The Book of Desires Reviews

Not much of a storyline - and the gameplay is very quick...but it was worth it for a hidden object game.

Well the flower puzzle is broken so I would give it 0 with potential for improvement if fixed so that it could be played.

Despite the high percentage of negative reviews for the game, The Book of Desires is a totally fine hidden object game. Right off the bat, it's totally playable. Yes, there are two bugged puzzles (one of which is actually still solvable, it's just irritating to do so), but with the use of the skip puzzle feature it won't end your play through or anything. Moving on from that though, this game definitely carries with it the low budget feel of the other games in it's genre. It's story is, just, so dumb. It's terrible. And I love how terrible it is. In terms of the actual game play though, it's what one would expect, a blend of puzzles, point and click, and hidden object game play. It's all solid, nothing groundbreaking nor difficult, but also not boring or insultingly easy. Outside of that.. well, honestly this game is quite hard to describe in a meaningful way, it really doesn't stand out from all the other hidden object games. Which, I think sums everything up pretty well. If you enjoy the cheap, chill, comfort food feeling of hidden object games, you'll probably like this. And if you're looking for something that breaks the status quo and innovates on the genre (or at least tries to of some higher quality), then you're most certainly looking in the wrong place. And if you haven't played a hidden object game, well, I probably wouldn't recommend starting with this one, but it's similar enough to all the others, and relatively functional, so it's not like playing this would ruin your perception of what was otherwise an *amazing* genre. It's a game. In the hidden object genre. And that's pretty much it's entire identity/existence. Nothing more, nothing less.

A simple pretty point and click game, where found objects are used to through doors and open opportunities.

This game is unimpressive in every way and some of the click fields are broken. Its not worth your time.

As someone mentioned, some of the puzzle doesn't work. I had the issue with the Statues, but using the skipping button I was able to progress in the game. The game was ok, but I guess easy to forget. The hidden objects were just hidden well enough that you can't just click around and hope to hit them. The story was interesting, but very short. I liked the puzzle about the stars the most. Overall not a bad game (excluding the technical issue), but not the best I have played.

[h1]I'M BEGINNING TO HAVE A DIFFERENT OUTLOOK ON GARBAGE GAMES OF THE PAST...HEAR ME OUT[/h1] I just finished [b]The Book of Desires[/b]; apparently, the book's desires only take about 2.5 hours to fulfill 🤣. If I had played this game when it was originally released, my review would have reflected an entirely different attitude. Oddly, I am finding a new love for these "past-their-prime" (if they even had a "prime" moment) junk HOPAs from an era when everyone wanted a piece of the HOPA pie and rushed to design their own cash-crop game from the comfort of their damp, humble basement.   [b]The Book of Desires[/b] is a very old-school game, originally released by Meridian93 in April of 2012. This is the kind of game where you have to read between the lines and fill in the blanks to keep up with the plot, which oftentimes goes from Point A to Point D every time you blink! [b]The Book of Desires[/b] has no Voiceovers, no Collectibles, no Morphing Objects, no Extras, and no frills. The graphics are dark, grainy, and void of intricate detail. There is no Strategy Guide, no Custom settings, and no Jump Map. The Hint system will continue to guide you with arrows until you reach the "desired" task and then takes an eternity to recharge. [b][i]BUT...[/i][/b] What it does have makes up for what it doesn't have! It does have an abundance of old-school-cool Hidden Object Scenes, one in each scene location. Back in the day, HO scenes didn't have any glamour or glitz, they didn't have interactive tasks, and they didn't have animations, tasks, or puzzle-like features. They were just basic Hidden Object Scenes requiring you to find objects from a list of items, usually from a pile of random junk spewn about in the darkest corner of the room. The objects rarely had anything to do with the story and most of the time they weren't even from the same era as the game's plot. There was always a Feather, a Lock, a Bell, an antique Iron, and a Candle to be found in almost every game! [b][i]STILL...[/i][/b] developers somehow managed to make these HO scenes challenging.   Just when you become convinced that a listed object couldn't possibly be in the scene you just scoured intently over multiple times, you get that duh moment when you find it hidden in plain sight. It's because back in the day, developers blended objects into the scenery using some sort of Unicorn coding magic, and quite possibly a smidge of voodoo dust. Surprisingly, [b]The Book of Desires[/b] has some pretty decent mini-games, and several of the games require you to memorize codes or the position in which to place specific objects correctly. One of the games in particular was quite impressive and I'm baffled as to why this mini-game has not been offered in other HOPA games! This was a game where the goal was to guide a locomotive to the exit by selecting arrows at each intersection but they threw in several intersections that would change the train's course when it crossed over a curved arc arrow. The game was maddening at times, and quite challenging to solve! I did have an issue with one mini-game towards the end of the game where you had to place several stone heads onto stone pillars. After placing them, the heads went MIA and disappeared completely into thin air, poof! Every time I clicked on a pillar, I just got a message telling me to swap the heads to align the pillars but there were no heads to swap. I couldn't do anything so I had no choice but to skip the puzzle. If you've grown weary of playing newer, cookie-cutter HOPAs that hold your hand every step of the way...if you find yourself replaying older HOPA favorites because the newer games just don't have the same magic...give [b]The Book of Desires[/b] a try. It won't blow you off your computer chair, but it will remind you of how cool old-school used to be! Oh yeah, apparently they didn't bother with quality control back then either because "Puzzle" was spelled [b]PUZLLE[/b] throughout the entire game 😉 [quote][quote][h1]MY REVIEWS[/h1] Check out my Group/Curator page at https://steamcommunity.com/groups/thewoodsforum[/quote][/quote] [quote][quote][h1]JOIN MY FORUM[/h1] Join the fun at my nature-themed game forum at https://thewoodsforum.boards.net/[/quote][/quote]

This is definitely a mixed review. The game has some translation errors. One of the puzzles has to be skipped (the stone pieces to solve it just disappear). It seems to not be uncommon according to a discussion post. There are no achievements, so maybe that doesn't really matter, and you can continue w the rest of the game no problem. There's no fast travel. It's an ok time waster, and the game is less than $1.50 on sale. So if you like this genre, it's not a bad value.

I found the story to be rather lacking, the art a bit murky (at times it was hard to distingush the items that needed to be found) and I had some bugs here and there (the pillars puzzle i had to skip completely because of it). I would have liked a voiceover for the naration and perhaps even the dialogues but that's just a personal preference. The game is not the worst but I think there could have been more depth to the character, more twists, even at the end when you have to make a choice, it would have been nice to have a hint somehwere about the choice. It felt like the story itself had been written by a child but I've played quite a few of these games over the years so maybe this is why I have high expectations.

This game reminds me of a Hidden object game that could be played on Pogo(dot)com back in the late 90s-early 2000s. One of the Free games, not one of the *slightly* better paid games. Music- not great, just a bit of repetitive "ominous" sounds and notes. Over all, the art was very dull, drab and muddy. Hidden object scenes were flat, muddy, and had "find the pixel you need to get that item" going on- clicking the same thing over and over until you find that one pixel is just annoying as.... The story was worse than most, and no hidden object game has ever really had a compelling and deep story. This one was really bad, compared to them all. Yeah, it was lame. Puzzles were a blend of childish and easy- trial and error or just skip through it. No penalties for skipping or using hints, other than waiting for the timer to wind down again. Extremely short and unsatisfying. I enjoy HOGs and HOPAs- i did not enjoy this one at all. Get it free or super cheap as part of a bundle- sure. It'll add +1 to your game count. Full price? Not a chance- unless you are truly masochistic and enjoy shelling out good money to make yourself hurt and get abysmally bored. Skip it. It's not worth it.