Mad Head Games presents another gripping tale in their action-packed Shadowplay series!
You and your friends have been researching the mystery of Harrowstead for years, and you’ve run out of leads. That is until your friend calls you with new information and you arrive just in time to see him kidnapped by a malevolent monster! Can you save your team, or will the world fall to darkness? Wield otherworldly powers and solve intricate puzzles to defeat this evil entity in this sensational hidden-object puzzle adventure game!
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- For a more in depth experience, check out the Collector's Edition
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Game System Requirements:
- OS: Windows 7/Windows 8/Windows 10
- CPU: 2.0 GHz
- RAM: 1024 MB
- DirectX: 9.0
- Hard Drive: 527 MB
Big Fish Games App System Requirements:
- Browser: Internet Explorer 7 or later
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Reviews at a Glance
Shadowplay: Harrowstead Mystery
0 out of 5 (0 ReviewsReview)
Average Rating:
Customer Reviews
Shadowplay: Harrowstead Mystery is rated
out of
5 by
6.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
biscuitsmama from
DISCOVER WHAT HAPPENED IN HARROWSTEAD
Shadowplay Harrowstead Mystery is a terrific game that kept me engaged from the very first scene. If you love games with a creep factor, then Harrowstead Mystery if a game you will surely enjoy. At least once in the game I felt like I was going to jump out of my chair when something unexpected occurred. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this game even though I am generally not a fan of scary or horror games.
In the game you play as Thea, part of a team that is researching and writing a book about the old mining town of Harrowstead that disappeared years ago. It seems that a case of writer’s block has slowed down the project but that is about to change after you receive an urgent call from Riley. With no time to spare you rush to Riley’s location only to find that he has disappeared.
Harrowstead Mystery is a creative game with some well-designed scenes, although many of them seemed familiar and were most likely “harvested” from some of the other Shadowplay games. The graphics were good and the voiceovers left a lot to be desired. At times I found Thea’s voice grating and more than a bit annoying as she seemed to constantly vocalize the obvious. Although there is a custom mode in the game the developer has basically set the lower time limit so we can’t truly customize our skip and hint times.
I thoroughly enjoyed the HOS and the Puzzles in the game. Some of the HOS were very creative and in a couple of instances I didn’t even realize that I was playing a HO scene until the lightbulb flashed in my brain. Those scenes caught me by surprise and had me using the hint button more than once because I found them vague and I wasn’t sure what to do. Although I found those “open” scenes creative, once I figured them out, they were not my favorites in the game.
Overall, this is an enjoyable game that I did purchase because I needed to find the answers to the Harrowstead Mystery and more importantly save my friends and myself from an unthinkable alternative. For me this Shadowplay is a keeper and one that I will play again, but please try the demo to see if it is a game you will like as well. Happy gaming!
Date published: 2019-07-07
Rated 4 out of
5
by
deddu from
STOP THE MONSTER
You are asked by a friend to help save the town and when you arrive, of course, everything starts to go wrong. The hidden objects are used almost immediately in the game and the mini-puzzles are good. You have a crazy lantern (which use kind of becomes boring), but other than that I think there is a lot about the game that is fun.
Date published: 2019-07-10
Rated 3 out of
5
by
charlene_lane from
DEFEAT THE SHADOW REALM MONSTER
REVIEW FROM COMPLETED GAME AND BONUS
This game was okay, although it was a little on the short side. There is:
* Voiceovers (with dialogue);
* Dusk, Twilight, Night, Pitch Black and Custom modes;
* Interactive map;
* Journal.
The graphics are very good. There is plenty of colour, each scene is well defined and items you need to find are easy to spot. Sound is good and the music is mainly orchestral and creepy sounds.
The hidden object games are mainly straightforward, silhouette, finding pairs and symbols and flower pots. These are all very easy to do.
The mini-games are all incredibly easy and quick to do. I didn't spend more than a few minutes on each. I was quite disappointed because I wanted at least a few of them to get my brain into gear, which never happened.
So, do you get the CE or SE? In the CE you can find 33 collectibles and 50 morphs in the game and bonus (including HOPs). You can also redo the hidden object games again in the extras to get 3 stars and to get 100%.
All up the game and bonus from the CE (no extras in this game) took me about 4 hours to complete - so a very short game.
Overall, if you feel like an afternoon just chilling out, then this game is for you.
Date published: 2019-07-08
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Pilot1 from
Mad Head Strikes out . . . sort of.
This game is neither as good as the five star rating one reviewer gave it, nor as bad as the two star rating posted by another.
It is certainly not as good as either of the Adam Wolfe games, nor Maze – subject 360 or Maze – The Broken Tower, and it is just as certainly not up the standard set by Mad Head Games in other products. On the other hand, it is not as bad as some other games offered by this producer and others.
Yes, it is another showcase for an evil entity, and the ‘brave’ team that must hunt and destroy it and, yes, it has predictable objects that you must find to activate other just as predictable items.
Too, for a so-called hidden object game it has more mini-games than HO sequences, at least in the first ten minutes or so of game play.
The graphics are okay, while having a little too much cartoon-like quality to suit my taste. The voice-over narrative, as another reviewer commented, does contain a lot of already obvious information.
Altogether, there is far too much of the already familiar to make this a must buy for me, or even for it to get a place on my alternate buy list.
