Neroli's Opinion: Ghost Town Mysteries: Bodie is a disturbing hidden object game, which has you solving a grisly murder. The plot is frightening and keeps you wanting more, but the game play is tough, and the objects are a challenge to find.

Game Genre: Hidden Object

Release Date: October 8, 2009

Platform/OS: Windows XP/Vista

Screenshot:

Game Review:

Ghost Town Mysteries: Bodie is a frightening hidden object game that has you solving a grisly cold case. If you're living in the ghost town of Bodie, you know better than to stay out after dark. Ever since a young girl was killed with a pick axe a hundred years ago, the entire town has been haunted. The witnesses to the crime were all killed, taking their secrets to the grave. As a famous reporter, it's your job to uncover the source of the haunting, and put the mystery to rest. 

Hands down, this is one of the spookier games I've played in a long time. There are a lot of scenes that might upset sensitive viewers, but thrill the macabre. For starters, you're solving the brutal murder of a 7-year-old child, so the topic is disturbing from the beginning. One frequent minigame has you piecing together the tombstones of murder witnesses who were killed. As you put things together, the ghost of a screaming corpse appears to get closer and closer. It's eerie, kind of like the killing scenes in the movie The Ring. Then a decomposed hand shoots out of the ground to give you a key or some clue. There are ghosts everywhere, and plenty of old murders to hear about.

The game play itself is tough! I struggled to beat each level from very early on in the game. The objects are on the small side, and color blended. Most items look like they should, but they are very well hidden and on the blurry side, which sometimes obscures their shape. Occasionally, a scene is very dark, making it unfairly difficult to spot dark or black items.

Thankfully, the game play is untimed. You get a limited amount of hints in the form of searching spiders, and may earn more by collecting bonus flies in each scene. If you run out, hints do eventually refill after 2 minutes.

If you make too many random clicks, the screen goes gray-scale for a second, and you can't click anything until the color returns. This can happen after just a few wrong clicks, mind you.

As for the adventure game puzzles, these are very simple, and generally involve simple jigsaws and very basic inventory puzzles. While the puzzles aren't hard, there are usually a lot of ghostly distractions on the screen that make them more entertaining. There are ghosts everywhere in this game, even moving past the windows.

The graphics themselves are average, with lots of photorealism. However, the animations and cutscenes are great, and make the whole thing seem much more polished and attractive then its individual parts.  As for the music and sound effects, they definitely set up the spooky atmosphere.

I'm of two minds about Ghost Town Mysteries: Bodie. It's addictive, and the story is great if you like horror, but it's very very challenging. Expect to lean on the hint system for help.  If you are good at HOGs, and like scary stories, I would recommend it. It's not exactly relaxing, but it's definitely interesting.

Where to get the game, or play the free demo:


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