I stumbled across The Lost City while looking for something fun to play on my wife’s Kindle Fire and I’m glad I did. The Lost City, brought to us by Fire Maple Games, is fun and challenging. The game nearly creates that perfect balance between too difficult and too easy. I say nearly because I would have liked to have it a bit more challenging.
Similar to The Secret of Grisly Manor, another game by Fire Maple Games, The Lost City is a puzzle adventure game. If you’ve ever played a hidden puzzle game from Big Fish Games, you’ll be familiar with the format. The only difference is that the hidden object aspect is not present in The Lost City. To progress through the games, you must figure out puzzles and collect items that can help you progress. For example, at one point you must collect a rope, so you can scale down a cliff face in order to collect another item that you need. And so on.
The twist in this game, which I thought was brilliant but underutilized, is that you control the seasons. The items that you collect may work in multiple seasons, but quite a few would only be helpful during the appropriate season. There is one point in the game that a waterfall is blocking your path. To get past it, you must turn the season to winter and then break through the ice. The concept is a fun one and I really enjoyed the challenge of figuring out what season I needed to be in for things to progress. The only thing that bothered me about the seasonal control concept was that each season was controlled in different places and I often got the locations confused, turning the switching into a chore.
For those of you that feel like games like these are too difficult, don’t fret. Important clues and notes are added to a journal automatically to help you progress. If that fails, there is also a detailed walkthrough that is included in the game to give you hints if you get stuck.
Overall, the game was a lot fun and much more polished than The Secret of Grisly Manor. For a game that only took me a couple of hours to complete, I would say that it is perfectly priced at $1.99. Anything more and I would recommend against purchasing. Also, though it might be possible to play on a smart phone, I’d recommend playing on a tablet if possible. The larger screen was definitely a plus when navigating the puzzles.
Rating: 9/10
