Dark Arcana: The Carnival

I would consider this a hidden gem for a short game where you have to use a little bit of critical thinking. The story has you hooked and it's a short play. Zero performance issues and a small game for bonus points.

While trying to put my bias aside, this was one of my first horror / mystery / suspense "adult" HOGs back in the days of using the ye ol WildTangent service when it was still using those purple coins to play games, and I enjoyed it as a kid. So learning about the port here to Steam made me curious if I was blinded by the sheer eeriness of the game or it was just as good as my rose colored mirror shards remember it being. And I have to say its a bit of both. The games story is complex, the themes went over my head as a kid but coming back with an adult mind it was mind blowing that I picked this game to play back then compared to the million other HOGs on the service along with replaying a few other nostalgic picks I wish had steam releases (bring back Twisted Tales: Broken Tune I beg of you) and the twist is a true gut punch. I love how the story was told and while the cinematics are a bit outdated with some laughable 3D models, it was still impactful compared to other games I've played in the HOG genre past and present. But also the monkeys paw of that a lot of the good dialogue is the flavor text the MC says when looking at things. The Art is really pretty to look at, while a…

This was a staple of my childhood, along with other games by Artifex Mundi, lmao i grew up playing hidden object games like this but still today they are so good, the story is good and the environment and game art is so high quality. I only wish that the new kids of today grew up playing this. Absolute peak. This was one of my favourites too. I would replay it just because. Might have to do another run of all of them again like I did when I was younger! highly reccomend if you're a parent letting your kid play this game. it was very entertaining for me as a child so who knows?

excellent

ควายจัด

The game was ok, but if you are familiar with Artifex Mundi games, it just doesn't seem to be at their top level. There are some typos and grammatical errors, and some of the objects have absolutely weird names when you are looking for them in the hidden object scenes. Still, it is decent for a game of this type. 6.5 carnival games out of 10.