Adam Wolfe is an episodic hidden object adventure game developed and published by Mad Head Games. The game is available on PC, Mac, iOS and Steam. The game’s first episode was released in September 2016, and was recently completed in May. The game revolves around the titular protagonist, a paranormal detective investigating the sudden disappearance of his sister, who is suddenly pulled into a series of supernatural events involving demons, spirits and an occult group all of which ties into a larger picture.

ADAM WOLFE

DETAILED REVIEW

Story And Narrative

The game’s plot takes place across four episodes, with each episode having a central objective and an item of importance. I won’t spoil anything here as this is a story heavy game, but rest assured it is satisfactory to say the least. However, despite this, the story largely falls into “predictable” territory, with few plot twists you could see coming from a mile away. While the main characters largely are well developed and have a distinct personality of their own, the minor ones are swept under the rug quickly as they are only used as a means of plot progression. The intriguing set of events and puzzles keep this from being too big of a deal.

Graphics Sound and Performance

The presentation is perhaps the high-point of this game, with beautiful water-colour style art and sprite-work and well crafted locales, that breathes life to these water color painted locales of San Francisco. The characters look great and animate well, and the voice acting is generally good too. Developer Mad Head Games have done an impressive job here.

Gameplay And Mechanics

Since this is a hidden object game (a rarity nowadays), most of your time will be spent solving puzzles; not just the “find the object based on provided clue” but a wide assortment of brain teasers and there are several mechanics in place that puzzles are based around, like using Wolfe’s handy magical watch that can turn back time to relive moments that occurred at that point in time, such as a murder or Focus to take note four highlighted of objects of interest and arrange them in the order they were originally interacted with. Sadly, only a handful of these puzzles proved to be tough or memorable, and some of those that were tough were kinda cryptic as well, the type would stump you for a while before you know what’s to be done. But the variety in puzzles is still good to see.

When you’re not solving puzzles, you’ll be exploring around a set location (or moving from one location to another using a world map on the phone’s GPS), interacting with people and objects to help you progress the story. Of course, the game cohesively merges the puzzle and story aspects so it doesn’t feel put of place. The game itself isn’t too long, with each chapter being roughly 2 to 2-and-a-half-hours each.

There’s more to Adam Wolfe than just puzzles and interacting though: at key points in the game, there are several set pieces which have unusual scenarios for a point and click type game, such as shooting enemies using Adam’s revolver (controlled using the mouse like you would in a shooter) and quick time events. These events can be seen as boss fights, but like the puzzles, they aren’t challenging and involve shooting or button mashing till the enemy’s health bar is empty; yeah it does become a bit tedious by the end. The ending of the game is abrupt too, in my opinion, and does leave you wishing for more.

VERDICT

Overall, I feel that Adam Wolfe is a good game but stumbles here and there with regards to challenge. It’s a must play if you enjoy a good point and click adventure with some well crafted puzzles.