Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light (PC)

It’s become a bit of a common practice for hidden object games to break up their search-and-find gameplay segments with mild adventure game elements like inventory puzzles or match games. While not often substantial, these do break up the regular play some and feed into the light story frameworks these games feature, but Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light is a bit of an odd case, because here, they can end up being just as interesting or actually more enjoyable than the hidden object segments.

There is an unfortunate caveat with that fact though, and it’s partly why the adventure elements stand out as an interesting component of the gameplay: the hidden object screens aren’t that difficult. The search-and-find segments of play will involve a static yet detailed image cluttered with all kinds of unusual items. The player is provided a list of objects they’ll need to find amidst the mess, there usually being a decent mix of large distinct items as well as more subtle things like shapes or small items like shards of glass that can blend in the background or be placed behind other objects. Finding all the items on your list is necessary to continue, but even though the game tries to mix together a few gimmes with a few better hidden objects, most of the screens are too easy for their own good. While cluttered to try and make the search take a bit of time, the layouts really don’t pack their space too well, items usually collected into a few clusters of junk where you can find most of your quarries in barely any time. These lists ask you to find twelve items on a screen and at best you can only really hope for two or three of them to be hidden well, so some of the joy in finding items is lost when the search goes a bit too quickly.

The somewhat tough hidden objects keep the item finding screens from being bad since the closure of finally uncovering a well hidden one remains satisfying, but there are a few more quirks worthy of mention. Like many hidden object games, the terms used for an item can be a bit iffy, with items like “poison bottle” or “snake grabber” not having an immediately clear shape to search for, but then things like “heliconia” feel like they expect some oddly specific knowledge. It’s not too hard to infer a somewhat accurate guess of what a mystery item or vaguely named object could be, and these do at least help up the difficulty some, just not in the same way that doing a better job of hiding things would. There are difficulty settings when you start the game though, but surprisingly, none of these change the arrangements of items during the hidden object puzzles. Instead, these tie to things like a hint option you can spend whenever it’s charged to show you where an item might be, a skip option that will let you completely bypass a puzzle if you so wish, and a sparkle effect that will show you what items in the adventuring portion are interactive. Hints can also play into the adventure side of the game, but besides either making these options take longer to charge or completely removing them, the difficulties won’t change how the game is played. There is no reason to really turn them off though even if you don’t intend to use the skips though, mainly because at random points you might need to replay a previous hidden object screen to find new items without the plot prompting you to do so, and having the hint option there to tell you that could be a boon. More importantly, some areas in the game’s adventure spaces don’t really have any clues you should click on them besides the sparkles, these not being puzzles to find so much as the game not always making it clear what spots in a location could be important.

Passable but mostly easy hidden object puzzles could have made this game a bit dull, but thankfully, the adventure game portions that are meant to break them up end up providing a lot to like on their own. The story goes that the titular Runestone of Light that protects the city of Neverville from evil has disappeared, a necromancer using this chance to envelope the town in an evil fog. The protector of the town has gone missing at the same time as the runestone though, so you play as his daughter Valerie coming to investigate and set things right. The story is fairly traditional in it being about stopping an evil warlock and not much else, with only a few cast members like a fortune teller and your uncle Arthur entering the picture, but full voice acting makes it a bit more interesting while a hilariously abrupt conclusion kind of undermines that extra level of effort that went into the story-telling. Making progress on your quest to save Neverville actually involves more problem solving than hidden object searches surprisingly enough, and this ends up being for the better despite many of these being easy in the same way the object hunts are.

Over the course of your quest, Valerie will gather up inventory items that usually have pretty clear potential uses but can find themselves useful in other situations. It will be immediately clear what a tool like a torch or a pair of clippers could do, but the moments you use them can vary from obvious to a tiny bit clever. At most points in the game there will be a few unsolved puzzles up in the air, the player needing to explore the areas in and around Neverville to find new items so they can return and wrap up unfinished work from earlier. Perhaps the best example of how creative and even intricate some of these can get is a lock on the blacksmith’s back door needing to be busted, but the process of doing so is a multi-step affair. You find an iron bar that could do the job but it’s bent out of shape, but there’s a tool that can reshape the bar if it’s heated first. However, the blacksmith’s forge requires proper fuel to light, and even after you’ve got it going you’ll need some means to move the hot iron bar about safely. There are definitely plenty of straightforward moments like being given a list of ingredients you’ll just need to find, but even things that seem a little straightforward like placing a statue’s arm on a statue missing an arm require you to figure out how to get the glue for the task. Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light keeps you exploring and thinking, the balance between the collection of items you have and the number of unsolved problems they could be used for preventing it from just being a matter of carting an object to wherever it will be useful.

In addition to these inventory puzzles are little minigames that vary in quality. Some would barely qualify as them like putting ingredients in a mixing bowl in the right order while others are more clearly puzzles like mixing around gnomes so no two of the same color are connected, and as such, how you judge them likely depends more on your parameters. The simple ones are almost too basic to really be considered as true gameplay, but some of the ones that take a bit of time and figuring out are a decent addition to the game. Even simple games of Memory are a bit better than one might expect, the game instead asking you a few times to pair up items that are similar in theme rather than identical in appearance. Logic problems remain pretty simple throughout the game without being boring, ensuring that players looking for a casual hidden object game aren’t put off by these more involved moments of play, but the fact they might be the more interesting component of Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light is a refreshing surprise, albeit one born from the simplicity of the hidden object portions rather than a truly strong adventuring side.

THE VERDICT: While Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light is built to be a casual hidden object experience, this short game actually does a better job constructing its adventuring portions. The hidden object areas are still decent enough despite being a bit too simple to be overly challenging, but the exploration of Neverville and finding uses for your inventory proves to be the more mentally stimulating side of the game and the one with the better variation of difficulty. Nothing ever gets too difficult even on the harder difficulties that just alter your hint and skip options, but it does well enough with its puzzles and a few hidden objects to keep things just entertaining enough as you go while clearly having plenty of room for easy improvement if it had just taken things a few steps farther.

And so, I give Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light for PC…

An OKAY rating. The adventuring portions likely won’t be cerebral enough for a fan of point and clicks and the hidden object screens might not be the best the genre has to offer, but there is still something to enjoy in both portions of the game despite the exploration and inventory puzzles being the better thought out part of it all. The story part of the game more than plays its role in connecting the hidden object screens despite some of its odd moments like ending suddenly, but the hidden object portions are really where the improvements would need to be to elevate this game into something more. Reusing screens and only having 12 usually easy items to find per visit isn’t enough substance to what would usually be the main attraction, with the adventuring portions only able to pick up so much of the slack. Were it too focus on these though, perhaps it would convert into more of a point and click game that just so happens to feature search-and-find puzzles, so ultimately it would fall on the creator to decide whether to play into its strengths or punch up the hidden object side of play.

While generally easy and short, your mind is usually engaged in some way during Mysteries of Neverville: The Runestone of Light, only a few moments like randomly returning to earlier areas or sussing out a clickable area in an environment really being flawed rather than perhaps a bit simple. Being bigger is really what this game needs to be a better hidden object game though, with more items in the search-and-find screens and more screens in general being the best way to redeem what is usually the main attraction. However, by putting more love into the extra puzzles, exploration, and inventory elements of the game, it still remains a decent enough game that keeps players thinking.