You’ve probably seen Artifex Mundi games before while
browsing the Xbox Store or seeing a list of weekly new releases and thinking to
yourself “What the hell is this and why does it look exactly like a bunch of other games
on Xbox One?” and quickly passed them over, but are they actually worth
playing? Depending on how much you like
puzzles, yeah, they might be worth a look.
For the right price, anyway.
Rather than reviewing them all separately, which would be a pain, I
present to you the official all encompassing PSXBoxIndies Artifex Mundi
Xbox One Buyer's Guide! Can one general
guide really accurately cover several different games? In this case, absolutely yes. Read on!
What Are Artifex Mundi Games?
Artifex Mundi games are known as hidden object games where
you have to solve puzzles by finding objects scattered around a game
world. They were popularized on mobile
platforms and as free web browser games people would use to pass the time, but
now they’ve come to game consoles – at a higher price – so everyone can get in
on the fun. There are currently seven
Artifex Mundi games on Xbox One with stories ranging from a small-town string
of murders, an ancient pirate captain come back to life, a bear that kidnaps a
would-be bride, and much more. The
stories are only mostly OK, though, not great.
What is the Gameplay Like?
What does “hidden object game” actually mean in real gameplay, though? In terms of actual moment-to-moment gameplay, they are essentially point-and-click adventures where you progress through static environments by clicking on various parts of the screen with a cursor. Each screen has interactive objects to use or items to pick up and puzzles to solve which, in typical videogame form, open up new objects and puzzles that open up new ones that open up new ones until you eventually reach the end of the story.
At several points in each game there will be the true hidden
object puzzles where you have a list of items you have to find scattered around
on a screen full of junk. These are
generally pretty mindless, though. They
aren’t the only puzzles you’ll find in Artifex Mundi games, however, and it is
the other puzzles that make the games actually interesting to play. There are multi-part puzzles where you have
to collect a bunch of items from around the game world and put them together
into what you need. There are sliding
block picture puzzles. There are
puzzles where you remake a picture from torn up scraps of paper. Puzzles where you re-arrange the faces of
angels on a picture so they line up with the correct bodies. Puzzles where you crack computer passwords
or the combination to a wall safe. The
sheer variety of puzzles, and the level of challenge some of them offer, is the
real appeal of Artifex Mundi games. And
if the puzzles are too challenging or you just need a hint on where to go next,
the games also have a great hint system to point you in the right direction.
Artifex Mundi games can be surprisingly fun and satisfying
to play through, except when things go off the rails into the realm of the
arbitrary and annoying which, unfortunately, seem to happen a lot. Remember puzzles in Resident Evil or Silent
Hill games where the necessary items are spread all over the place or the other
puzzles where the solution is obvious and easy but the game requires a specific
item to solve it? That is Artifex Mundi
game design to a “T”. Every puzzle has
one item that solves it even if in real life you would innovate and come up
with something smarter and faster.
Examples are breaking open boxes or other items, reaching through narrow
areas, climbing up and over stuff, etc. where you have to have a specific item
but a real person would just brute force it.
Also, most items can only be used once so say goodbye to that handy
screwdriver or hammer that would be a real problem solver because you used it
on one stupid thing and now it’s gone forever.
A frequent puzzle design also has you solving just one part
of a puzzle and then making you backtrack all the way back through a pirate
ship or forest or entire town to go find the next piece. In real game time it is just a matter of
seconds since everything is a static screen and the game loads pretty much
instantly, but thinking about solving puzzles like this in the real world and
imagining the character running back and forth for miles and miles and miles to
fetch the one item that breaks open something or moves something, even though a
real person would just find another way, really annoys me. And just like Resident Evil puzzles, you have
to wonder who in the heck would design a place, in the case of Artifex Mundi
games entire towns sometimes, with so many different types of locks and puzzles
with the solutions and keys spread all over the damn place. It’s dumb.
It’s super videogame-y and I guess that’s fine, but the rational and
logical part of me is just screaming inside about how dumb everything is.
So, Should You Play Them?
I know this all sounds pretty negative, but there are still plenty of good
reasons to play Artifex Mundi games on Xbox One. Some of the puzzles are really genuinely fantastic and very
satisfying to solve. Being clever and
seeing the solution to a puzzle long before the game goes through its long
drawn out process of making you run all over the place to find the necessary
pieces is also very satisfying and compels you to keep playing. The games also have generally easy
achievements, too, as long as you can figure out the puzzles, so gamerscore
hunters can do a lot worse than spending a couple hours playing an Artifex
Mundi game. The games are also quite
nice looking. They are mostly just
static screens, so of course they’re crazy detailed and sharp and good looking,
but that doesn’t mean you can dismiss how great they really do look.
If you find satisfaction in solving puzzles, Artifex Mundi
games might be worth a look. They’re
like if The Witness had 100x more variety to the puzzles and wasn’t a mess of
pretentious garbage. Yeah, I said
it. Artifex Mundi games, any of them,
are better than The Witness. My only
concern is that the $10 price tag for each game is asking far too much for what
they are, especially when you consider they are $5 (or free) on mobile
platforms or web browsers. It doesn’t
make sense to pay a premium for a console version that has worse controls. With that in mind I recommend that if you
are interested in playing Artifex Mundi games, wait for a sale. Thankfully, they seem to go on sale pretty
regularly so if you can buy them for $5 or less, go for it.
