"Chronicles of Magic: Divided Kingdoms" is a free mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as a nasty cash grab by the mobile app developers, Artifex Mundi. A typical Artifex Mundi Hidden Object puzzle game, the type you normally see on mobile app stores or even as browser apps. There's literally hundreds of these on Steam, most of them published by Artifex Mundi, many of them free on mobile app stores, but this one will cost you money on Steam. There's a fantasy/magic theme to the game, but this is a just a veneer over a tired and overdone set of hidden object minigames and Adobe Flash tier puzzles, wrapped together with a bunch of static screens that you "move" through by tapping your finger on your iPhone screen.

While these kinds of games are popular amongst casual gamers, it's difficult to argue this is a great value proposition as a PC game, especially considering the price of this compared to the hundreds of free HOGs on the mobile app stores.

From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.

Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.

These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The mobile app never really caught on with the millions of gamers on Steam, with a very low peak player count close to launch, and then just a handful of players launching this mobile app every couple of days. This is undoubtedly caused by factors such as those raised in this review. It's always helpful with buying decisions to consider how popular and successful the product is, and unfortunately while this did accumulate a few participation trophy reviews, overall, people just aren't using it.

So, should you buy this mobile app? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $15 USD, on app stores, it's free. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay a premium for a free mobile app just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this can be played free elsewhere, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend.

FIFTEEN BUCKS FOR A FREE MOBILE APP. Just who do they think we are?