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I Spy Castle
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Graphics & Sound:
I Spy Castle is a great hidden object game targeted at young kids who love exploring and want their world tinged with a bit of magic. You'll play as the hopeful hero, wandering through an old castle in the hopes of discovering every nook and cranny. You work your way through two floors of the castle, as well as the courtyard and the rooms that offshoot from there. You'll even travel outside of a window in your quest. While you will revisit some locations several times, they don't get old or feel re-used. Instead, I found it helpful that I might have spotted some objects the first time I visited a room and could easily find them when they were actually called for, later on.
The rooms are presented in a parallax scrolling method that really gives each area a layered feel. You can scan a room with your eyes and not see things dangling right in front of your face or tucked behind something that will pop into view by scrolling to just the right place. It really encourages exploring the entire room several times over. I Spy is known for being very tricky in hiding their objects and I Spy Castle is no slouch in that department. You'll have to have a keen eye to find everything on your list, but since this game is geared towards kids, there is nothing insurmountable.
The background music is just perfect for this game and has a very Renaissance feel to it. Some parts sound eerie, while others are light-hearted and magical. Overall, I really enjoyed the soundtrack. The voiceovers are used every time you enter a new room and your list of hidden objects is read to you, and items are also read again when you locate them. I really liked the young woman's voice that reads the list and think she will appeal a lot to young kids because she doesn't merely read the list. When she says a spooky item like "a spider," you can almost here the shiver in her voice. It's well done. The knight also narrates your journey and gives you instruction as you progress. He has a commanding voice with just a touch of the olde English.
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Gameplay:
I Spy Castle has an ongoing storyline that progresses as you explore Dragon Castle. The castle is now a rarely visited tourist spot, but used to be a haven for dragons. When the castle was attacked many years before, a princess hid the last dragon egg deep within the castle. It's your job to find the location of the egg, solve the mystery and once again populate the castle with happy dragons. You'll look through the castle, unlocking more areas as you go by finding the needed objects to pass through the doors. Things like gems, shields and keys will appear on your lists from time to time and you will stash them in your backpack for later use. Also, you will pick up other odd items along the way that may be needed in a later hidden object list. Things like "4 bones in a bowl" will require you to pull a bone from your backpack and place it in the bowl that only contains three. Most times, these were the places that tripped me up because I didn't realize I had an item in my bag that would help me. For times like these, there's a handy Hint button that slowly fills over time, so you will never be stuck indefinitely. I also liked that the game would tell you to check your backpack if you were missing an object that was hidden away in your bag and you didn't realize it.
You'll also encounter a number of mini-games as you progress. Typically, you'll have an object to locate on your list such as a torn tapestry, or a falcon learning tricks and when you click on that item to clear it from the list, the game will jump into a mini-game for you to do in order to cross that item off your list. These range from puzzle pieces that must be rotated to recreate a picture, to torn tapestries that require you to draw lines from point to point to repair the torn stitches, to tracing patterns in order to make a falcon mimic your moves, to tapping flies to remove them from a bubbling cauldron. Some of the mini-games really make kids think, such as having a frog jump a specific number of times to get to a certain lily pad or placing pipes such that you get a stream of water to fall into a bucket. Spatial puzzles like these get the mind going, but still in a fun way.
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Difficulty:
While most of these mini-games in I Spy Castle were pretty easy and accessible for kids, there is at least one that presented me with a bit of challenge. It was all gesture-based and simply required that you build up momentum on three different machine parts by swiping rapidly, but you have to keep each one at a certain level. It's tough to get the stars to line up, so to speak, but it is doable. I just didn't expect to be challenged so much in a kid's game.
As I mentioned earlier, I Spy likes to get really tricky when hiding items and some were right under my nose and I didn't see them. Because of the Hint button, you'll never be stuck for too long, though, and I really like the clever way items are hidden. |
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Game Mechanics:
I Spy Castle mainly utilizes tapping and gesture-based moves using the bottom screen, while the top screen contains your list of hidden objects. As you are traveling throughout the castle, the bottom screen will show you the areas you are currently exploring, while the top screen contains a map of whatever floor you are currently playing on. When an area can be explored, it is highlighted with light all around it. If you can't explore an area because it is locked to you at that time or you haven't yet obtained the items you need to progress, the knight will tell you so. If you are ever stuck, you can click the (X) button for a hint or you can click the Right Shoulder Button for some assistance from the knight. You can access your backpack at any time by clicking the Left Shoulder Button and you'll use the (B) button to back out of an area or a mini-game that you have already completed, but accidentally clicked on again.
Overall, I Spy Castle is really accessible to kids, but I'm a grown-up and I had fun with it too. I love hidden object games and, although I breezed through this game pretty quickly, I can see kids really enjoying it. There's a bit of learning thrown in here as well, and you wouldn't expect anything less from Scholastic, but it's all wrapped up in a fanciful veneer of dragons, mystery and magic. Once you have beaten the game, you can't go back and replay it without beginning a new game save, but since there are three available slots, you can just start a new game. If you know a kid that loves hidden object games, especially if that kid has a parent who grew up on Highlights' hidden objects, they should check out I Spy Castle.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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