Azada

Are you tired of all those 3-in-a-row games that come out like mushrooms after the rain? Or maybe you just can't stand anymore those restaurant management sims-like games... What do you think of seek-and-find mystery games?... I guess you have thrown up by now...

In this week's agenda we have another puzzle... well, sort of a puzzle, because this is almost an adventure game. But this one here is really special... The story of this game evolves around you and a... ghost. You will find yourself in a locked room, where you will find a trapped spirit, called Titus, who was magically imprisoned by his great uncle - whoever that is...

Anyway, your mission is to solve a series of puzzle games that are pretty challenging; in order to break the spell, uncover the secrets that are written on the pages of the magic book and free Titus.

And now it's time to enter a new story, where you will hit a classic point-and-click adventure, like Myst. But do not panic, Azada is a completely different thing. You will see pretty soon that the puzzles are all contained within the same room.

Also you will be pleasantly surprised to discover that more of the story is revealed to you, as you work your way through five increasingly challenging levels, here called chapters and each of them has another eight stages or Pages to go through...

Now, the puzzles you have to solve are different, from the ones in which you have to find objects in the room to the ones in which you must find the identical ones from others given.

You already think that this is pretty easy. Well, you'll soon discover that it's not. When you are in a room in which you must find objects, these will be very well hid. When you finally find them the story doesn't end here. You will use the objects you found to open secrets doors and unlock hidden messages that will take you a step closer to the mystery.

The best example is the Bathroom, where you must find only 3 items. But you will also find a secret door. Well, the secret door will be unlocked with the pin you found, then you must fix the water pipes with the pipe you have in your inventory and then with the handle you also found a few seconds before you will unleash the hot water in the sink.

Then a message will appear on the mirror. That one will be inserted in the board that will unlock the next room. This is basically the flow of the game. You must use your logic too, not only to have good eyes.

But you also have other puzzles to solve, like the sliding tile puzzles and jigsaw puzzles. In these ones you must manipulate the shapes or tiles even to rotate them sometimes in order to complete a picture. If you solve the puzzle you will receive a new page to the book and another room will unlock...

But the fun doesn't stop here. You will encounter a Mastermind-like game of logic where you have to match color patterns (deducing which color is in what order) and a Simon-like game, where you must click the right color buttons after a certain pattern of colors is shown in a mirror.

On a closing note I can say that I am aware that these types of games have been released before, but none of them mixed so nicely. Azada has the looks, the story and the challenge. Many would call them silly games for nothing. Still, you have a storyline to follow and a secret to discover and that makes the gameplay challenging and not boring.