Type of app: Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure (HOPA) game
Platform/where to buy: Kindle Fire ; available in the Amazon AppStore for Android
Developer: Orchid Games / G5 Entertainment
Description:
In this critically acclaimed adventure quest, help two charming royal heirs escape from a secluded island! Princess Loreen and Prince Nathaniel find themselves locked in a dungeon without any idea of how they got there. She is bright, witty and rebellious. He is handsome, smart and brave. Unfortunately, they can’t stand each other! Take control of both the Prince and Princess and help this hilarious bickering duo escape from their dastardly kidnappers. Search through the castle for exits and avoid being caught. Find suitable items to help them manage their inventories, solve puzzles, and play outstanding mini-games in search of answers. Solve the mystery of their captivity, and watch love blossom in this charming adventure game with fun twists and turns.
Key Features:
- 22 Entertaining locations
- 16 Intricate mini games
- Charming witty characters
- Explosive combination of mystery, romance and fun!
Major features:Royal Trouble is a point & click adventure game that tells the story of a prince and princess – Loreen and Nathaniel – who awake to find themselves imprisoned alone in cells without any memory of how they got there or even where they are. The constant goal is to escape, but there are constant obstacles and difficult challenges that need to be solved. When the two first meet, there is distrust and antagonism since they do not know each other. But quite soon the two realize that they MUST work together to gain their freedom.
The first interesting gameplay twist is that you are playing as BOTH characters! You start off helping Loreen and Nathaniel individually get out of their cells, but after Loreen gets stuck after tricking her way into the one-person lift, Nathaniel eventually works to help her. You control one character at a time, but as the game progresses the back-and-forth becomes much more interactive as you exchange items to help one another using the dumb-waiter that connects several rooms in the castle.
Each character finds themself stuck in a room looking to advance towards escape, needing to locate items to help facilitate moving to the next room. For example, you make it out of one area by scaling down a chain rope, but soon realize that you need an item you saw in the previous room – but the chain is too high to reach. So you need to break down elements of a crumbled stairway, find some binding elements and build a makeshift ladder to help you scale back up to the previous room.
Although much of the game has you searching for items in rooms, it is very different from traditional ‘hidden object’ games and closer to ‘Sam & Max’ style adventures – each item needs to have a particular purpose directly related to whatever you are doing at the time. This is a much more engaging style of play – but requires a compelling story and characters to make it enjoyable. Fortunately Royal Trouble delivers – the protagonists are quirky and likeable, and the odd characters they meet along the way add loads of flavor. And the story – while totally predictable on the one hand – is well paced and presented and keeps you engaged and rooting for the heroes throughout.
Aside from finding items to help you advance your escape and the story, you will also frequently meet up with puzzles. There are many types that will be familiar to veteran adventure gamers – restacking, pattern recognition, circuit flows, and simple math patters – and some that interact with items you locate in your travels. They never feel like simple busy-work, and always contribute to advancing the game.
By now it is clear how much I enjoyed Royal Trouble. The story, the characters, the well-done technical details, and the compelling gameplay combine to make this one of those games I just couldn’t put down once I started and finished in just a couple of extended sessions. It is a great game that any fans of adventure games will immediately love – and any casual gamer should definitely check out!
Ease of use/Overall performance: Technically the game is extremely well done. The scenes are gorgeous and extremely detailed and well drawn. You will never miss an item due to lack of clarity or the screen being too dark. The cutscenes are done in a storybook 3D CGI style that brings things to life, and there is full voice acting for all characters and narration throughout the game. The game also translates well to the smaller Kindle Fire screen.
My only criticism for the iPad version of the game was that in a couple of ‘find X of this type of item’ puzzles I found the touch position recognition to be rather random. Fortunately since then the developers have fixed it up and I didn’t have a single issue playing through the game.
Would use again/recommend?: Absolutely! There are some who argue that hidden object games have no replayability, but in my opinion that is only true for lousy games! A good, fun, engaging game like this was a blast to go back and revisit.
Suggested changes/wish list for updates: Nothing.
Price: $4.99 (Free download and trial with in-app purchase for full version)
Here is the trailer:
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