Blue Tea Games

As a little aside about me and some games I like...

I highly enjoying playing the Blue Tea Games, well.. games. Maybe it's because of their Dark Parables line that makes me want to play more of them. But I highily enjoyed playing those games.

I will probably redo them, so I can post them up here, because they were very well done, in my opinion. I also liked that you were searching for pieces of the items to make up an item that you actually used, instead of looking for junk all the time.

They all usually had really nice storylines, they were pretty long, and they all had very nice graphics.

I'm mostly posting this up because The Dark Piper is out, and I will probably be getting it soon. I am also, more than likely, going to try their other series out to see what they're like.

Secrets of the Past: Mother's Diary

Uncover the Secrets of the Past: Mothers Diary! A main character of this game receives an unusual birthday gift from her foster parents - a letter written by her real mother. The girl desperately wants to know the truth about her origins and begins her own investigation. It seems that all roads lead her to a haunted and abandoned mansion. A terrible tragedy occurred in that place many years ago. But old houses keep secrets well! This is a story about love, death, treachery and lies. Can a young and innocent girl unravel the dangerous secrets of the past? 

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The game was very, very short and it had a lot of glitches and problems while I was playing. But... I made it to the end.


The graphics were okay. There weren't too many scenes to move through and the story was very, very straight forward. I expected to find a little more in the mystery, but you can easily guess the ending (or what the main character wanted to find out) in the first few scenes of the game. The scenes were just images, like the rest of the game. All you had was a simple list, and simple items to get. There were plenty of HO scenes and they were at least drawn very nicely, like the rest of the game.

There were not too many puzzles in the game, and while some were challenging, most were not. One of the most challenging aspects of the game is that there is no walkthrough in the game, so if you get lost, you;re kind of lost.

Their hint meter was shown as an eye, which was a locket that was given to you in the beginning of the game. You can tell ho soon you'll get your hint back, by how wide open the eye is. It was cute, and pretty creepy, because the eye follows your mouse movments all around the screen. A hint is not wasted if you use it in an area where you have nothing to do, instead it will tell you that you have nothing to do here. When you are in the correct area, it will show you what you sould be doing there.

There were no vocals in the game, and the music wasn't that great. It repeated most of the tracks already played in the game throughout every scene. When one song ended, there was a pause of silence, and shortly after, the next song would play again.

Most of the people scenes we get to see involve ghosts and images of the past to tell the story. The main character responds on what she saw and we go on from there.

There's not too much of a reason to replay this game. There are no extras and there's nothing you could possibly miss, unless you want to go back and retry some of the challenges that were in the game. Some of the weird things about this game also included the names of the items and the items themselves. Some item names were odd and didn't look a whole lot like what you would expect that item to look like. A lot of the same items appear around, and you pick them up multiple times, even the same item you already picked up in that area.

Some of the glitches I encountered were:

• When I first started the game, I could not get past the first room. My screen would freeze. I easily remedied this by re-installing the game.
• The mouse is a bit weird in game. Sometimes you'll click something and it might click.. beside it or not click the item at all, you have to give this several tries.
• My last big problem I encountered in game was the clock weights (pendulums). I put them all in, as I was supposed to, and it kept telling me I was missing one. I know what I was supposed to do there, but it wouldn't let me. Sure enough, I found out that the answer was to click to the left of the zoomed in clock, and I got what I needed in that area. If I go through this again (which I might), I'll post up if I get a different outcome when I do this.

Fun:         1
Sound:      2
------Music: 2
------Vocals: NONE
Visual:       3
Challenge: 2
Story:        3
Length:       2
Hint: Very fast

2.1 out of 5

Temple of Life: The Legend of Four Elements

After an archaeologist releases the element of water, it’s up to you to restore the balance of the elements in Temple of Life: The Legend of Four Elements! Scour Hidden Object scenes and solve perplexing puzzles to save the entire world! Find the artifacts and work as quickly as you can to stop the damage being done.

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You play an archaeologist called Jane, who has a similar look to Laura Croft from the Tomb Raider franchise. The story was decent, I thought. It had a simple premise that you follow throughout the game. There weren't any real twists and turns, and it ends as expected.

