Queen’s Quest: Tower of Darkness

Developer: Brave Giant LTD | Publisher: Artifex Mundi | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Hidden Object Game | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Instead of a happily ever after, the royal heiress in Queen’s Quest ends up with a husband that is turned into a statue and a daughter kidnapped by a demonic sorcerer. It would seem that her consort had made some questionable promises in the past, which led to this unfortunate event. As the resident magician seems to be more interested in discussing the events with some council instead of actually assisting, our heroine has no choice but to go on a quest to save her family.

Queen’s Quest: Tower of Darkness is a hidden object puzzle adventure developed by Brave Giant LTD and published by Artifex Mundi. The story draws its inspiration from one of the fairy tales by the Grimm brothers, but combines it with plenty of other fantasy elements, such as a mechanical dragon and massive Kraken. Your quest will take you from the castle and across the ocean in a pirate ship to the tower of darkness where the evil sorcerer has taken your child. You won’t have to make this perilous journey alone, however, as early in the game you get a fairy helper who can assist you with items that are out of your reach.

As far as HOPA goes, Queen’s Quest is a pretty formulaic title. There is a family member to rescue, an evil villain to defeat and a couple of puzzles to solve along the way. Despite its fairy tale inspiration, Queen’s Quest is actually pretty thin on plot and the emphasis of the game is definitely on the hidden object scenes as well as mini-games. This is great news for players who love these gameplay elements, but we know that many people would have liked to see a more engrossing storyline to back everything up.

The game doesn’t have a heavy focus on puzzles either, so throughout the adventure your inventory remains manageable and it is always obvious where to use whatever you find. Some of the mini-games are ones that we have seen before, but there are also a few unique ones. The story book scenes, where you have to combine the elements of wind, earth, fire, and air to overcome obstacles are definitely a nice touch. The hidden object scenes are all pretty easy and you’ll visit each scene at least twice to collect everything. For the most part all the objects on your list can be spotted right away, although there are also a couple of them that morph between different shapes, which can make them trickier to spot. Finally, to add a little extra challenge to each area you can also search for the hidden collectibles, such as crowns, swords, hooks and apples.

Visually, Queen’s Quest is quite a nice looking game with detailed scenery and characters. However, the look of the characters does tend to veer uncomfortably into uncanny valley territory, which is made even worse by the somewhat iffy animation. You’ll get used to it after a while, but it can be a little distracting at first. The game doesn’t have a vast amount of locations and the initial scenes definitely look better than the later ones, but overall everything is up to scratch. Backgrounds tend to look a little lifeless due to the limited amount of animation, but makes up for it with all the color and detail. The game also features a handy map, which can be used to quickly travel around, although there isn’t a lot of backtracking.

Like the graphics, the audio gets the job done, but never really does anything truly impressive. The volume of the music, sound effects and voice overs can all be adjusted independently, which is always a bonus. Speaking of the voice acting, most of the characters sound decent enough, but whoever voiced the villain definitely dropped the ball. He just doesn’t sound menacing in the least, so it is probably a blessing in disguise that you hear very little from him after his initial appearance. There are a fair amount of sound effects played throughout the game, but the background music is a little less diverse and can become somewhat repetitive. The controls are straightforward as everything is mouse driven and if you have any previous experience with HOPA you’ll feel right at home with Queen’s Quest. Since the game features three difficulty levels as well as a tutorial, it should be accessible to players of all skill levels.

If you like HOPA and don’t care too much about the story, then you might enjoy Queen’s Quest: Tower of Darkness. It is much better than many of the titles available in the genre, but just not unique enough to distinguish it from the top tier releases. Even the bonus chapter that is included, which focuses on saving the prince, is so short and easy that it can be completed in no time. Artifex Mundi has created and published some of the best HOPA available on the market and while Queen’s Quest falls a little short of greatness, it is still a decent game that is worth the price.