Howlville: The Dark Past

In Brief
Howlville: The Dark Past is an adventure hidden object puzzle game with some excellent mini games spread liberally throughout the game. Most puzzles link with the hidden object scenes as opposed to being completely separate from them.

Howlville The Dark Past has been given away three times previously; October 14, 2018! where it received a positive 88% from 40 votes with 9 comments HERE, December 28, 2019! where it received a positive 90% from 40 votes and 14 comments HERE and finally August 15, 2020! last year where it received a positive 89% from 37 votes with 14 comments HERE.

Installation:

Howlville: The Dark Past downloads to a 359 MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper, the set-up file and a read me). To install Howlville: The Dark Past click on the orange key file labelled set up and not the setup.gcd file. Those with multiple hard drives can save games on any drive they wish, just change the default installation path. The newly installed game is 1.22 GB in size. The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed by the user if you prefer:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MyPlayCity.com\Howlville The Dark Past

Four shortcuts are installed to the desktop, three of which can be safely deleted (Play Online Games, MyPlayCity Games and shortcuts to a free online game which vary each week). Also, if you don't like icons installed to the quick launch task bar, make sure you uncheck the box when the ''additional tasks'' window appears (after the Select Start Menu Folder window)

Introduction:

Discover the secret of Rachel's past in Howlville: The Dark Past! Many years ago an artifact was found in a mine near the small town of Howlville. The government asked Dr. Joseph and a group of scientists to examine it. Something went wrong, and the experiments were halted and classified. The town closed off. Since then nobody knows what happened to Dr. Joseph. Fifteen years later his daughter Rachel is on the verge of solving the mystery, but somebody is doing everything possible to keep her from succeeding. Help find Rachel's father and save the world from the looming catastrophe!
Reference accessed HERE 14th October 2018, reposted 14th August 2020 and again 18th June 2021

The Game:

Review 1:
Released in 2012, on first glance, Howlville: The Dark Secret is perfectly packaged to imitate its long line of ancestors who’ve thrilled audiences with their haunted houses, car crashes, and mysterious towns—or at least bombarded them into a numb acceptance of commercial standards. But from the title screen forward, Howlville distinguishes itself from the gloomy flock with a unique twist on the tried-and-true gameplay of hidden-object games. Instead of puzzles and hidden objects existing as separate entities; they’ve nested puzzles and tons of interaction into each hidden-object scenes, creating a very different pace and strategy for familiar mechanics.

The game opens predictably for the genre—you’ve escaped a mental institution and you’re driving a stolen vehicle down some forbidden highway in search of an even more forbidden town. Rachel, the protagonist, reveals in an intimate tone that she is looking for her father, one of two scientists who disappeared in Howlville years ago while investigating an artifact. Eventually, the other scientist is established as the antagonist, but the how’s and why’s in Howlville are never quite fleshed out enough to matter. It reminded me of older adventure games where the programmers would hire a writer after the fact to “add some story” to the gameplay. And although the cutscenes were written with care, but the journal and in-game text could’ve benefited from some judicious editing.

Where N-Tri Studios’ first game really shines is in the gameplay—a major achievement just out of the chute. There are five chapters, each consisting of limited locations, so you’re only moving between three scenes at most, making it impossible to get lost. This approach works here because most of the needed items are garnered from intense hidden-object scenes that are puzzles in and of themselves.

Most scenes featured tiered levels of interaction: the first was moving objects to find other objects, the second was using an object in the scene to open/unlock another object to find other objects, and the third level was solving actual puzzles within the scene, such as a jigsaw or Rubik’s cube, to find an object. Each scene was a real challenge and I found myself scratching my head more than I would with some “real” adventure games.

Also impressive was the game’s use of monitor real estate. The HUD was clean and simple, and the in-game text was restricted to small text boxes that appeared when your pointer paused on a hotspot, allowing the eyes to give their full attention to the hand-drawn scenes. The music was about as aesthetically pleasing as a looped audio track can be, the sound effects appropriate, and the voice over, although scant, was well done.

