Mystery Age: The Imperial Staff

Eva and her daughter were foraging for medicinal herbs on a forest near home. When they return, their village is covered by ominous clouds pouring a relentless black rain. Eva learns that Samuel, her husband, was sent by the local authorities to investigate the origins of the strange weather. She decides to go after him, starting a long journey through magical lands.

Mystery Age: The Imperial Staff is a hidden object game with adventure elements. The main objective is to gather all the scattered pieces of objects, to reassemble and use them later to solve puzzles. The broken objects are shown as a series of pictures at the bottom of the screen, with the number of pieces remaining to be found displayed on the corner of each slot.

After finding all the pieces, the complete object is stored in the inventory at the right side, from where it can be dragged and dropped on portions of the scenery in a logical way. For example, keys can be used on locks to open containers. All the objects listed at the bottom can be found on the location, but some of the pieces may be hidden, obscured from view in some way until they are revealed through an inventory interaction with the scene.

In some locations, a separate screen with a puzzle appears after clicking on certain parts of the scenery. These mini-games are implementations of classic games, like a Tower of Hanoi variation with totem idols, a version of Simon with a teapot and multi-colored ingredients, and others where a mechanism has to be manipulated directly to solve a puzzle. They can be skipped after some time. The hint button is unlimited, but takes a few minutes to refill after use. Several eyes can be found on all the scenes placed discreetly over the background, and clicking on them accelerates the hint recharge.