Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner

Wow, this was surprisingly well-done for an indie developer's first attempt for a HOG. Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner is a HOG indeed, with the atmosphere of a light weight adventure game coming from Anvate Games. It is not revolutionary, neither the best thing since sliced bread; but it is a decent HOG with some creativity put into it.

It's 1872, Portugal. Our protagonist Natalie is a young author at the end of her luck. She is going through financial problems after the passing of her father, critics mauled her new novel and now she conveniently misses the last steam ship to Americas for that week. Talk about Murphy's Laws, huh? Luckily - or unluckily enough, she manages to get herself passage on a small cargo boat which will be travelling towards Americas also. She quickly befriends the captain and the crew, and starts on a pleasant voyage, hoping to use the travelling time to pen a new adventure novel maybe. One night though, the adventure happens to her directly. As she wakes up to an eerie sound by the middle of the night, she quickly realizes that she is the only one on board. With an uncanny, glowing amphora residing in the cargo hold, she has time only until dawn to figure out what happened to the crew and bring them back. It seems that Murphy has spoken to Natalie at the end anyhow.

We are mostly used to hand-drawn environment art in HOGs - starting with Artifex Mundi and Big Fish classics - but Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner utilizes a 3D environment, much like an old school adventure game for our exploration. Cinematic cut scenes are hand drawn art already but gaming environment is all 3D models with a full blown environment design for the ship. There are certain effects that really brings out the atmosphere: like as the ship sways, our camera sways slowly to mimic the motion. I hope you wouldn't be prone to sea sickness. Flickering lights, eerie sound effects, triggered time bound survival mini games are all welcome flavors, successfully presenting a light horror atmosphere. 3D environment makes the HOG progression somewhat challenging in an enjoyable way too.

The game itself uses a HOG interface nonetheless; with your journal, inventory slots, clue button etc. You'll have 10 or so HOG scenes with creepy-crawlies walking around and the same amount of puzzles - some usual, some definitely creative. Items - mostly pearls - are easy to miss since there is little indicator that any object can be picked up and utilized, but the environment isn't large enough to get lost in a pixel hunt anyway. You easily get by.

As a last verdict, I can sincerely recommend the game for a casual time kill. It was a refreshing approach to the genre, and a successful trial at blending different genres into one casual game. Enjoy!

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Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner is a straight forward Hidden Objects puzzle game. The story sat in 1972, a young writer named Natalie who's been trying to survive life after her father passed away, she had financial issues because critics don't like her new novel. That morning she decided to take a steamship back to her homeland, America, but due to her bad luck, she missed the last voyage for the week. A captain of a cargo ship offered her to travel with them and she agreed. He told her they are carrying antique collection which belongs to a famous collector, little she does know this information will be valuable later when her adventure inside the ship starts in that night. The antique Amphora started to glow, and everyone in the ship has disappeared except for Natalie, all thanks go to the keepsake ring her father left her before he died.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723652158

The adventure was only on the ship, you'll have to go back and forth searching for items and solve puzzles in order to save everyone who has disappeared. I like the 3d artstyle of the game and there is an option for the camera to give you a realistic feeling of the ship, but the lack of the fast traveling map made it a little bit frustrating at times. The journal was very helpful as well as the hints.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723652670

Hidden objects scenes weren't very hard to solve, as well as the puzzles, which is skippable in case you fail to solve it. The music fits the atmosphere very well. Sadly since the game is old it doesn't have voice overs.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723652542

Pros:
+Good 3D artwork.
+Good journal.
+Good story.
+OK music.
+Multiple hidden objects scenes.
+Collectables.
+Variety of puzzles.

Cons:
-No steam achievements.
-No voice-overs.

Its a little bit on the short side, but I recommend this game to Hidden Objects lovers, you'll definitely enjoy this one.

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑚𝑦 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑎'𝑠 𝐶𝘩𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒

I really wanted to like this game, but unfortunately it is just not very well designed or put together.

