Christmasville. Kidnapped Santa

• Pros: puzzles are woven into the plot, great humor, good storyline.

• Cons: excessive dialogue, no difficulty settings.

Do you believe in Santa? No? Arthur Knight, a private detective, didn’t believe in Santa either. But one day he had to. A strange client showed up in his office claiming that Santa was missing. And, before Christmas! Nonsense! But what’s that? Arthur’s client was a Snowman; a real Snowman! So Arthur had nothing to do but help find Santa, who was kidnapped from Christmasville, which is filled with speaking reindeer, elves and more. Help Arthur find Santa. Save Christmas so that the children and their families will be happy this year.

Judging by the title of Christmasville you will easily guess that it is Christmas themed. The story is presented with the help of dialogue, which I found excessive. You can skip them if you find them repetitive, but it is not recommended, because you’ll miss the humor of that the game’s characters offer. Let yourself laugh with them in foolish situations.

Christmasville is a hidden object game with a many great mini-games woven into the storyline and are easy to jump right in and understand what you’re meant to do and how it helps you. For example, you are asked to find a whistle to call a Reindeer. When you find out that it doesn’t work, you start looking for some special instructions. When you find them, you see that they are ciphered. In the next mini-game you must rearrange the letters. Another example is when you want to contact someone with the help of a special sphere, you need to imagine him. And that means to complete a simple mini-game of rotating pieces of a picture in one place and relocating them to their right places. All of these touches fit nicely into the plot and add some special charm to Christmasville.

The seek-and-find scenes are based on four main concepts. First, you have to find objects on your list. Second, you identify the objects by shape alone. Third, you are asked to find items of a certain type (wrapped presents, glass bottles or letters of the alphabet). And, lastly, you search for differences between the two side-by-side pictures. Be attentive! As you try to find an item your list new objects are added, which were not visible at the very beginning but hidden behind another item that you will have removed.

You play within time limits and are provided with hints, which are provided in the hint bar. It empties after usage and you have to wait a long time before it replenishes. But it really doesn’t matter as the difficulty of Cristmasville is not hard. I find this both a drawback and an advantage. Much depends on what kind player you are. If you like brain teasers and solving complicated tasks, you will probably wish that Christmasville to be more difficult, or at least you would like optional difficulty settings. But its ease is relaxing when paired with the story and it keeps moving nicely.

Christmasville has attractive graphics and festive music like Christmas should. It definitely provides enjoyable entertainment and amusing puzzles. It is a nice combination of seek-and-find genre and with great variety of puzzles which are wisely bound to the plot. Though it is fiction, it makes you want to believe and save Santa!