I'm not giving this a thumbs down because it's a bad game. In fact, it's an extremely fun game. However, it's also extremely short. When the game ended, I just sat there dumbfounded. I couldn't believe the game was over already and the story seemed incomplete - there were questions that never got answered. So I looked up the walkthrough on Gamezebo to see if I had missed anything. It turns out that there is a "collector's edition" with more to the story. So I DO recommend this game. But don't buy it on Steam. Buy it elsewhere and make sure it's the Collector's Edition. If you're a hidden object fan, you'll love this game.

Haunted Past tells a simple, yet exciting ghost story with an excellent atmosphere in the form of a hidden object game with a few nice mechanics.

A female protagonist in a haunted house unravelling a ghost story is basically hidden object game making 101. What makes Haunted Past: Realm of Ghosts different is how the developers made sure that the player is interested and invested in their tale.
Their greatest tool was the pacing, which involves just enough backtracking to shake the feeling of being stuck in a corridor, but not too much to make anyone run around in circles (thanks to the room clearance indicators).

The game has no traditional puzzles, only item gathering point ‘n’ click style, and lots and lots of hidden object scenes. These two elements are often combined into single-room challenges, called ghost rooms, where you must find and hide items to use them later in the normal world.
Sadly, not even this abundance of hidden object scenes could save the play time that barely reaches two hours, which may be too short even for such an engaging game.

As far as hidden object games go, it's a decent one for the collection.

The HOG genre are all very similar in terms of plot lines and gameplay, so it's hard to review these kind of games in detail without all of these reviews sounding the same.

The plots are always treasure hunters, old time detectives or historians looking for a special artifact, a murderer or just plain ol' answers. They're always set in spooky houses, old ruins or other planes of existence. History is revealed, secrets are unraveled and generally just all that kind of stuff really.

Despite hidden object games being all very similar to each other, they are a guilty pleasure of mine as i do just enjoy the hidden object scenes and puzzles you find in these games.

This one is set in haunted house. You need to find what happened, whose behind it and destroy the evil entity. The story was interesting, it was nothing amazing but it kept me playing which is always good.

In terms of puzzles, there wasn't really any in this one. It was more so just clear each room and move on. I quite liked the pace of the game as i was only looking for a short few hour game to complete so it worked for me!

This game also has an interesting feature of being able to switch between two planes of existence. You can find items you need in the other realm and hide them somewhere for you to find in the real world. This kind of switches the gameplay up a little bit and it's always nice to play the slightly more unique HOGs.

In terms of the object finding, the scenes weren't too cluttered to the point your eyes hurt, and the items were well blended into the scenes. So all around good on that part in my opinion.

All in all it's a decent one, if you enjoy the HOG genre then this is definitely one you can whiz through and add to pile.


TL;DR : It's decent for a hidden object game, pretty standard but it's enjoyable.

You inherited a mansion but once there, everything is in disarray and dark. When you realize that ghosts are haunting it, you meet the woman that was killed... your mother. An evil is lurking around and your only way to beat it is to use your gift of walking between the ghost and the living realms....

Haunted Past: Realm of Ghosts is one of these games in my backlog that I decided to play after stumbling upon it on Big Fish games, when I was adding to Neoseeker the series Haunted Manor. Haunted Past was the game just under. When I realized that I had it in my library, I told myself why not?

So far, I liked the plot. I also liked the twist in the game. Sure, it's not the plot of the year. But at least, you're not discovering the truth early on.

The gameplay is the standard one: find items, use them, clear hidden objects scenes and solve puzzles. However, here, you have a special feature: the ghost realm. Indeed, through mirrors, you can access the same room but in another realm and in its previous state. Items found there can't be brought back with you to the real world, so you have to hid them in the ghost room and to find them in the real world. While it's true that these areas are cleared fairly quick, it's still a nice way to influence the world (example: a cushion was put in the real room but in the ghost realm, it's not there. So you use your brain to make one with the items hidden in it... and tadaaa, the cushion in the real world will have them!). Also, to help you, each time a room is totally cleared, a message is shown. And last but not least, some doors are closed because of evil magic/spirit. They can be opened by doing the right glyph you'll find around...

Everything is easy, apart for same areas that you can't really see. It might have been influenced by the weather here, as it was a little sunny and that I had to move my screen to find a correct angle (as I'm playing hidden objects games on my laptop mainly).

