Redrum: Dead Diary Reviews

A very simple and repetetive game. The levels are mostly the same but still kind of nice. The story was pretty nice and i really like the supernatural theme. Its a bit costy for 2 hours and for the lack of quality but still pretty nice. I can recommend it

The villain is named Sigmund Fraud... yes, Fraud... so you won't want to play it for the story. There are silhoette based object puzzles with multiple silhouettes that are just circles, so the gameplay is no prize either. Seriously... Dr Fraud...

The game is about a young girl who is put in an asylum while her parents are in divorce. While the parents argue about the treatment and whether the doctor can be trusted or not, the girl helps her detective uncle solve mysteries by talking with ghosts. Each level is a murder case and during the levels the story is told by different means of communication between the characters in the game, like newspaper articles, diary notes and e-mails. In between you have a wide variety of different hidden object screens: - Find the items which belong to the given words - Find the items which belong to the given shapes - Find the snippets which are taken from a honey rate image - Find the snippes which are taken from a rectangular image. - Find x amount of similar hidden items in a picture (e.g. find 20 keys). What do I think of the game? I think there are two types of hidden object game players; the ones who prefer the storyline and the puzzles and the ones who prefer the hidden object screens. This game is definitely made for the second category. As a member of the first category the game strikes me as a bit boring and is much of the same. The screens are just vaguely related to the story and the story is not very surprising. Still, I would recommend this game. The graphics are beautiful and the gameplay is intuitive. The recharging of the hint system takes just long enough. If you prefer the hidden object screens in a game you might really enjoy this. It's just not for me...

I'm afraid this is so far looking like one of the worst hidden object games I've played yet. It's pretty much just the same thing over and over: if you like PURE hidden object games, no puzzles, no adventure element, then you'd probably like this, and at least the hidden object lists are varied (some get you to search by picture or shape, some by name of the items) but for me this is just repetetive. I also found the 'storyline' parts in between HO scenes pretty badly written, and the general storyline a bit lacking- it seems like the story is just a filler for the HO scenes. I've played 30 minutes and am utterly fed up of it, and doubt I'll go back to it.

A very bare bones hidden object game without any of the normal trimmings - no point and click sections, no mini game puzzles, just a few different variations of hidden object scenes (regular, silhouette matching, finds lots of the same item semi transparent, image section matching, and some sort of IR google style scenes). Between the scenes we learn the story of Rose and her uncle the police detective, which although done extremely basically via static images of emails, diary entries and patient notes, and the completely telegraphed nature of the criminals being caught was surprisingly compelling and had me complete the game in one sitting (not that it is that long). The gameplay is okay, the story is very formulaic and most of the characters are cardboard cutouts - mustache twirling evil doers seemingly largely uncaring of how weak and transparent their criminal plots are in their desire to commit murder and mayhem, contrasted with heroic and talented good guys/girls that fall victim to their nefarious plots. Only the artist and Rose's parents are given any sort of shade of gray. The common weak point of HOGs isn't here, i.e. translation issues of the objects to find, I had no problems with any of them, the silhouette scenes however did suffer from some fairly indistinct or ambiguous clues (circular objects which could be an orange, a ball, or about three other items on the same screen), and the IR googles scenes I wasn't keen on as you keep having to sweep the mouse around to actually look around the scene, but apart from that it was fine and there is a reasonable variety of types of scene used. The HOG scenes have little attempt made to make them seem realistic, with the most extreme examples being one where the majority of items are just randomly arranged as if stuck to a wall in an alley. Overall this is just about okay, the gameplay is fine but nothing special, the production quality is pretty low, but the story was just enough to make it seem worth playing through.

Redrum: Dead Diary is basically just a linear sequence of small and easy object puzzles and a stripped down version of the original Big Fish Game. I am at a loss, why they decided to create a steam version which has even less content or quality than the initial release. If you are searching for a HOG like Grim Legends, Enigmatis etc. this is not what you are searching for. You don't move around, there are no animations and the "story" itself is badly written and told in static pictures in forms of a diary page, notes or an e-mail. There are four types of puzzles - shape based, word based, search the same item x times and match Image snippets. If you only after a small & very easy HOG game without any challenge/penalties or in search of a relatively fast 100% Achievement game appr. 1 hours (My time includes 2 crashes & looking it up on BigFish), then this might be for you. However, not for the full price! There are much better HOG you can get for the same amount of money.

Some twisted material makes up for the low-res graphics and short playing time. A 65/100 effort. [b]The good[/b] A seriously convoluted and twisted story Interesting take on the HO genre Challenging HO scenes [b]The bad[/b] Short playing time Low-res graphics makes some objects hard to see Minimal replay value

If you're looking for an adventure game where you can explore and solve puzzles, this is not it. However, if you're looking for a game with an interesting/creepy story (containing grisly murders, a crazy therapist, and the supernatural) and LOTS of hidden object scenes, then this might be right up your alley. Really though, the whole game is reading through newspaper articles, journals, and emails - and in between, doing ho scenes. I really enjoyed it. Redrum: Dead Diary also has cards and is an easy Perfect game since all you have to do to obtain all the achievements is just play through it. DON'T buy this if you don't enjoy hidden object scenes. :p The rest of you... give this a look. :)

I wouldn't recommend buying this unless it's thrown in a bundle of other games you really want. It's basically the same thing over and over so it gets quite tedious and the story isnt' that compelling. You are basically having to play the same set of games over and over for each section. Graphics aren't anything great, all static scenes through out. So if your thinking this is your traditional style of HOG/Puzzle game it's not nor is it anything innovative . I've played a lot of HOG's over the years and this wont' even stand up to some of the older HOG's that actually are still fun to play. sorry to say but I can't recommend it.

Dont get me wrong, I only gave this a thumbs down in as much as THIS version goes. The original (and best) edition is still available on Big Fish Games for around the same price. For some bizzare reason the developers have seriously toned down the content of this game before releasing it on STEAM. In the short time I played this version there are some stark differences. There is a noticable reduction in graphic quality. The animations have been cut with entire sections being removed from the story. The HO scenes make no sense at all. The Play options have been removed including Difficulty, Timer and In Game Extras. People usually release old games on STEAM with improvements (check out the new version of True Fear released on STEAM a couple of weeks ago) not dumbed down versions such as this. I don't mind supporting Independent companies such as this which is why I was happy to buy it twice but this is just a quick cash grab. I'm getting a refund, sorry. EDIT - What they have on offer here is a reworked version designed for tablets, not the full PC version. They should have made this clear at the time of release on STEAM.