The Emerald Maiden: Symphony of Dreams

Developer: GOGII Games | Publisher: Artifex Mundi sp. z o.o. | Release Date: 2016 | Genre: Adventure / Casual / Hidden Object | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

The Emerald Maiden opens with your character receiving a letter inviting her on a mystery voyage. Also included in the letter is a photo of her as a baby along with her mother. This is a bit of a surprise as the protagonist was abandoned on the doorstep of an orphanage 25 years ago and knows nothing about her biological parents. Given an opportunity to go to The Emerald Maiden, supposed to be a playground for the elite, while also finding out about her mother, our heroine eagerly accepts the invite.

The Emerald Maiden: Symphony of Dreams is a hidden object game, so suffice to say the undersea complex where the protagonist arrives isn’t exactly what she expected. Something appears to be very wrong inside it and if she wants to learn the fate of her family, she will have to overcome a myriad of challenges. These challenges take the form of 25 hidden object scenes along with 19 mini-games to solve. Your character will also meet a few other people on her journey and the full story is slowly revealed via conversations and cut-scenes.

Seeing as The Emerald Maiden is an underwater complex with an opulent Art Deco design the Bioshock influences are immediately obvious. This isn’t the first time that such a location featured in an Artifex Mundi published title either as Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden also took a stab at it. However, while the setting is similar and supernatural elements are once again at play, the atmosphere isn’t quite as spooky in this title. You won’t be spending all your time wandering the hallways of the underwater facility either as you get to explore a couple of dream sequences as well, provided you find the necessary key cards. These dream scenes take place in locations like Paris, The Amazon jungle, Prague and a winter cabin, which adds some nice variety to the game. Each location only features a couple of scenes, but it is still refreshing to escape the confines of The Emerald Maiden every now and then.

We quite liked the storyline in this adventure, although the unstable combination of technology and the supernatural is a theme that has been explored before. There are a couple of plot holes and you’ll have to suspend your disbelief for most of the game, but for a hidden object title it’s really not bad. Unfortunately, there are a couple of spelling errors to be found and some things are never adequately explained.

For example, at some point in the game you stumble across someone who appears to be half lobster and without batting an eyelash your character agrees to find his five lost kittens. Now, while rescuing kittens is a noble cause I’m not sure I would entrust them to a man with a lobster claw without some clarification. Perhaps we missed something, but the game just glosses over his appearance and left us wondering what his backstory was. As is tradition, an additional chapter is available after completing the main game. While it is a direct continuation of the story we didn’t’ find it quite as interesting although the setting is completely different.

Visually the game looks good and each location features plenty of detail. Most of the scenes feel very static, although small animations like birds or butterflies help breathe a little life into the outdoor locations. There are also plenty of cut-scenes to watch during the game, but the resolution for these appear to be lower than that of the main game, which causes them to look a little fuzzy on bigger screens. The old movie reel style of some of the cut-scenes provide a nice touch though. The voice acting is fairly decent throughout except for a few spots where lines are delivered a little flat. The sound effects are very good and the music is atmospheric yet unobtrusive.

Players with any previous experience of the genre will feel right at home with The Emerald Maiden as the hidden object scenes as well as puzzles are relatively straightforward. Some scenes provide you with a list of hidden objects to find while others only show you the outlines. Some hidden object scenes are also revisited with a new set of objects to find. Although the puzzles were a little easy we did enjoy most of them and they fit in nicely with the overall theme of the game. Your character enlists the aid of a flying robot helper during the game and it can be used to solve a few environmental puzzles. This is actually a very cool feature, but we would have liked to see it get used in a few more creative ways. While you are out and about solving puzzles and completing scenes you can also keep an eye open for the optional hidden roses. Collecting these are not essential, but you are awarded an achievement if you manage to find all of them.

The Emerald Maiden: Symphony of Dreams isn’t the most original hidden object game we’ve played, but we did find it to be a very absorbing adventure. Completing it will probably take the average player about four to five hours, which isn’t too bad for the genre. If you have been playing hidden object games for a while there isn’t much in this game that you won’t have seen before, but it still manages to entertain.