Dark Strokes 2: The Legend of the Snow Kingdom (IHOG)
(This is a standalone story, so don't worry if you've not played #1 yet)

Options include separate sliders for Music and SFX, Fullscreen, Custom Cursor, Widescreen and Low-quality. There are three difficulty levels, from Casual to Hard.

Wonder of wonders, our protagonist is a male for once! The story combines several fairy tales into one unique story, and throws a bit of clockwork-steampunk into the mix!

There are 35 locations to visit, each hiding a collectible snowflake. Be on the lookout for 12 magic scrolls during your journey, as well.

We have an insta-transport MAP (and it has a valid reason WHY it magically moves you from place-to-place, too! Love that!)

The main game is adventure-heavy, with only ten hidden object scenes (each used more than once). Hidden object scenes are lightly-interactive, with items listed in white either hidden in a zoom-in area or requiring an action before you can collect them. Each HOS has a morphing item, so keep an eye out! To review:

Collecibles (main game only):

• 35 Snowflakes
  
• 10 Morphing Items
  
• 12 Magic Scrolls

We have an adorable animal helper who hangs out in our inventory in case we need him/her (I named mine Sasha. lol~)

The gameplay is a bit repetitive, and some of the actions are so simplistic that I hesitate to call them puzzles. Something that I really appreciate is that you can change the difficulty of the actual puzzles with a click using the drop-down box at the top right of the screen. There's an achievement for completing every puzzle on Hard, but you may be able to obtain that one via replaying them in the Bonus area (I didn't try).

Bonus Content:

• Bonus Chapter
  
• Built-in Strategy Guide
  
• 20 IN-GAME Achievements
  
• 12 Wallpapers
  
• 12 Concept Art
  
• 5 Downloadable Music Tracks
  
• 11 Character-design Pages showing how the final looks came about
  
• 12 Replayable Mini-games
  
• 22 Replayable Cutscenes
  
• 6 Pages of "Trivia" (Fun tidbits about the game) Must find every snowflake to unlock this content!
  
• 12 Jigsaw Puzzles (not part of the main game!)

Bonus Chapter:

The bonus is HO-heavy. It seems like we spend more time finding hidden objects than we do pursuing the story. There are also two reiterations of mini-games that we already played in the main game. It was a decent length... Longer than I had expected it to be. There are no collectibles to find in this part of the game. This chapter is absolutely necessary to complete the story. Sure, the main game ended in a satisfactory way, but this bonus chapter ties up some loose ends AND gives us some great background information in the process.

Thoughts:

This is a very pretty game that was fun and interesting enough that I played it through twice back-to-back. I missed two snowflakes on my first run *grumble grumble*, so I played it again on Hard. FUN FACT: The Strategy Guide has a section that shows you where every snowflake is located. *face palm* FYI, only the first three are missable, as the other 32 locations stay open to you throughout the game.

There is a major error in the opening story (Don't look until after you've played the game)
The narrator says that it's "the very same night", but the hunter - our protagonist - talks like they've been living together for weeks, at least!

The music is quite beautiful, and the characters and story kept me playing for longer periods than I'd normally spend on a HOG.

Verdict:

Although this title can a bit repetitive, the combination of story, graphics and heavy adventure-esque gameplay kept me interested enough to want to finish the game (twice) in a day. Definitely recommended despite some minor flaws! :okay:

Legend of the Snow Kingdom is hardly the most story-centric hidden object game on Steam, but thanks to its rich gameplay, it is still among the enjoyable ones.

Dark Strokes 2: The Legend of the Snow Kingdom is one of those hidden object game sequels which has essentially nothing to do with the title it follows up, but like in so many of these cases, this hardly matters.

There is a large variety in hidden object scenes and puzzles, and the game keeps backtracking and crazy adventure game logic to a minimum. The result is a tightly paced casual adventure that easily captivates us for at least three hours, despite its thin storyline.

Said storyline is about a relatively usual magical kingdom, where a princess gets into great peril, so we are out to rescue her. However, the more we progress, the more we learn about her father who struck a rather bad deal with a warlock, who, unlike most HOG antagonists, has a surprisingly complex backstory to justify his actions.
Sadly, this summary almost encompasses the entire storytelling segment of the game, even though it had the potential to be so much more. Alas, in its current state, it is more like a bonus feature on a lifeless but otherwise enjoyable HOG.

A very commendable hidden object game. It's got the usual mechanics, it's well done, has no bugs or major issues, and the story isn't too terrible. The bonus chapter is nice as well. What else can I say..? I enjoyed my time with this. Some of the in-game achievements are really hard to get though -- I ended up not getting 100% because I forgot to manually set a mini-game's difficulty to 'Hard' at the beginning. Maybe an incentive to play it again, I don't know..? I don't think so, I have hundreds of HO games to finish first, but at least, the thought crossed my mind...

A game that takes one of the Fairy Tales (No... Not the anime!) and puts a twist on it... While following different characters.

It's... Pretty darn good actually.

Mostly because the Developers gave a damn and put a sheep ton of details and care into the game. Example: you can touch a yarn and a little kitty would come out and bat it. Or a lamp and a snail would crawl down. Things you never see nowadays in H.O.Gs. >.>

The game is also not as easy and mini-games will make you work for it. Some even require luck! But not that badly. If you stick around for a Bonus Game? There IS no map... :D............... Woo.

