Contract With The Devil

A hidden object game that looks decent, but is a real chore to play.

The presentation is okay. The graphics look nice, the animations aren't really good and the sounds are odd at times. There's no voice for the characters, but that's not really a problem. That the text in the cutscenes is way too fast so that you can't read the story is though.

The minigames are okay, but the inventory based puzzles aren't. For example to use glue you have to put it on a table first. If you try to use the glue directly on the object that you want to fix it won't work. This happens all the time and to find what you really have to do without spamming the hint button is very obscure. One problem with the minigames is that the skip button is *very* close to the right border of the minigames, so it's too easy to accidently click it.

There are two kinds of hidden object scenes. Standard 'search object given as writen words' which aren't too bad and then there are scenes in which you have to find 'logical' pairs. The latter are again not enjoyable and you have to guess a lot to find those pairs. There's also a quite long disappearing animation which makes one achievement nearly impossible to get.

Overall the game plays very tedious and you will not get the whole story on the first playthrough. It might be worth a try if you don't have any other hidden object games to play, but otherwise I can't recommend this game.

Contract With The Devil - being AZ-Art's only project so far - is a decent HOG with some fascinating art work and promising gameplay, presenting you 5 hours or so fair gameplay + some achievements.

Our protagonist is a single mother called Sonya. She receives a letter from a strange gentleman named John McGraw, inviting her to his mansion to share some urgent information about her daughter, Lisa. Accepting this odd invitation, Sonya visits John alongside Lisa, oblivious to the shocking occurrence that shall soon take place. As they were sharing a cup of tea, John invites Sonya to take a look at an antique mirror in his possession. As soon as the surface of the said mirror is revealed though, an eerie flash of light engulfs the room and John disappears alongside Lisa. Shaken and grief-stricken Sonya takes on a supernatural journey through a collection of mirror realms to take her daughter back to safety. As she progresses, she learns the ominous past of the McGraw family and John's reasons for abducting her daughter which concerns a contract... a contract with the Devil.

Quite Faustian, eh? I must say that I liked the concept of the game - and the design of the said Devil - a lot. Some real labor went into display properties, that's for sure. The art works are fascinating with a rich color palette. CGs and animations are flowingly beautiful. Sadly, there is no voice acting though and written narrative skips a bit fast, making it possible to miss some narration, yet it is always possible to track the story through your diary.

There is the mention of 7 Deadly Sins - a.k.a. 7 Hellish Vices and some quests revolving around some little demonic creatures concerning those vices, yet considering a HOG is supposed to be kid-friendly, their concepts are a bit dumbed down. There is not sin of Lust or Pride for some reason, yet there is Gambling or Power Lust etc. It sure is cute, but wrecks the lore and the authenticity. Then again, one shouldn't expect genuine Catholic lore from a HOG anyhow.

Item collection takes a bit of attention mostly. It is possible to miss an item if you are not careful enough. HOG scenes are various and enjoyable, yet sometimes a bit on the ridiculously hard part. Puzzles are quite challenging and intriguing too. There is no map option, but considering every chapter consists of 4-5 areas, it is not that big of a chore to backtrack.

Considering all sides, Contract With The Devil is an enjoyable little HOG adventure with a good story build, nice art work and challenging puzzles. Grab it on sale to spare a lazy afternoon with it, HOG lovers.

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Short version: 31%

Contract with the Devil has beautiful graphics and an interesting plot, but the atrocious writing, tedious progression, and bad hit detection pretty much ruin it as a hidden object game.

Long version:

Contract with the Devil shows tremendous effort, but wastes it on a hidden object game where even some of the more fundamental HOG core design aspects are completely wrong.

This game is riddled with issues like terrible hit detection—the main menu can drop your input!—and repetitive item gathering (even by HOG standards), which all come together as boring at best, annoying at worst.
They are the smaller problem compared to the game’s tendency to waste time. Not only the backtracking is downright ridiculous, but you also need to wait for every single frame of every animation to continue, as if the game is unable to cope with two things at once.

It tries to make up for it with astonishing visuals and the plot is decent for a HOG: we play as a mother trying to save her daughter from a pretty evil person who once made the titular contract with the devil. But, the game messes up even here, with dialogue so childish, so simplistic, it is almost insulting.