The puzzles in this game were very hard, mainly because they weren't particularly intuitive. What had to be done next was often unclear and the puzzle solutions not logical. For this reason, I found this game quite frustrating. The story is interesting, the characters engaging, and the graphics quite nice, but more intuitive game play would have made this game a lot better.

Panaramic vision. Find fragments. Inventory items can be combined before using. Collect anything that gleams red (they?re rubies and you?ll get a hammer that will set it free from whatever is holding it). About 15-20 minutes into the game, I thought it was aimed at children (due to dialogue and type of artwork) which doesn?t mean that adults can?t like it with the same enthusiasm, but I think children would have trouble doing the puzzles by themselves. Didn?t know how to evaluate majority of the game because the good seems to have an offsetting problem, so you have to determine yourself which outweighs the other. Here?s my take: 1. Foreground is bright, but the background is frequently dark, making it difficult to find anything. Although you can freely use the hint button to find things and it recharges really fast. 2. Items in the tray may appear to be a brighter color (say purple), but in the HOS, it is greyish or beige. Can make it difficult to know you actually found something. 3. The inventory tray can be locked into place. But sometimes what you?re looking for is under the tray, which keeps popping up when you move your cursor to the bottom of the screen. Solution is to temporarily change your screen to windowed until you?ve gathered the objects. 4. Dialogue is written. Sometimes, it is too fast to easily read. Some people may see the dialogue as childish. 5. There was one occasion where you had to press 3 pieces of a puzzle in a statue, but unless you had the statue in a certain location, the puzzle kept disappearing if you guessed wrong. Became annoying. I can only say try the game for the entire hour to see what you think of it. A half hour may not give you a true flavor for the game because the intro is not how the game plays the rest of the time.

This is a Fractured Object game from Maximize Games; normally I would buy as FR0Gs are not easily come by. You are given a journal which tells the story so far; the music is ok but someone went overboard on the background noises. I know the game starts in the jungle but it really is too noisy. It is widescreen, there is no voiceover except for the narration which is Tom as an adult recalling what happened when he was a child; the dialogue can be clicked through. I found the cursor clunky & rather draggy. The graphics are crisp but very dreary & the artwork was rather lovely hand drawn scenes however the objects are so well blended that you will need the hint button; luckily it recharges within 10 seconds! The scenes are scrollable & be warned some of the items are found at the very bottom of the screen. The inventory was used by clicking a bag on the right & you have to remember to close it to go back to the FR0G objects; not very smooth in operation & altogether too large. The screens are very dark & many of the objects too difficult for me to find so I did not purchase after playing the hour demo.