis title is a hidden object adventure game, it mixes aspects of a point and click game with lots of fun hidden object scenes as well other mini games. Players use their computer mouse to do everything, move across maps, play the games and talk to other characters. You’re given an in-game map that allows you to teleport for quick traveling and, depending on the difficulty you’re on, will show you where an action needs to be performed. You have an inventory to hold items as well as a book to hold your potion recipes, these are found throughout the game. This alchemy aspect is the most unique feature, combining certain items will make a useful potion but to do this you have to perform a mini game each time. The mini game itself is simple, aligning colored orbs correctly but the more complicated the recipe the harder the mini game, however I found myself doing just fine on almost all of them. The hidden object scenes are fun and vary from a worded list of objects to find to seeing what the objects look like and trying to find them in the scene. There are also mini games but these didn’t prove to be difficult at all.
The graphics are great, vibrant colors and beautiful scenery. My only issue is the faces of some of the characters and the animation of these faces when they spoke, sometimes it came off as creepy. All of the hidden object scenes are well done, items are rendered well and not blurry. The game has full voice acting, fans of Artifex Mundi games will find the main character’s voice very familiar, as well as a certain crow that shows up. Most of the actors do a very good job, a few are hit-and-miss but overall everything sounded well done. The music in the game fits the setting and isn’t distracting but it’s also nothing too memorable. I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Credit: World-Loom/Artifex MundiI applaud Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom for offering players a pretty solid story with a few twists and turns as well as the new gameplay element of making alchemy potions. Usually in games that involve potion making, I’ve found that it’s a rarely use aspect on the game but here it’s front and center. Veteran hidden object game fans may find this title a bit on the easy side. It’s also a little short with no bonus chapter. The achievements are also relatively easy to gain in one playthrough. But this is still a fun game to play and I look forward to more like this. It also has Steam trading cards if you fancy collecting those along with your achievements. I recommend buying this game, not necessarily on sale, but I feel you will enjoy it if you add it to your library.
