Chronicle Keepers: The Dreaming Garden Review
Chronicle Keepers: The Dreaming Garden
Publisher: PlayWay S.A.
Developer: PlayWay S.A.
Genre:
PEGI: E
Comments:
Chronicle Keepers: The Dreaming Garden Review
After an evil force abruptly attacks and steals away her mother, young Kinnat heads on a magical adventure to get her back at all costs. Traveling through a book called the Chronicle, Kinnat finds herself transported to a parallel world of magic and mystery with new challenges around every corner. An engaging and unique hidden object point-and-click game, Chronicle Keepers: The Dreaming Garden is a fun buy at a reasonable price.
Entering the Chronicle
The story gets off to an abrupt start, immediately throwing the player into Kinnat’s world. After seeing her mother stolen away by a mysterious force, she finds a strange book named the Chronicle and uses it to aide her in her journey. After being thrown from our world into a different one, she is quickly discovered by a helpful leprechaun who helps guide her to find the items needed to travel to the location where her mother is being held prisoner as a stone statue. After discovering the evil entity’s identity – the Banshee – Kinnat sets out to stop her before it’s too late and her mother is lost forever. Along the way, Kinnat finds out the truth about her mother. A Chronicle Keeper, Kinnat’s mother was responsible for guarding the Chronicle and its link to the other world. Using a strange medallion (first shattered, eventually restored) Kinnat can see things that aren’t really there but exist on another plane, and use them to her advantage.
Quests and Minigames
A point-and-click game at heart, Chronicle Keepers, developed by PlayWay S.A. features slide-by-slide gameplay. Moving from one scene to another, the player controls movement and searching. After finding hidden objects in each scene, tasks are also uncovered. The solutions to these tasks can be found in the surrounding scenes and take a little creative thinking to uncover. Each level also includes one to two iSpy-esque challenges in which a small section of the scene is highlighted and the player must work to locate all of the specific objects listed in the huge array before them. The minigames are not too difficult (hints are also offered if desired) to figure out with one or two tries, and the ease of the game keeps it fun and fast-moving. In total, Chronicle Keepers has a play time of about an hour to find all hidden items, and feels like the perfect pacing.
The scenery and atmosphere created by the artists who worked on the game is spectacular. It’s a beautiful journey with creative ideas and a lot of dark thinking. The voice acting is sub-par, and while the art is beautiful, the actual graphics feel very old and very rough. It may have done the game some good to stick solely with the set-scene art, and avoid moving animations all together. Kinnat also holds a book with her that houses her quest log, some dark imagery with story attached that can be found throughout the maps, and instructions for certain puzzles.
Overall, Chronicle Keepers: The Dreaming Garden is a good showing for hidden object games. Released earlier this month, it is a new game that has some of the old adventure-game feeling that is sorely lacking in modern gaming. For anyone who enjoyed Nancy Drew games or 90s point-and-click adventure, this game will likely gain a soft spot in your heart. Being sold for $5 on Steam, this is an easy buy that will give a fun experience for the gamer who can appreciate the outing.