The graphics are quite good, very darker in the real world, as the estate is abandoned but when you go to the ghost realm, it's very bright. The soundtrack is also good.

In other words, for 5 bucks, you have a good little casual adventure game, with a good plot, good graphics and interesting features. It would be sad for you to miss it. Go for it, whether it's full price or discounted.

This is an odd mystery game maybe better avoided than enjoyed by anyone and very very very short. The game is short and all puzzles can be skipped with hint buttons if stuck somewhere. Adjustable difficulty is nice but its the way the game is designed that is the weak point. Many of the hidden object puzzles have a colored filter over the entire screen making everything seem white, blue, or black. This is very straining to try and enjoy veteran players will find, while casual players spamming the hint button will probably just turn it off.

The story is good not that it matters this is a game, and the gameplay is where it breaks down. There is an interesting mechanic used of switching from the present to the ghostly past where you can move items from the past to the present. This is very interesting, would be nice to see some sort of mechanic like that used in future games. Doesnt feel very ghosty overall, not to spooky which is a downer for october scary gaming :(

Rating: 4/10 Value: $1.99$

I like the occasional hidden object game as a break from endless zombie slaying and the conquering of endless realms. This game indeed scratches that itch. Very casual; extremely linear and the hidden object areas are good but not too difficult or clever. Where this game fails is in the so called puzzles. They are extremely simple and the developers failed so far offering no mini-games with these. Where the game gets it right is presentation. Good atmosphere, the graphics & sound/music are good for it's genre.
I believe that casual players and gamers like myself who are looking for a change of pace will enjoy this game. However aficionados of this type of game will probably find it lacking. Only once did I even consider using the hint button to find a hidden object and a few times I found myself wishing the hidden object portions where either longer or more difficult; this on the so called advanced setting.

its fine...ive seen better HOG games before.
5/10

That describes what I am feeling about the game. First, it isn't a bad HOG. But it's very short (my 8 hours of playtime were caused by me, getting some rest and dozing off). Second the story is interesting. But the riddles and puzzles are quite easy to solve, some of them are literally self solving. The graphics look great, but some of the full screen animations do lag and the sound is at times, best described as... "crunchy" - though the voiceacting was very pretty.

If I follow my own Rules and Regulations this game lies in the 50% area, because there are good and bad things in the game, overall it would be a "Not Recommended" for this game. Which actually I will give. To clarify my stance with this game I will give the Pros and Cons and then describe why I don't recommend the game.

Pros:

• Nice Voiceacting.
• Pretty Graphics, though they show the age of the game.
• Interesting Supernatural Story.

Cons:

• Crunchy Sound.
• Lagging Cutscenes, only the fullscreen scenes were affected in my case.
• Though the story is interesting, it failed to build up enough suspense.
• Riddles and Puzzles are far too easy. Some are really self solving (Urns, Sigils etc.).
• Too short in playtime, remember this is a HOG with only limited replayability value.

Given the age of the game, this game isn't all bad - but it lacks a lot which games of the genre and this age already had, there are a lot of similar games which did truly build up a suspense. The game also isn't quite perfect on case of technology, the lagging was encountered on all of my machines. The crunchy sound might have to do with some of the effect filters used, to make the voices sound ghostly. The too easy puzzles/riddles were only a small anoyance compared to the really short playtime (actually about two hours).

All in all this game is nestled in the 45 to 50 % Value, because all of the encountered problems and annoyances. If you want at all to try this one out, try to get it bundled, or at a sale. But, please don't make the mistake to gift this game to a newby of the genre, he might lose his interest in HOGs forever...

Haunted Past is another game from the developer of Princess Isabella, Gogii Games, and is pretty clearly a more recent creation. The graphics are cleaner, the art is better, and the scenes are more detailed in terms of animation and sound. It also feels like a more mature game in tone and design. The haunted house motif is done without jumpscares or loud stingers, and the puzzles are quite a bit more challenging than the ones in Isabella. It's a very polished game, though still a bit dated. One strange omission I should mention is that there's no map, and thus no fast-travel between rooms, but the game flow is quite linear and they had the good sense to include a few shortcuts where backtracking is needed.

