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8.0 excellent
This game came along just at the perfect time. I needed a relaxing gardening game after dealing with the heartbreak of houseplant transplant shock with my Codiaeum variegatum. (When I was repotting my windowsill Croton a cat ran in the room and swatted the root ball. Always watch out for cats when transplanting!) I've given the Croton some sugarwater but it's touch and go.
Gardenscapes, from Playrix Entertainment, is the story of your inheritance of your grandfather's mansion and its magificient surrounding garden. Well, the garden was magnificient back in the day - now it's just a rotted, broken down and sad reminder of better days. While contemplating how much you dislike the city life and your tiny home near the busy freeway, you receive a letter from your grandfather's butler, Austin. It seems you have inherited your grandfather's estate and you can kiss the city life goodbye! The only problem is that when you arrive at your new mansion you find a haggard garden and rooms filled with hidden objects.
Did somebody say hidden objects? Well, at least that's something we know how to deal with! Austin hits upon the idea of holding a jumble sale (better known as a rummage/garage/yard sale in North America) to earn money in order to fix up the estate gardens. Soon there's a sign in the yard and people are lining up to hand over coins for various random curios.
As a hidden object game, gameplay primarily involves searching in the various mansion rooms for items that visitors would like to buy. Decorative plates, pillows, miniatures of the Eiffel Tower, bagpipes, teddy bears, samurai swords, candlestick holders, etc. Visitors arrive at the left side of the screen offering to pay a certain amount for a particular item that's hidden somewhere in the current room. Find it and click on it to sell it, then click on the resulting coins from the sale to collect them and make room for the next customer, and so on.
A dash of time management game is thrown in, as each customer has three hearts representing their satisfaction with your jumble sale. If you take too long finding that set of bagpipes, the little girl offering to buy them may lose a heart and lower her asking price from $20 to $15. Take even longer, and she may offer $10. And so on. An untimed, "relaxed mode" is available if the pressure gets to you.
When you finish the room, added to whatever profits you made from selling hidden objects are bonuses depending on how many hints you have left and how much time is left on the clock (assuming you're playing in "timed mode.")
The hints are question marks, and there are a few in every room in the mansion. These hints (usually) don't tell you the location of an object - instead they show you pictures of the actual objects you're looking for. When you click on the hint button the names of the objects your customers are asking for are replaced with their images. This makes finding most of them quite easy.
Hidden in every room are other kinds of hints, as well. Thermometers give you a temporary "hot or cold" effect when mousing about the room. Get close to an object and the background behind its name will glow red. If you're far from its location, on the other hand, the background will ice over. Brrr. Thus you can zero in on its whereabouts. But by far the most useful hints are the cameras! Click on a camera and the screen will flare white, as before the flash of a camera, and for a second only the objects currently on your list will be shown. If you can click on all five of them in succession, you'll even get a bonus $50 for being that awesome.
Also hidden about the premises are quite a few stacks of coins! Click on these for a quick and simple money boost. Often you'll find them behind some of the objects you sell.
The hidden object scenes in Gardenscapes are quite interactive. Many, many objects - perhaps as many as twenty or thirty per room - are affected by the movement of the mouse. Hanging objects sway when you mouse past them. Lights turn on when you hover over them. Animals squirm and move about. Just one of the many things Playrix has done right with Gardenscapes is going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to attention to detail. This isn't a forgettable hidden object game.
Of course, the game is all about restoring your grandfather's garden, so between hidden object levels you get a chance to spend your profits on your landscaping makeover. Each possible upgrade/improvement has three different options, so in a sense you get to design your own custom garden... You don't get to decide where these improvements go, just which style to buy. However, most of the improvements can be clicked on. Austin the butler is always wondering around, handing you mail or answering the telephone, and you can click on features of the garden to make him interact with them. Playing fetch with the dog, for example, or feeding the swan.
Gardenscapes is a simple hidden object game sans puzzles or logic problems, but its high resolution graphics make hunting for hidden objects very enjoyable. At no time did I feel cheated because a fuzzy object was difficult to discern from its surroundings. Sadly that's still a problem with hidden object games in this day and age. But not here! If only all hidden object games were this clear!
I played the trial and thought it was a brilliant game so bought the full for £14.99. The graphics are very good, the objects are fun to find and the garden is fun to create. The fact that you can change anything you buy is also very good.
I completed the garden and wondered what would happen next. The butler gave the impression that you would have a further list of items to find but after collecting a large sum of money still nothing else materialised.
None of the websites I have look at (apart from this one) give any indication that the game ends as soon as the garden is complete. I have now spent several wasted hours in the belief that the game would go to another level, only to be disappointed and very cross that I paid £14.99 for a game that took no long at all to complete. This to my mind is a total rip off. This is the first time I have bought a game to play on my laptop and will most definitely be the last.
Regards
A not very happy player.
I found this game to be one of the best hidden object games ever. The HO’s where very clear and with 3 different kinds of hints, I never got “stuck”. Austin, the butler was fun. When you need a break from the game, you can just leave it on the garden scene and watch Austin. He really enjoys everything new you buy for the garden (such as the putting green and the swing, feeding the birds, etc).
I didnt think it was any shorter than any other HO game, if fact, I have played some that where shorter. I did miss Austin once the game was over so I started over and created a different garden.
best wishes
Waiting for the sequel