Explore the nightmares and mysterious past of a man in Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story. After a man disappears while inspecting a box on his doorstep, it’s up to his wife to find out what happened. Her adventures take her deep into her husband’s secret past, into a world of the supernatural that seems to be infected by an evil presence. She searches for clues and solves fiendish puzzles as you help reunite the pair and experience this exciting hidden object horror adventure game.
Clowns and dolls alone are already objects of fear for some people. Now use them as the focus of a creepy horror game and you have a winning formula that will give players goosebumps and make them jump out of their seats. Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story does this brilliantly, with excellent animation that will surprise and scare you. When a rag doll looks at you with intense eyes made of buttons and speaks to you through a mouth sewn up with string, you know you’re not playing an ordinary game.
The game begins with a young couple enjoying a quiet night at home. Loud knocking on the door prompts the husband to investigate, but the door slams shut and he mysteriously disappears. The wife opens the door to find only a box on the porch. Worried, she goes looking for her husband (with your help). With a supernatural advisor guiding you, your journey becomes an adventure involving nightmares, illusions, and… those scary clowns and dolls.
Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story is a hidden object adventure game from Alawar Games, the developer of popular hidden object games like the Magic Encyclopedia series. In Stray Souls, you explore the game world through a main adventure screen and interact with scenes and objects by clicking on them or using items you pick up along the way. Doing so will trigger hidden object scenes and puzzles that you’ll need to solve to progress through the game.
The strong point of Stray Souls and what sets it apart from other games is its great storytelling. The story itself is interesting, with a missing person, a mysterious past, and paranormal occurrences. But it’s how the story is presented that makes the game truly captivating. Stray Souls does this very well by incorporating lots of animation, plot twists, creepiness, and good old fashioned scary moments.
Stray Souls also has another unique method of storytelling: a dollhouse. After each chapter or milestone in the game, you will collect a doll that represents an important character from the story. You place the doll in a supernatural dollhouse and it animates it, showing you what the character used to do and how she interacted with the other main characters. This is a great way to keep track of your progress in the game, as well as learn about the various characters you meet or hear about during your adventure.
Because Stray Souls is very story-driven, you might expect the game to be very linear, giving you only one option or puzzle to solve each turn. However, it seems that the game is not more linear than other similar hidden object games. It usually has 2 or 3 different puzzles that need to be solved, ranging from hidden object scenes and mini-games, to objects waiting for the right tool to be found. However, some of the implied urgency of the puzzles can be a bit misleading in a fun way. The game prompted me to quickly put out a fire before it burned down the house. I left the fire alone for half an hour and nothing happened…
The puzzles in the minigames are quite fun and fit well with the theme, although they are not extremely difficult. You get logic and pattern puzzles at a variety of complexity levels, and even a Rube Goldberg puzzle that involves way too many valves, knobs, and levers. The hidden object scenes are beautifully rendered and the objects are reasonably difficult to find. They are hard to find because they are hidden and blend in well with the background, not because of poor graphics or being too small. Another unique mechanic in Stray Souls is the presence of bonus items. As you explore the various areas of the game, you may notice items transforming into something else when you’re not looking. One of the secondary tasks of the game is to find all these items.
Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story is a great adventure game that immerses you in the world of scary clowns, dolls, and the paranormal with an impressive approach to storytelling. You will love the game if you liked similar games like Mystery Case Files or the PuppetShow series. The basic version of the game is not available yet, but you can get the Collector’s Edition which includes an additional chapter, soundtrack, wallpapers and more.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
You can read more about Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story and try the game at http://www.hidden-puzzles.com/stray-souls-dollhouse-story.html
