Wave of Time
Wave of Time provides a pleasant change from the usual HOGs through its uncharacteristic theme and unconventional puzzles. Say goodbye to old chestnuts like murder investigations, creepy asylums or fantastic myths and say hello to a fully oriented sci-fi story with some crazy elements – time travel, brain controlled reptiles, a bridezilla are only a few to name.
Right from the beginning, the game grabs your interest with a mysterious plot – you play as a young lady whose aunt started to disappear from the family pictures. Together with your friend, you go to your aunt’s house to investigate her whereabouts only to find… a portal to the past. By first visiting the past, and then going to the future, you seek to unravel this enigma, but also help other characters that you meet on your path. It might sound like a pretty ordinary plot, but the storyline is fairly long and has lots of unexpected twists that will keep you entertained until the very end.
Wave of Time is a puzzle-heavy game. It does have hidden object scenes (of the classic type with lists of items), yet these are far less than the sheer amount of minigames that you will encounter. Basically at every step there’s a new puzzle to solve; most of them are easy (I can recall only a couple that took me more than 30 seconds) and largely different from what you can find in other HOGs. There are a lot of arcade-type minigames, while some other puzzles even have an educational aspect – for example you need to identify the country on the map based on its shape, or to match some symbolic items with the country flags that they correspond to.
The graphics are nicely drawn, yet a bit outdated – they don’t raise up to the standards imposed by newer HOGs but the scenery is beautifully painted with clear and vibrant colors and the hidden object scenes are also well done. The relaxing ambient music is pretty good as well, changing from scene to scene.
Overall, Wave of Time is a fun game to play, and definitely worth a third of the price you’d otherwise pay for an Artifex Mundi title of a similar length (3-4h). My only complaint is that the game does not have Steam achievements and will most likely never have them implemented.