Interface and Difficulty Settings:

The interface seems simple enough: a hand icon will appear if you can manipulate something, a spyglass icon will appear if you can examine something, and a glowing arrow will appear if you can move to a new location; however, there is no icon for whether you can pick something up, so have fun clicking on every object in a room or background to see if your character feels like taking it. There is also an issue with needing pixel accuracy for certain item interactions.

The only difference between normal and advanced difficulties is that the normal mode will sometimes, if it feels like it, make certain interactables (usually pearls) sparkle. It is a bit buggy, though, because it will also make areas where you have already picked things up sparkle, or areas where there is absolutely nothing of interest sparkle. Hidden object screens in both difficulties are clearly noted.

Hidden Object Puzzles:

You would think that the items would be pretty clearly distinguishable from each other, since each object is a separate cg-rendered model, but everything looks like it's made out of the same cheap plastic; if two items have a similar colour, they just blend together.

The puzzles at least make a bit more sense than most in the genre - the kitchen contains cooking-related items, the first-aid kit contains medical supplies, and the crew quarters and storerooms contain a wider assortment of gear and personal effects. There aren't too many piles of junk, or random Victorian dolls, or vegetables mixed in with antiques like you see in other HOGs.

One slightly irksome thing is that interactables within the hidden object screens are not indicated in any way, so any of the items stashed within containers or compartments are especially difficult to locate. It kind of defeats the purpose of strategic hunting if you have to randomly click on everything that might be a secret cache.

Additionally, at least two of the puzzles have random insects crawling all over them for "atmosphere," so I hope you like bugs.

Mini-games:

Speaking of creepy crawlies, I hope you also like rats and spiders because they each have their own mini-game.

I will at least give this game props for creativity.

Some of mini-games were tedious, and involved either "do this repetitive thing for a full three minutes" or "see how fast you can click and drag." Other mini-games were actually fun, though, and were different from any of the formulaic genre standards. I especially liked the match-3 tile-flipping game.

At the completion of each puzzle, a little victory jingle plays, and fireworks explode from each side of the screen. So much for the immersive horror experience. "Something horrible is happening on the ship, but I just opened a door. Party time!"

There is also a game-wide hidden object puzzle of finding little pearls hidden all over the ship. I like that the game adds another layer of complexity with this challenge.

Story:

You, a girl with a magic ring that wards off evil spirits, book passage on a cargo ship that just happens to have an evil spirit problem. Go figure. You must then spend an entire evening pretending to be an exterminator, a mechanic, a janitor, a navigator, and a really, really bad thief. (Seriously, you successfully crack a lock in a mini-game, and then the cutscene shows your character doing a completely different and stupid action that results in negative consequences.)

The gameplay is entirely linear, but you will need to refer to your journal to figure out where you should be trying to go next and why it matters. Without the journal, the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

There is also a weird quasi-romantic scene shoehorned in for no reason.

Graphics:

It starts off with a hand-drawn cutscene, which I was completely on board with because it was artistic and different. Then as soon as you get control of your character, you are dropped in a 90's-era, "we just learned how to use textures" cgi landscape that reminds me of the old cd-roms I played as a kid. The effect is jarring, and gets more grating with each subsequent cutscene.

I did like that they included a camera option that simulates boat-rocking. It adds to the feeling of being trapped on a creepy ship.

Text:

The text is well-written in both the various notes you find around the ship and in your journal, but the subtitles for the cutscenes are often misspelled or grammatically incorrect, and use an annoying serif font.

Music:
The game includes a free copy of the soundtrack, so you can enjoy all the boat creaking, wind whistling, and ghostly banging you want at your own leisure.

In short, this is a mediocre HOG with a clunky interface, inconsistent graphics, frustrating hidden object screens, bad translation errors, a contrived story, and too many vermin, that just happens to include a couple of enjoyable mini-games, a bonus scavenger hunt, and an interesting camera gimmick. That is simply not good enough for me to recommend it, when there are so many HOGs out there that do a much better job. I give it a 4/10.