Still, I won’t say don’t even bother to download this game, as I have with more than a few other games many times before.
Perhaps, if you’re relatively new to this type of game, you may like it. While I can't, in all honesty, recommend this game, give the demo a try, who knows, it may amuse you.
Date published: 2019-07-07
Rated 2 out of
5
by
pennmom36 from
A MERE SHADOW OF THE PLAY WE'VE COME TO EXPECT
Remember back in the day when Mad Head introduced their first game? Remember how amazing the graphics were, how fresh the storylines were? Remember Darkness Incarnate, and how modern, cutting~edge, and cool that game was? Remember the first a-MAZEing game that made you feel uncomfortable because you felt like you were actually trapped and didn't know how you got there? Remember how you knew BEYOND a SHADOW of a doubt that you were PLAYing an MHG? Remember how their games soared your imagination to the MOON allowing our very SOULS to WANDER, LUSTing with great expectations that were always fulfilled? Back in the day, it seemed like a RITE of PASSAGE to play as detective ADAM WOLFE because playing a Mad Head Game was like walking into THE HEART OF THE STORM of NEVER-endingTALES. Back in the day, I couldn't wait for a new MH game, so what happened guys? What happened to the Mojo? Put your thinking caps back on guys, it's the DAWN OF a new era and I haven't given up HOPE, DON-na BRAVE new face, claw your way out of this DARK REALM slump, become CHASERS of FRIGHT or you'll be stuck in a MONSTER-ous LOOP waiting for the ending CADENZA. I know you can do it guys, after all, you're ROCKING PILOTs!
I'm sure most of you know how I feel about cheesy Gadgets, but this particular gadget is the most worthless Gadge I've ever seen in a game! Once you discover the secret hiding place of Henry Bakeman's Lamp, you will use the gadget 6 times. BTW: they make no attempt to explain why it dispels dark magic, how Henry knew it would work on dark magic, where it came from, and most importantly, why it had to be hidden if it works on evil entities? To make matters worse, you have to play the most ridiculous mini-game in the history of HOPA gadget games. My grandson, who just turned 3-year-old this month, is perfectly capable of matching 2 different symbols, in fact, I asked him to find the two matching pairs of symbols and he nailed it in about 30 seconds, including the time it took me to explain what he was supposed to do. If a small child who can't yet read or write his name, can solve this game nearly instantaneously, why bother?
There are 14 Hidden Object Scenes and 1 Zoom Zone HOP (+4 CE BC) most are Interactive Listed Item Finds but there are also Multiples of each Object Finds, Keywords in Sentence Finds, Silhouetted Shapes, Matching Symbol Finds, Pictured Item Finds, Missing Related Animal Finds, and a colorful scene where you find several Flowers that match Picture Swatches. In the Collector's Edition version, each Hidden Object Scene has a Morphing Object, if you miss one of the HOP morphs you can pick them up in the CE replayable extras, as well.
There are 24 Mini-Games (+4 CE BC) including 6 worthless, pointless, repetitive Lamp Gadget games where you use a lens to find 2 matching symbol pairs. For the life of me, I can't understand why they even bothered to include a game where all you have to do is scan the lens across 4 circles? Most of the Mini-Games are rehashed from Mad Head's other series games, they aren't horrible, but they just aren't very challenging. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
1~Guide the frog to the exit by swapping directional arrow square tiles.
2~Press buttons to change the color of pie-shaped tiles to match the clues. ??
3~Push 4 keys into the central grid, columns & rows have specified number of moves.
The Collector's Edition Bonus Chapter takes place a month after the incident. You will play as Riley the investigator and Kevin the missing person. There are 4 Mini-Games, and 4 Hidden Object Scenes, 10 Spirals, 10 Scene Morphing Objects and 4 Hidden Object Morphs remaining in this somewhat short Bonus Chapter which takes place over 10 new scene locations.
The Collector's Edition version has 11 Wallpapers, 9 Concept Art pictures, 10 Music Soundtracks, 12 Cover Pictures, 32 Profile Pictures, 10 Achievements (5 achievements have 3 categories each) 17 Replayable Hidden Object Scenes, 33 Mad Head Spirals (23 Main Chapter~10 in CE Bonus Chapter) 50 Morphing Objects (33 Scene Location Morphs, 17 Hidden Object Scene Morphs) 5 Main Chapters +Bonus Chapter and a Built-in Strategy Guide.
SHADOWPLAY SERIES LIST
Title***Standard Edition Release Date***Average Rating
1-Darkness Incarnate (September 18-2016) 4.0
2-Whispers of the Past (August 25-2017) 3.1
3-The Forsaken Island (March 2-2018) 4.0
4-Harrowstead Mystery (July 7-2019) n/a
by: Mad Head Games
Date published: 2019-07-07
Rated 1 out of
5
by
tophatmcgee from
What a disappointment
I had high hopes, but they were dashed. This is one of those disconnected games, where you want to be engaged with other characters and your surroundings, but you never really feel immersed. There isn't enough background to feel part of, you have the spots you interact with, and that is it. The characters give you their dialogue, but you never really feel a part of them. The story is weak. The games and HOPs are amazingly simple and the game feels like it is about an hour, if that. I know that it has chapters, but it really just feels like one long, run on sentence. I cannot give this even half of a thumbs up.
Date published: 2019-08-24