PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville
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Joyville was once a thriving city, where tourists come to visit and marvel at the genius of The Master, a puppet maker whose mechanical creations were the main attraction of the town. However, one day the citizens started to disappear mysteriously, kidnapped by some evil dark force. On the now nearly deserted town, the owner of a hotel hires a detective to find his missing grandson. The sleuth wanders the empty streets and vacant houses, investigating each corner of the city for clues about the case.
PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville is a hidden object game with adventure elements. The main screen shows one of the Joyville's locations, with sparkles shimmering over the interactive portions of the scenery. A single sparkle indicates a simple interaction fixture, like an exit hotspot or some place with a zoom view. Several sparkles show the position of one of the hidden object scenes. These scenes take place on a separate screen showing another angle of the location, where the objective is to find all the items listed at the bottom. Some of the objects found are stored in the inventory for later use. The hint button shows the exact position of one of the required items, but takes a minute to recharge after use.
One of the surviving puppets is a spider-like mechanical creature with a doll's head, that scurries across the scenery to guide the player to the next location. In some places, the goal is to use the available inventory tools to solve a puzzle, by dragging and dropping the items on appropriate and logical portions of the scene. The inventory opens up as a fan at the bottom-left, displaying all the objects on slots at the tip of each blade.
Some of the puzzles take place on a separate screen, where a mechanism has to be manipulated directly to solve it. A skip option is available for all the puzzles after sixty seconds.
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Critics
Average score: 80% (based on 1 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 5 ratings with 1 reviews)
Short and not that challenging
The Good
This is a fairly standard hidden object puzzle. All of the items are hidden in plain sight though I did have to open the odd drawer or move a curtain aside for a few of them.
The artwork is good and the items could all be found with patience, I do not remember any occasion when anything was misnamed or badly obscured by something in the foreground.
The music was good too though after a while I found it a little repetitive and listened to the radio. There is no voice acting.
The Bad
This game has no difficulty settings and I found most of the puzzles a bit easy tough I do admit to skipping one because I found it tedious.
The Bottom Line
I finished the game in around three hours which is not that long. If I had paid full price for the game I would have been disappointed, it's not bad but there's just not enough to it.
Windows · by piltdown_man (237938) · 2023
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Macs Black.
Android added by jaXen. iPhone, iPad added by me3D31337.
Additional contributors: formercontrib.
Game added November 14, 2009. Last modified September 10, 2023.