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Game of Dragons HD
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Graphics & Sound:
Game of Dragons HD is a Hidden Object Adventure where you take on the role of Glory Lind, a seemingly normal girl who is transported to the fantastical land of Newterra, a place with dragons, magic and treachery. The graphics do a good job of conveying the story and the differences between the normal realm and that of Newterra, but they are nothing spectacular. There are some animated areas such as butterflies flitting over some flowers and waves moving about in the water, but again, nothing special.
The characters' faces convey a fair amount of emotion and look pretty believable, but I found that the small dragons you encounter looked really cartoonish and more like they'd be better suited for a children's book, like tiny little Barneys. That being said, they were also cute.
The background music does a good job at immersing you into whatever situation you may find yourself in, whether it is trying to escape a dank dungeon or searching through your own home after it has been ransacked. The music sits in the background, where it belongs, but it is pleasant. Sound effects are there, but aren't extremely memorable.
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Gameplay:
Game of Dragons HD places you in the shoes of Glory Lind, a girl who discovers she has a whole other life awaiting her following a simply taxi car drive. When she ends up in Newterra, she discovers she is royalty and her cousin Simon welcomes her with open arms. Glory soon finds that Simon is not all that he seems and she will have to stop him from not only taking over Newterra, but destroying Earth in the process.
You'll encounter a few characters to help you on your quest. There's Carl, a mysterious old man who lives in the woods; Edward, an imprisoned man who seems familiar; and finally a young dragon named First. When you interact with these characters, you'll have the opportunity to respond to them by selecting one of several different text responses. I am guessing that based on how you play the game, you may get a different outcome. I chose to remain fairly neutral throughout, but there are more aggressive responses, as well as more flippant ones. Since a large part of the game is Glory trying to prove her worth as Newterran royalty and pass a series of tests, flippancy is probably not the best course.
In addition to coming across Hidden Object Scenes and solving those, you'll also need to be on the lookout for items to use that may simply be lying around in the environment. You'll also encounter some weird and tricky puzzles to solve. During Hidden Object Scenes, some objects won't be visible to you. They could be hidden by another object or behind a closed door, for instance. When you open a door to reveal some items, this door could now be covering others item that you could previously see. Items hidden from view appear in the list in red, while visible items appear in black. Watch for color changes in the list to help you.
Puzzle types seem standard for this sort of game, but each one had a little extra something that made it a little more difficult to complete than one typically finds in this sort of game. They aren't impossible by any stretch, they just might take some extra time and effort.
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Difficulty:
Game of Dragons HD has two difficulty modes: Casual and Expert. In Casual Mode, the Hint button recharges quicker, Active areas sparkle, hidden objects are easier to find and puzzles are easier. Meanwhile, in Expert Mode, your Hint button charges more slowly, active areas don't sparkle, hidden objects are more difficult to find and the puzzles are harder to solve.
While the puzzle concepts might seem basic, such as rotating discs to create a picture or matching objects, each puzzle seemed to be just a little more difficult than the standard variation of this puzzle type. One in particular, picking a skeletal face lock, was quite difficult and I just couldn't seem to get it to work. Additionally, when I finally did give in and simply skip it, imagine my surprise and frustration when I returned to this area, only to be once again greeted by the same lock! This was a bug and when I left the area and came back, the lock wasn't there anymore, but it was still a bit annoying. Likewise, there was another time when the game didn't realize I had gotten past a certain point and I was unable to access an area around the pirate ship to get to the other side, until the game finally realized I had completed what I needed to in order to progress.
The Hint button also was often not much help. Instead of pointing me in the correct direction, it would simply give me verbal tips and sometimes, they just weren't much help. It's never a good thing when the difficulty in a game comes from not being able to progress because of bugs or glitches and not because the gameplay itself is tough.
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Game Mechanics:
Game of Dragons HD uses basic gestures to get around the game world. You'll mostly find yourself tapping on objects and tapping to select phrases to interact with other characters. You'll swipe your finger to swirl portions of puzzles in an attempt to align them or you'll tap objects to match them with another list of objects. You'll slide your finger in an attempt to pick a lock (but I was quite unsuccessful in that venture) and you'll tap areas of a maze in attempt to create a clear path for an icon to travel. There are some fairly intricate puzzles to tackle in Game of Dragons HD.
You'll also find yourself righting Simon's wrongs along with way, whether you are clearing an aqueduct he has blocked to provide water to a parched Sphinx, or crafting a flying potion to help a dragon, or even working magic to release the souls of dragons trapped in stone.
I can't help but notice that the icon for the game looks more than a little bit like Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, although once you get into the game, the main character, Glory Lind, has brown hair. It's a bit odd, but maybe it's trying to cash in on the Game of Thrones frenzy, even though this game has nothing to do with the other franchise.
Overall, Game of Dragons HD is an okay Hidden Object Adventure, but I have played better. If you are really interested in the story, you may want to check it out, but G5 has much better Hidden Object Adventures out there.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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