Achievements? None for Steam. However, the game does have 'em! So you can challenge yourself and get stuffs along with it!

It's a good, fun play and I am glad that I got to enjoy it.

Thanks ya!!! :> :) :D

In a nutshell:
This one's worth a look. It's a nice example of the quality I've come to expect from Alawar games. The VOs are disappointingly sub-par, but they're still tolerable enough to play with the sound on.

+ Great art, as usual
+ Good variety of minigames and puzzles, some of which I haven't seen used in those ways before. There are a couple of repeat mechanics, mainly of the "move colors/shapes into the right spots" type, but their presentations were unique enough to not feel repetitive.
+ No moon logic, or at least nothing that stood out to me while playing in hard mode. P&C elements make sense. The couple of times I had to look at the strategy guide (provided in game) turned out to be because I missed something I should have caught on closer inspection.
+ No misspellings, Engrish grammar, or mislabeled items. I think in total here was only a single English error (using "sent" instead of "send") in one scene's flavor text.
+ Lots of bonus stuff, and extra bells and whistles to make gameplay a bit more charming. A snowflake to find in each location, morphing objects in HOPs, "magic scrolls" to read, etc. And I always love it when devs add little interactive details to every scene, like lamps that swing when clicked, butterflies that fly away, icicles that break off, etc. Totally unnecessary for the story, but fun to toy with.
+ Zero technical issues

~ The storyline was good, though some bits felt kind of railroaded. Nothing distracting though. It also had a twist I wasn't entirely expecting, which was pretty cool. Very minor spoiler: I like stories that utilize the "villain has a valid point" angle. Not many HOPAs stray from the Antagonist is 100% Chaotic Evil Because Reasons trope.
~ The dialogue and text was a bit corny at points, but eh. It's not like I play this stuff for Shakespearean wit.
~ Windowed mode doesn't offer different resolutions. The only other options are full and widescreen, which just adds black bars.

- The only real issue I have is with the voiceovers. They're...well, they're not Dreamatorium of Dr. Magnus bad, but it's very dialed-in. Basically like someone herded their family into the basement to record lines with cheap equipment and no prior VO experience. Big Sis read the princess's lines, showcasing her all-encompassing ambivalence and lack of personality. Dad read King Henry's lines on a $10 webcam microphone, huffy breaths and all. Mom read the airship captain like a monotone passive aggressive teacher who's slow-ly re-pea-ting in-struc-tions by the syl-la-ble to a mis-be-ha-ving kid for the hund-redth time. *twitch* However the VOs are tolerable enough to not interfere with enjoying the story, I think mainly because the main antagonist is done reasonably well in comparison.

No Steam Achievements, but there are comparable ones in game.

All in all, it's a worthy 4-5 hour distraction. I'm glad I played it, and I won't hesitate to pick it up again in the future, especially if Steam Achievements ever get added.

This is a delightful HO game of high quality. Real fairytale stuff with witches, spells and heroes and heroines! Pretty run of the mill story, but the artwork is of high quality...quite stunning at times. It took me 5 hours to complete (includes bonus chapter). Some of the mini puzzles had no explanation, especially in the bonus chapter, so that adds to the challenge. Music was pretty, but the voiceovers could have been better. Highly recommend on sale. Enjoy the fun!! 8.5/10.

Really enjoyed this game.
My playing time shown is very low because I had to play almost all offline.

I missed having collectibles show up on the map (on casual mode), but this is a slightly older game and those ones don't. The art is lovely, the story is very cute (and well-written), and the music is good. While I'm not normally a fan of too much "princess in distress", in this case (a) it fit, (b) the princess was neither dumb, nor uninvolved; and (c) the bonus story let the princess loose on her own adventure and she was great.

The HO scenes are very well done - not too cluttered, but still a challenge.
I also thought the puzzles were at a good level - and the difficulty can be set to either casual or hard.

I wish there were Steam achievements (not just in-game) and trading cards.

Highly recommended. 9.5/10

Good Game, finished it in around 9 hours. Puzzles and HoG were okay and fun, nothing too hard. The maps are nicely implemented, needs more than 1 run to get all achievements imho. The wild cat helping you out was a refreshing and new experience, compared to the most HoGs I've played. I give it 8/10 - they could have made the achievements in Steam, too...

The art is very beautiful even amongst HOGs, gameplay smooth. The HOG scenes done well - no weird realistic pictures shrunk to 1/10 sitting amongst 2d background, no pixel hunting so its relatively easy. Fast travel, journal, big hit boxes - all in place if you just want to go casual. They miss out some explanations on the puzzles, like what you are supposed to do. But you will figure it out, nothing too difficult. A long extra chapter too. Variety of type of puzzles. A story that weaves together in a coherent tale, wonderful. Altogether a well-thought out and put together HOG.

Overall a decent HOG. Good graphics and sound. Fairy tale theme instead of the darker story of Dark Strokes: Sins of the Fathers. The story is trite and the voice acting is mediocre at times. The bonus chapter is terrible - don't bother playing it.