The art in the game was beautifully done and the images were wonderful. They obviously took their time when they were making this game, and the scenes show that.

The game-play is standard, with a list and blue items to tell you when something special has to be done to find the item. Inside the hidden object scenes, there are sometimes special items that you can only get when you're inside them, so you have to pay close attention and watch  out when playing them. The same can be said when you find certain places that won't go away when you think you have everything inside them--if they stay on the screen, you can be sure that there's a special item inside that you're missing. On the list in the hidden object scenes, you can hover over the items, and it will show you a picture, which makes it easy to discover some of the things you need.

The hint system in this game is something that I've never come across before. You can stock up to 5 hints, and you get hints pretty fast in this game. When you run out or want to get up to your 5 hint limit, you can shoot monsters outside the hidden object scenes, which is a tiny distraction. The monsters pop up very often, so you will more than likely be bale to stock up on all the hints you're able to use. You can also use a hint whenever you want if you have it open. You will not lose a hint if there is nothing to get in the room, instead it will show you where you can go and what areas you can take a closer look at.

The mini games were very well done. They had a variety of them and they all worked well for the scene they were in. They mixed up the difficulty of their puzzles. Some were a little more straight forward and easy, while some took a little more time and thought to get through. They were all pretty fun and challenging in their own way.

The extra content takes place right after the end of the normal game. There's not much story involved in this part or much talking.

The music and sound effects in the game were really well done. Just about everything in a scene had sounds, and a lot of the moving objects sounded correct. The only downside I could think of, was that I wish the characters had actual voices.

It did not take me a long time to get through this game. It was very short, for me, which was a downside. The game does have some replayability, though, if you're interested in getting badges for doing certain things and gaining all the special items.

Fun:         4
Sound:      4
------Music: 4
------Vocals: NONE
Visual:       5
Challenge: 4
Story:        3
Length:       2
Hint: Very fast

The game was nicely done, in my opinions and very pretty. So it got a  3.6 out of 5 from me.

Strange Cases: The Lighthouse Mystery

 FBI Agent Claire Ellery’s latest strange case has become personal. Tom, her former partner, has died under bizarre circumstances. As Agent Ellery delves deeper into the mystery of his death, she finds that Tom himself has laid a trail of clues for her—a trail that leads her into a sinister web of corporate betrayal and the arcane. Follow the cards to solve this Strange Case and vindicate your partner’s untimely demise in Strange Cases: The Lighthouse Mystery. 

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You are playing Claire Ellery, an FBI agent. Your partner, Tom, has died and you’ve taken the case to find out why. I did not play the first one, Strange Cases: The Tarot Card Mystery, but it is mentioned inside the game a few times.  The story did a decent job of pacing itself and was pretty nice to go through.

There are plenty of places to go through and search. The hidden object scenes are done in three different ways, either as silhouettes of the item, a list, or pieces of an item you have to find. Your hidden object scenes pop up when you find tarot cards. You know what color and how many cards are left in a room because the left side of your screen tells you. You must have the card with the item you’re trying to click open, or the game will not count it.

I did like that there was voice acting in the game. It always makes a game better, in my opinion, especially if they have cut scenes, which a number of them do have. While there was a lot of dialogue, the cut scenes had to go by from mouse clicks, which I was not very fond of when playing. The voice acting is also okay, they weren’t very great or full of emotion, which was kind of a letdown.

I did think that the game was very well drawn and pretty to look at.

The hidden object scenes were okay, and there were many tiny puzzles in each scene that seemed to go with the game and where they were. I thought a lot of them were very well done. The hint button, in casual mode, came back pretty fast, maybe within a minute’s time to it, so you don’t have to worry too much about running out of hints.

In the Collector’s edition, there’s an extra Storyline that follows Tom and explains how he got killed and what he went through.

Overall, the story line was decent, the art was great, the voice acting and music were okay, and the game play kind of went by a lot faster than I expected it to. The game was very short.

Fun:          3
Sound:      3
------Music: 3
------Vocals: 3
Visual:       4
Challenge: 3
Story:        3
Length:      4

Hint: Very fast

Overall, the game got a 3.3 out of 5, from me.