Dark Arcana: The Carnival

It is an OK Artifex Mundi hidden object game. Not much to say as once you have played one of them you kinda played them all as they all work very similarly. Two annoying things to note are:
- you can't use the map to move between the difference scenes
- you have to play the game twice to get all the achievements
The Linux version of the game works without any issues.

Recommendation: A decent hidden-object game that marks one of the first games with "modern" Artifex Mundi features.
Critique: Dark Arcana: the Carnival features many of the hallmarks of Artifex Mundi games that had already been established in previous games - the sorts of mini-games you play, a crow prominently featured, a female protagonnist, many puzzles that require non-everyday items that are explicitly called tokens, someone being kidnapped, supernatural elements that include somehow communing with or restoring the spirit of a dead person - with hallmarks that I associate with later, more modern Artifex Mundi games. These include creepy deepfake CGI, where the characters aren't 3D animated objects so much as masks that are stretched and squashed in order to approximate human expressions and give the impression that a mouth is moving; a growing complexity in the hidden object scenes that is mostly developed by having ambiguous search terms and many items on screen that could match that description ("Cloth? CLOTH?? Cloth could be anything!!!"); and, most painful of all, an alternative game mode to the hidden object scenes tied to Steam achievements, so that you have to play through the entire game at least twice to get all the achievements.
In this game, the creepy deepfake CGI is particularly egregious, as the masks include clothing like the police officer's cap: as she talks, her cap stretches and distorts along with her face.
Nearly every hidden object scene has at least one item where you're just forced to click on the screen again and again until you find the particular piece of cloth (for example) that is intended by "Cloth" in the scene. That's a little frustrating when you want the challenge to be finding a hidden object, not luckily clicking the random one of eight items all of which you can see clearly.
Dark Arcana: the Carnival's alternative game is something that it calls "Monaco." As is typical, this is sort of a solitaire card game. This one is sort of a cross between Concentration and Tetris: you select two matching cards that are adjacent orthogonally or diagonally, they disappear, and the cards slide into the vacated positions. You can match any cards, but the only ones that count toward completing the level are the ones that are randomly marked with a red border. There's a teeny bit of thinking involved when the only matching red cards are far apart: then you have to make matches so that the cards will slide in the correct direction to eventually make a match. There's no time pressure even on the highest game difficulty, which is fine by me. What I don't like is having an optional game mode be a requirement for an achievement; the game isn't so interesting that I really, really want to play it twice.
Review: A traveling carnival comes to town, and a mom is separated from her young daughter, trapped in the house of mirrors and abducted as part of a hare-brained plot to resurrect a woman who tragically died decades ago in a knife-throwing accident. It turns out that the madman who is trying to resurrect his partner - the knife thrower, Jim - has been deceived by an ancient evil power who was imprisoned outside of the dual existence of our universe and its dark twin universe. This being of destruction has tricked Jim with promises of being reunited with his lover to enact the exact ritual that will break the bonds that prevent the dark power from entering the universe and destroying all creation: a mirror-reversed re-enactment of his assistant's murder. The mom is all set to be mind-controlled to become a knife-thrower in the mirror universe, and Jim, foolishly believing this is a way to restore his lover to life even it means his own death, is all ready to be killed by her. You figure all this out with the help of the Guardian, an undead cyclops who was put in charge of travel between universes before Time began. In the end, you interrupt the dark ritual and perform a different one, which destroys the Dark Lord in his prison. Why they didn't do that at the start, I have no idea. Their ways are inscrutable, I guess.

12 years later and this game STILL holds up.

I believe I played this game back in 2012 or maybe 2013. I had some moments where I went "Oh! I remember that!" and it added to my disbelief that this game is still so good.

Great voice acting. There are brand new games (2024) that have terrible voice acting yet a 2012 game voice acting surpasses in quality.

Alas, that is not the only thing it can be considered better than most in.

The story is really good. It has a good pace, a good ending- doesn't feel forced or rushed.

Don't miss the extra chapter! That is one con, the extra chapter is hidden in the Extras menu and it doesn't really give you a notice or pop up after you finish the game that you have unlocked it. The extra chapter also has a good story and some background lore on the main story's happenings.

My cons would be that I'd say around 2 or HO scenes were repeated and there were a few items/words that weren't translated properly.

It has cloud save, it has achievements, it has trading cards. Again, games that have come out this year (2024) don't even have those things yet they have a higher price (I've seen some up to $13.99 USD) and also have DLC included for around $2.99 or $3.99 USD to get the full story.

This is still a very sold HOG with a solid story, and very entertaining puzzles and scenes. Absolutely recommend it. Don't judge the game on its age, it can still beat a lot of the young HOG in this category.

Fun and entertaining Hidden Object game with light horror elements in the story. Good scenes, good gameplay variety, the only thing missing is a fast travel option. For me one of the better games of the publisher so far. Recommended!

As expected from Artifex Mundi to offer superior quality in this genre of game called HOG. Enjoy.