Midnight Castle Review
Midnight Castle takes you on a journey to uncover the truth behind the mysterious castle willed to you by your eccentric uncle.
I’ve always had good luck with games produced by Elephant Games so I decided to check out Midnight Castle - a free to play tablet version of a hidden object game. As I had hoped, I was impressed with the clarity and vivid colors of the graphics and a strong supporting soundtrack, even if the story was somewhat unoriginal.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Midnight Castle did not overtly advertise paid bonuses or components to the game; it’s truly just free to enjoy. In-app purchases required to reach the next step are a pet peeve of mine and thankfully I didn’t come across any.
Midnight Castle begins as you receive notice that an estranged uncle has passed away, and left you his castle. You set off to explore your new property and the strange forces that seem to be at work in the area.
The play is very similar to a PC-based hidden object adventure game with a stunning landscape to explore as you piece together objects required to advance through the story. You interact with various characters who all promise to help you complete your task – provided you do something for them first, of course.
A raven in a monocle and top hat accompanies you on your journey and helps you keep track of your tasks and progress. Icons for the raven and any other characters you are working with will appear in the top left of the screen so you can easily see your checklist at any time. In addition, each item on the checklist will have a quick link to go to the area necessary to find the item.
Gameplay in Midnight Castle is a breeze and you can easily and quickly complete tasks to move forward. Each character will ask you to find a particular item which is uncovered by completing a hidden object scene. The scenes are well designed, not too dark and moderately crowded.
The HOS are timed and you earn bonus points for completing quickly and identifying multiple objects in quick succession. The scenes repeat frequently so I found myself getting quite fast at completing them. However, the scenes change slightly with each play, moving the objects around and increasing the number to find. I enjoyed seeing if I could beat my previous goal each time. The better you get at completing the scenes, the more coins and other game currency you will earn.
The coins and currency you earn while completing HOS in Midnight Castle are used to unlock scenes and objects necessary to complete tasks. You are also able to sell inventory items to earn more coins if necessary, but watch what you sell – you will likely need the item at some point to satisfy one of the characters and gain his cooperation.
The HOS may also ask you to “pay” to re-open them if not enough time has passed since you last played the scene. Since you often need to play a scene multiple times in the span of a few minutes to find all of the objects you need, I had no problem using the game currency to be able to progress.
If you have more patience than I do, wait a couple of minutes and the scenes will all reset. The iPad even notified me when the game was fully available to explore after I had set it down for some time.
Midnight Castle was an enjoyable, relaxing, and simple game for me. I felt the storyline could have been more original (I swear I’ve played countless games where you inherit a spooky property from a distant relative), but Midnight Castle is well executed and fun to play.
The on-screen prompts make it simple to follow your tasks and progress and navigate between scenes. You can also easily access your inventory and other key items from the main screen. I’m looking forward to more tablet-friendly adventures from Elephant Games!