Gameplay is a lot of point-and-click puzzling through rooms, with the hidden object scenes almost a secondary feature. Worth noting that with the better graphics, the hidden object scenes are actually easier since everything is more distinct. The big gimmick of the game is the "spirit world", which is alternate ghostly versions of rooms where you can find additional items. Not only do you have to find the items, you have to "hide" them in a place you can retrieve them in the real world, because ghosts will steal them or some ♥♥♥♥, I don't remember but it was dumb. These aren't particularly challenging puzzles but they add a little much-appreciated variety. Unfortunately, the main draw of the game, the puzzles, suffer from some really obnoxious design. Two examples:

- You have to match up the birth and death years on some funerary urns. These dates are on gravestones in the cemetery, but finding them isn't enough. You HAVE to find three pieces of paper and three pieces of charcoal to make rubbings of the gravestones, and THEN you can match up the dates. It's a completely unnecessary step that got me stuck for awhile because I had no idea why the urns wouldn't let me move ♥♥♥♥ around.

- You can't use items on other items directly, which lead to a couple aggravating situations where you have to use a piece of paper on a SPECIFIC background spot to lay it down, and then use a pencil or whatever on it to get the thing you're trying to do done.

If you can deal with some outdated puzzle design, this is a solid 2-hour game that actually falls more on the point-and-click end of the spectrum than hidden object, but should suffice for either.

I wouldn’t say this game is entirely without merit, but the negatives outweighed the positives enough for me to not recommend it.

- Production Values -

The aesthetics are pretty good, with okay voice acting, background graphics, and atmospheric music that is almost *too* creepy at times. I liked switching back and forth between the dilapidated real world and the ghostly world of the past, but brightness-wise, the normal areas are often too dark to parse, and the ghost realm is comparatively too florescent.

- Story -

The plot is fairly coherent for the genre, with ghosts, mirror portals, mediums, and dark arts as the main occult themes. It had a satisfying enough conclusion.

- Hidden Object Screens -

There are 15 simple text-clue hidden object screens (HOS) in the game. They contain no caches, combo items, morphing items, or other modern HOG gimmicks, and most of the challenge stems from the desaturated color palette that makes items visually blend into one another. I actually had to adjust my monitor to be able to see some of the objects.

Some of the puzzles commit one of my biggest pet peeves by having multiple items that reasonably match the same text clue. In the pantry there are four things that could be considered a “lamp,” and in the bath there are five “birds” when you are only supposed to find two. Combined with some of the hotspots being finicky and requiring pixel accuracy, it can be hard to tell if you are clicking on the right item and it is not registering, or if you need to locate a different variation of the item altogether.

The game makes a decent attempt to theme items in each HOS to the room or area it is located in, for instance the music room HOS is filled with instruments, however for some reason they pepper in some modern items that are at least 50 years later than the late Victorian / early Edwardian setting of the story.

- Other Puzzles -

The inventory-based puzzles are fairly intuitive, with each item being clear as to its purpose. There is at least one, though, that only makes sense if you are actively reading the journal as you play.

There are also about 20, I hesitate to call them full minigames, but actiony puzzle components in addition to finding and using objects. They are all incredibly simple with no real challenge, and any of the ones that look like maybe the player might have to use their brain are negated by requiring your character to find the exact solution and copy it down before the game will allow you to solve it.

- User Interface -

There are a good variety of adaptive cursor icons; however they are not always implemented correctly, and in some places background objects that are interactable aren’t indicated at all. It makes it very easy to miss key adventuring elements.

Your current objective is displayed on a drop down bar at the top, which is helpful, but that drop down bar constantly gets in the way during HOS.

Once you have done everything possible in a “zoom to examine” window, it will dissolve into sparkles, clearly letting the player know it is complete. Likewise, once you have finished each room, a permanent “area cleared” message will display at the top of the screen. These features are great and help balance out the unreliable mouse notifications when trying to narrow down what you’ve missed.

The largest disappointment in the game is the lack of feedback. Outside of the journal and a few scripted lines of dialogue, there is no other text at all. No flavor text. No reaction text. No descriptions. No message if you try to use the wrong item on a puzzle. No instructions for any of the puzzles. Just nothing. It leaves the experience feeling hollow and empty.

- Miscellany -

Being the standard edition, there are no extra features or achievements included. The game does have an optimization option for slow computers, though, so that might be a big selling point if you are running an older machine.

The game kept running in the background after exiting, and I couldn’t fully shut it down from within Steam or from my computer’s task manager. I needed to close out and restart the entire Steam application.

- Conclusion -

There was the seed of a good game here, but the overly simplistic puzzles, HOS item redundancy, persnickety cursor icons and hotspots, brightness issues, and total lack of feedback really dragged it down for me.