City of Secrets (and HD) is an iPhone and iPad classical point and click adventure game presented with beautiful hand drawn art, layered 2D backgrounds and a 3D character cast, fully spoken throughout.
The main characters you control are Rex (a little dog) and Mr Moles. Originally cartoon characters in Polish media, they have been in existence for nearly 100 years, so there’s a big back-story there for those keen enough to research it!
Various other games with the characters have been launhed on various platforms, selling over a million copies in Eastern Europe, but this is their first appearance on the iOS platform!
It’s a charming game, with a personality all of it’s own. The balance between intricacy of puzzles and accessibility is pitched about right, with the puzzles giving up a good challenge, but never getting too frustrating.
There are several methods to point players in the right direction such as a notebook containing a list of completed and ‘to-do’ tasks – and a hint system giving a written clue for the next most important task if you really get stuck!
For more seasoned players there are numerous more subtle clues in the voice-overs and art itself, but it’s easy to miss the relevance of the spoken clues the first time around, and there’s no way to go back and read any spoken dialogue, so you will have to have your best detective head on and pay attention to really grasp it all! A notepad would be handy because it’s pretty obvious when a clue is told, but hard to remember it when it comes to the realisation of how to use it!
Most puzzles involve searching for items, sometimes combining them in the inventory, exploring the scenes and talking to the inhabitants, then using the right items to progress the plot.
The animated story is split into 5 chapters, and follows the adventures of Mr Moles, trying to save Poco Pane (the moles underground world) from being taken over by the sneaky rats!
Chapters are introduced by a narrator, commenting on the action and giving context to the next scene. In some chapters control is passed to Rex the dog which gives a nice change of pace and feeds off the relationship between the main characters. In ways, it reminded me a lot of Wallace & Gromit or Sam & Max in the way the characters work together in the story, and has a lot of the quirky charm of those games, although the puzzles are more object and action led rather than talking to the right people with the correct responses so City of Secrets still has it’s own feel, with the much better option of smooth and attractive backdrops rather than slightly under-resolution 3D!
The game is crafted to work very well with touch controls, although there is usually only one context for each interaction which simplifies it, rather than in Lucasarts games where you can choose between actions for an object.
The whole game is very atmospheric and highly polished, with the artwork pulling it all together.
I understand there are going to be other episodes of the series, but there is an entire cohesive story arc contained within City of Secrets.
The stability of the game is also to be commended – never even thought about crashing. It’s also got a rock-solid load/save system, as well as automatic quick saves each time something significant happens so you won’t ever lose any progress.
I love adventure games on iPad – in my opinion they are the perfect genre for the device… It’s such a chilled way of playing that it feels like an interactive book with a life of its own! You can just pick it up and carry on with your story at your pace, in a very tactile way.
You can see the full details on their website: www.AidemMedia.com
Or download the official Press Release here: Aidem Press Release – City Of Secrets
www.AidemMedia.com.
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10 responses to “City of Secrets (HD for iPad)”
hatenintendo
May 8th, 2011 at 16:35
UPDATE:
If you have any of the same problems mentioned below, you can contact support@aidemmedia.com to get assistance… I’ve just been informed that you may have found a bug in the game, which the developers can help you work around!!
Anyone needing help… have you tried using my walkthrough?
http://test.designermark.biz/cos
Christina
May 10th, 2011 at 11:08
the support address is not correct…I got a failure daemon notice..
hatenintendo
May 10th, 2011 at 12:05
How strange! It works for me… can you try again?
Lauren
May 1st, 2011 at 20:27
Great game but I’m stuck on chapter 4- it won’t let me have a conversation with alfredo and fernando in the prison! I have tried everything! I know which window it is but I can’t have a conversation! Also, it won’t let me water the seeds for the grass to grow to get the magnet! Whyy? It’s so frustrating! Can anybody help? x
Kryton
October 13th, 2012 at 02:08
You need to go back to the prison to talk to the two moles an then go to the mayors office and look at the picture then go back and it should work.
alex
April 6th, 2011 at 16:55
Awesome game! I am stuck on part where I need to construct the trojan elephant… no matter how I click on barrel(s) in my inventory, or try to combine them, etc., nothing happens… Could anyone help please? Thanks!
alex
April 6th, 2011 at 17:00
Nvm, just figured it out, have to do it in the circle with big X on it 😛
Jennifer
April 19th, 2011 at 17:09
If you figure out how to save the mole king in Chapter 5 could you reply to this? I’m totally stuck, can’t figure out how to lower him…..I’ve tried everything!
Thanks to anyone that can help!
hatenintendo
April 20th, 2011 at 11:30
Check my walkthrough here: http://test.designermark.biz/cos 🙂
Christie
May 8th, 2011 at 13:51
I have the bag of fast growing seeds, I threw them in front of the lock thing, but
I cannot utilize the mechanism to water them, the hint tells me to talk to the prisoners
I have done it, several times, they just say they play tic-tac-toe….
Please help..Anybody?