Escape Whisper Valley(TM)

Everybody has their own type of games they play, including different types of HOG’s. A beginner or a novice in this field would say they are all the same, but with the gamers who have hundreds of games behinds them every small detail counts. Escape Whisper Valley is a specific game, because it is very simple to play. All that game asks from you is to get out, or better yet escape the town you’re in. You are trapped in a town that is quite creepy and spooky and as you tried to leave town a rockslide blocked your way. So it’s up to you to find a way out of this town as soon as possible. You search for a way out through clue collecting scenes. This isn’t a normal point and click game. You move from scene to scene back and forward and the scenes are 2D images in which you search different clues. You have a list of items that need to be found, but moving from scene to scene sometimes require certain conditions to be fulfilled and this option wasn’t included in the past edition of the game. To advance to a next area you are asked to complete an action and that action requires combination of already found items in your inventory with something in the room. As for item searching it shouldn’t be too difficult as the items are very well integrated in the environment of the background, but there are a couple of challenges surely. You can find some in the matter of seconds, but in other times you can search around the screen for ages and still find nothing, as nothing seems suspicious. The game offers a nice hint system to ease your troublesome searching and a possible headache, but for those who can’t stand waiting for the hint system to recharge no matter how long or short it might be, you can enable yourself unlimited hint in the option mode. The game is separated into twenty-five levels, with each level giving you a couple of these cluttered locations to search for items in, and a time limit to in which to complete them all. Like previously said for the hints, the same goes for the time limit, as it can be turned off in the options menu, but where the fun there??? Unlimited time and hints just don’t give the game any challenge… The main problem here is that there are also twenty-five of these locations too, but as level can have up to eight of these, so it can really take a while before finding all of the items. After finishing up with the level there is always a puzzle at the end that needs to be completed, because it gives as the reward for solving a ‘clue’ for escaping the town. At the end you get one nice jigsaw puzzle which needs to be solved and the other puzzles are normally some sort of word puzzles. While searching for the items it would be clever to watch out for specific items over the main game. You will find one hidden lock and one key that you can click on and finding all twenty-five gives you the opportunity to unlock additional 2 modes in the game. One of them is the Unlimited Seek and Find mode, where you get rid of all mini-games in which can distract you sometimes, and this mode comes in very good because searching for all of those items can be relaxing and you can focus much better. The other mode is a Bejeweled clone whereby you have to eliminate the grey squares behind the items to complete the level, that is a mini-game mode. As for the games graphics the background pictures are a nice work of art with the past century details and some loneliness and spooky effects that give the game nice touch, especially with the audio background. It’s a very creepy sound that matches really well with the game and gives it the necessary touch to make it that much spooky at times. The game is not one of the top 10, but with a nice graphics and audio, and with its fans which don’t require complicated stories; it can give you a nice play time as you try the demo.