Treasure Seekers: Follow the Ghosts is the third outing in the award-wining Treasure Seekers adventure game series featuring the brother-and-sister adventuring team of Tom and Nelly. This time, join them in a supernatural adventure and help them free some unlucky ghosts who are being trapped by an evil alchemist!
Prized jewel the Ruby Heart has been stolen from under high security with no clues as to how the theft was carried out. At the same time, a mysterious restless spirit has been sighted in the old English mansion of Cardinal House. Fresh from their previous adventure in Romania, siblings Tom and Nelly suspect that the mysterious ghost is involved in the jewelry theft, and decide to go investigate Cardinal House.
The cautious and analytical Nelly might not seem to work well together with the brilliant and headstrong Tom, but their past adventures prove that they are a strong team. The same is true in Treasure Seekers: Follow the Ghosts as they work together to solve mysteries involving the supernatural and the bizarre (though they do seem to split up a lot and investigate different locations separately this time.)
When you start playing Follow the Ghosts, you are given the choice to play in an easy or advanced mode. The choice affects how often you can get hints and how easy objects are to detect. You can therefore decide whether you want to just relax and enjoy the game's story (and it is a great story too!) or sit down to a nice challenging set of puzzles.
If it is no exaggeration to say that Deerfield is not so much a town as the ghost of a town, its dimness almost transparent, its quiet almost a cessation, it is essential to add that it is probably quite the most beautiful ghost of its kind, and with the deepest poetic and historic significance to be found in America.... It is, and will probably always remain, the perfect and beautiful statement of the tragic and creative moment when one civilization is destroyed by another. And the wonderful ghostliness of this mile-long ‘Street’ of grave and ancient houses, the strange air of unreality which hangs over it, arises precisely from the fact that the little town is really saying two things at once. It is saying, ‘I dared to be beautiful, even in the shadow of the wilderness’; but it is also saying, ‘And the wilderness haunts me, the ghosts of a slain race are in my doorways and clapboards, like a kind of death.’
—For the State of Massachusetts, U. S. public relief program (1935-1943)
The game is set mostly in a point-and-click adventure style, as you move from room to room trying to solve interesting and complex inter-related puzzles. For example, accessing a locked chest in an attic might require a bottle of acid from the cellar. But accessing that acid might require draining the cellar of stagnant water, which then requires the repair and activation of the pump system etc.
The object interface in Follow the Ghosts is similar to that of the other games in the Treasure Seekers series in terms of the object-hunting circle. When you click an object that needs to be manipulated, a circle appears around the object listing the various items you need to find to make that object work. You will then have to search the location for these objects before you can advance further. There are also the traditional hidden object scenes with the shopping list of items you need to find. Thankfully there aren't too many of these, though what else can you do when a ghost asks you to find all his belongings in order to jog his memory?
There are also plenty of puzzles in the game to keep you occupied. There are the standard puzzles that you would come to expect from these type of games such as jigsaws, but there are also some pretty unique puzzles such as code deciphering and other logic-based puzzles.
What really draws a player in is the fantastic production quality of the game. All the locations (of which there are many, as Tom and Nelly explore all over the world in this adventure) are beautifully drawn in period art that looks very realistic. The hidden items aren't random and don't stick out like sore thumbs, but are instead beautifully blended and hidden in each scene. Some of the obstacles you have to face are also pretty original and aren't rehashes of previous games. There is a lack of voice-acting though, which can be considered a good thing for some people!
I couldn’t find the spot where Frank had hidden the bag with the clothes. You can’t imagine how cold I was until I found them. You know, I’m beginning to understand why ghosts moan so in this sort of weather.
—Lester Cole (1904–1985)
Treasure Seekers: Follow the Ghosts is a great package that continues the story of Nelly and Tom very well, introducing new concepts and puzzles to the series. And the game is thankfully of a decent length, bound to entertain you for hours. You can try the basic edition, or you might prefer the Collector's Edition with exclusive extras such as a strategy guide, behind the scenes art, and even be able to play as a new character!
Rating: 4.5/5.0
You can read more about Treasure Seekers: Follow the Ghosts at http://www.hidden-puzzles.com/treasure-seekers-follow-the-ghosts.html
Steven maintains Hidden Puzzles at http://www.com - a website devoted to the most popular hidden object and puzzle games. You can read game reviews, download and play them online.