[u]Recommendation[/u]: A pretty good, straightforward game that is almost entirely hidden object scenes.
[u]Critique[/u]: This feels like a much older game than the date shown as the Steam release date; graphically, the game looks like something from twenty or more years ago (but the design clearly owes a debt to Facebook games, which means it can't be [i]quite[/i] that old). In many scenes, the objects you are trying to find are the same images that have been placed in a new background, possibly with a bit of rotation or clipping to suggest that it is behind something else. Obviously, that makes the game a LOT easier than many others: once you figure out what is meant by BOW, for example, you can look for the same thing on every screen afterward, without the ambiguity of other meanings of the word. This goes for a lot of things: the SWORD is always the same, as is the MASK. Some things have multiple versions, but it's always the same meaning: a ROPE is a rope. GLASSES have the most variety: sometimes it means eyeglasses, sometimes a pince nez, sometime goggles, but it's always something worn on the face over the eyes, rather than, say, multiple drinking vessels. Having played a LOT of other hidden object games that aren't as reliable, I [b]really[/b] appreciate this straightforward approach.
I also really like how the game is almost completely hidden object scenes; there aren't a dozen other mini games mixed in with your hunts...just one, which is "spot the differences." In the hidden object scenes, you can zoom in and pan around in the image to get a closer look, but the zoom is incredibly slow. There is no penalty for missed clicks; the score in each scene is entirely based on speed, because you get a score multiplier that increases every time you find an item and decreases over time between each object found. So you want to "chain" objects found for high scores. Each level has up to three "stars" that you can earn; nowadays that would suggest that it's a mobile game, but that mechanic actually originally comes from the early days of social media games: MySpace and Facebook innovated the "play again to try for more stars" design to get people to stay on their sites for more ad revenue. In this game, each scene comes with four challenges: two plays of the scene to get different items (the items aren't used for anything, this is not an adventure game), a time challenge (complete the level below a certain time), and earning three stars (which you can complete in one of the earlier challenges, so you don't necessarily even have to play the scene more than three times).
The game does not tell you this, but the "spot the differences" scenes are ZOOMED IN, and you have to pan around the scene to find all the differences. In going through the challenges for each "spot the differences" scene, the differences are distinct the first, second, and third time you play the scene, but if you still need to play after three times, the differences are identical to the third play every time after that.
This game is enjoyable and satisfying. I particularly liked it as a palate cleanser, a welcome break from all the much more complex hidden object games I've played in recent years with horrible voice acting, creepy deepfake animation, convoluted plots, adventure game elements, and so many minigames. This game has none of those, and I found it quite refreshing.
[u]Review[/u]: This game follows the plot of the book [u]Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea[/u], presenting a summary of that book in little still images with subtitles for narration and/or text balloons for character dialogue. Then you transition into a hidden object scene. When you've completed that, you are presented with the next part of the story. In that way, you progress through the story of the gentleman and his servant boarding a ship looking for the sea monster, getting attacked by the monster (which is actually the Nautilus), coming aboard and meeting Captain Nemo, and exploring the world in a submarine before returning home at last.
