Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises Reviews

Liked it

Not the best hidden object / puzzle game from Artifex Mundi, but not terrible. NOTE: This game is fairly violent, and involves people being shot with guns, torture, and hand-to-hand combat. If you're not comfortable with all of those, this game is not for you. The plot is ludicrous and convoluted, the puzzles are fairly generic for this sort of game, but the hidden object scenes are fun, the graphics and artwork are nice, and the music is fitting. The voicework is pretty weak, and the dialogue is corny. I got this as part of a Steam bundle for $9 along with the other two games in this series, and for that price it is a reasonable deal. Recommended on sale with caveats.

Unfortunately the cons outweigh the positives on this HOG. Fun enough to kill some time with, but I likely won't be going back for the rest in the series or replaying it later. Definitely buy it on sale if you're wanting to try it out. Approximately 4 hours play-through time. Pros: - Some good mechanics and puzzles, some new ones amongst the typical HOG ones which I enjoyed - Good graphics and art - No glitches/errors/etc experienced - Easy 100% achievements after the first play-through (once you know what collectables you're looking for) Cons: - Bad voice acting - All of the characters looked the same - Difficult to understand plot/crime, which was the focus of this murder mystery game - Small mistakes that could have been easily fixed with a basic google search or watching an episode of CSI e.g. using a DNA test kit to determine what type of poison was used, because apparently DNA and poison are the same now - Some mini games were not logical so I needed a guide - The bonus chapter was unrealistic (beyond what is tolerable in these types of games) and could have been done a lot better - A few unnecessary jump scares - Objects would morph into other ones while you tried to find them which I found annoying

Some very fun puzzle sequences. The addition of having a marker tell you if you got all the collectibles is such a godsend

Find clues, interrogate witnesses, and gather evidence as you unravel the murder mystery in [i]Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises[/i]. [h2][u]Gameplay & Features[/u][/h2] Settings include; audio controls and voice over controls. Customer cursor or default and display options. The game has both in-game achievements and Steam achievements. [h2][u]Overall Experience[/u][/h2] An older game but Artifex Mundi made some of the best hidden object games in the genre. They have not graced the Steam store in years with anything new but their older finds are largely enjoyable, have achievements and are always going on sale for great prices. [i]I highly recommend waiting for sales to buy any of the older hogs as they really do go on sale often and for a considerable discount.[/i] The art in this one is decent but the animations are just okay, typical for older hogs. The voice work for the most part is not bad. I did not mind the main characters as much but the other characters and some of the dialogue in the game was cringe. There were lots of puzzles, some challenging but most easy and your typical hog selection. There is not a lot of back-tracking in this one so no need for constant map checking or fast travel and 29 locations in the base game. The hidden collectables were easy enough to find and I did not find I needed guidance at any point with this one to figure out what to do next. Overall an enjoyable enough game to waste a few hours if you get it on a steep sale. 🔍 [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/] Follow [b]IndieGems[/b] [/url] for more reviews like this one. [/quote] [quote]Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one! [/quote]