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Gypsy's Tale: The Tower of Secrets
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Graphics & Sound:
Gypsy's Tale: The Tower of Secrets is a hidden object game that adds slightly more depth to the mechanic by giving it a bit of a point-and-click adventure feel, and while the game is short, these slight changes help to make it stand out from other similar titles which have been permeating the casual game market as of late.
The game's 19 screens have a painted, picturesque look to them, and each one portrays the story's fairytale setting. These scenes range from a cosy cottage filled with magical ingredients to a small village to a Gnome's home and even include a fairy world where goblins and evil horses roam.
Besides the backdrops, the game also has quite a few interactive creatures and characters. These include animals like a deer, a squirrel and the aforementioned evil horses, but also a few people as well. While they do move, they do so with simple framed animations in tight loops. While not really impressive, it helps to give a little motion to what could otherwise be a static image.
Sound isn't really anything impressive. There are a few background tunes that are quiet and have a fairytale quality to them, but there are also quite a few locations where no music will play at all, and at most you are treated to some rolling thunder, or bugs chirping. The other sound effects, clicking on objects and whatnot, are present, but the game can easily be played with your speakers off and still be enjoyable.
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Gameplay:
Gypsy's Tale: The Tower of Secrets has you, as a Gypsy for hire, roaming the area trying to find a mysterious tower and helping your employer's friend who is trapped there. This requires you to not only explore a (very) small village, but also some dark woods and an overgrown courtyard. Eventually the game will even take you into the magical elfen world and even into a painting.
Gypsy's Tale ends up being a blend between point-and-click adventures and hidden object puzzle games. Each scene has quite a few items that you will need to pick up and put in your inventory, or things to use the items in your inventory on, but obtaining the desired object isn't as simple as clicking it.
Instead, when you go to grab it, a wheel of hidden objects appear around it. Occasionally, these objects make sense; if you want the wooden trap, you need to find the broken parts laying about the scene, but a vast majority of the time, the requested objects just don't make sense, at least not in the context of picking up or using the object. A good example of this is when you need to pick up a shovel. For some reason, you have to find four rocks hidden on the screen before you are allowed to grab the tool. If you want to activate a statue, you have to collect four stone heads scattered about (despite the fact that the statue only has one). While this is a nice way to blend the two genres, it seemed like a vast majority of the time, the developers weren't really sure what they needed the player to gather in order to free up the desired item.
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Difficulty:
As I touched on above, Gypsy's Tale: The Tower of Secrets isn't a long game. I was able to beat it over the course of three or so hours, and once beaten, there is no replay value. The game never presents itself with a puzzle that is too hard to solve, and the solution is, more times than not, obvious. The only places where I had to use the built-in hint system were when I just couldn't find some hidden object that blended in with the background way too well, or the couple of times when I simply didn't know which location I needed to go to in order to progress the story. In both cases, these occasions were rare, and in both cases, I felt justified in the use of the hint system since even after doing what needed to be done, I knew I wouldn't have found the place (or hidden object) on my own.
I do have to say, the game throws in the occasional puzzle when trying to open a door. At least a couple of times this is a slide-puzzle, something I have never gotten the hang of, and have found down-right annoying pretty much all my life. Thankfully, when trying to solve puzzles like this, the game presents a "skip" button that slowly fills over time. If you are still working through it by the time that fills, a simple click will let you progress. |
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Game Mechanics:
Besides Gypsy's Tale: The Tower of Secrets' interesting way to blend adventure and hidden object genres, it also offers a few "usability" features that, if not present, would have made the game far less annoying.
Chief among these features is the map system. In most scenes, there are several gems scattered around the background. If you find all of these, you will get a piece of the map, and with that is the ability to zap straight to that location instead of walking through the various screens. While the world isn't huge, there is a lot of backtracking, and, especially towards the end, you will find yourself trekking across the land many times in order to collect the items you need. So trust me, you will want to take the time to find all of the gems. There was one location where I knew I was still missing two gems (the HUD tells you how many are on the screen) and I could not find them. Thankfully, if you sit long enough and be patient, those gems will sparkle, so you should always find all of them, even if you have to sit there for a while and do nothing except wait.
Gypsy's Tale is a fun, if short, title. It is definitely geared more towards the casual gamer who might break a gaming session into several short ones instead of a long stint in front of the computer, so the experience might drag out more for that audience. At $10.00, it's not over-priced, and based on how the game ends, there seems to be sequels planned. While I wouldn't say this game is a must buy, it is worth checking out if you are looking for a bit of a distraction. |
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-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer |
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP or greater, 256 MB RAM |
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Test System:
Windows 7 Ultimate, Intel i7 X980 3.33GHz, 12 GB RAM, Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card, DirectX 9.0c |
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Related Links:
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