But sometimes a player can have too much of a good thing. With all the layers of interaction, the hidden-object scenes become major undertakings that could last ten minutes or longer—especially if they contain two or more puzzles. (Be forewarned: the Skip button takes two minutes to charge.) Although most of the interactions were logical, some required leaps and bounds of faith that two such objects should go together. At times the length of time in a hidden-object scene detracted from the overall adventure and would’ve detracted from the story if there’d been one. And just as I’d breathe a sigh of relief that I’d completed all that puzzling, I’d find another active hidden-object scene in the same location!

As a standard edition, Howlville: The Dark Secret knocks it out of the park and deserves to be played on novelty factor alone. Whether you consider yourself a puzzle gamer or a hidden-object gamer, you’ll find plenty to love in N-Tri Studios’ gameplay mash up. And if you’re looking for a hardcore challenge, play the game on Expert mode—you’ll carry out thousands of interactions without a single glint!

Reference accessed HERE original review by
Keely Alexander on Jul 11, 2012; Edited and reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 14th Oct 2018, again 14th August 2020 and 18th June 2021.

Review 2:Howlville: The Dark Past is a lightly-flavored science fiction-themed hidden object adventure game from N-Tri Studio. Featuring a balanced mix of puzzle solving, item hunting, and adventuring, Howlville manages to be a hidden object game without feeling like a rehash of the games that came before it, touching on common elements found in the genre but focusing intently on smart puzzles that really challenge the player. The result is something light and casual, recognizable but still different enough to offer mounds of enjoyment.

The protagonist Rachel lost her father when she was a child, and she's been searching for him her entire life. Gaining access to some "secret archives", she learned he was one of two scientists investigating a strange artifact in the town of Howlville. Something went wrong, though, and the town has since been declared off-limits, its location hidden from the public. Rachel eventually found the classified city only to be thrown in a mental institution shortly afterwards. Now she has escaped, and as the game begins, she's on her way to Howlville. As you probably guessed, things only get weirder from this point on, what with all the mad scientistry and whatnot…...

The game is laid out in a series of small sections blocked by puzzles that require multiple steps to complete. As you explore each area, you'll pick up several items to keep in your inventory, most of which have logical uses later in the game. You'll also complete a number of mini-games to gain access to new areas, such as completing fuses to light up rooms, or gathering certain numbers of unusual items so you can open locked boxes, cabinets, and the like.

The game sticks with the established hidden object formula, but it does so without sinking too deeply into it. The story features a smattering of elements we've all seen before, such as mysteriously vanishing grandparents, a protagonist from a mental institution, and a dark, semi-haunted town to explore. But Howlville is almost parodical in nature, lightly skimming the surface of the hidden object genre just as an excuse to deliver a series of wonderfully-constructed puzzles.

The story and setting are simple but interesting, but the visuals do manage to stand out as being crisp and easy to see. The game doesn't support widescreen, however, which is a bit of a shame seeing as how it looks so good. Most of the time you'll be so focused on the unique mini-games and strange puzzles you won't be thinking about things like aspect ratios or black bars on the side of your screen.

Reference accessed HERE original review by JohnB, July 8, 2012; Edited and reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 14th Oct 2018, 14th August 2020 & 18th June 2021.

Other Reviews, Walkthroughs and Videos of Howlville: The Dark Past:
You can see community reviews of Howlville: The Dark Past HERE (go to bottom of the page) & HERE (mainly positive), plus forum comments, suggestions and help HERE. You can also see game play videos of Howlville: The Dark Past HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE and some walkthroughs HERE & HERE

Conclusion:
Simply enjoyable is a good way to describe Howlville: The Dark Past. The game doesn't veer too far in any genre-defined direction, allowing it to maintain its HOG likeability without alienating any type of player. It's got game play where it counts, and both the in-game puzzles and mini-games and are some of the most satisfying puzzles around! The downside is the poor storyline.

An 8 out of 10 thumbs up from me and a game well worth downloading.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game free via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE; or If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it directly from Big Fish Games HERE or Steam HERE. You can also get it as a bundle via Steam with three other HOG’s (Crossroad Mysteries: The Broken Deal, Ashley Clark: Secret of the Ruby & Ashley Clark: The Secrets of the Ancient Temple) and HERE

Other Free Games:

The latest game from Epic Games are Hell is other Demons an action-platform shooter, with Rogue-lite elements and Overcooked! 2; Journey back to the Onion Kingdom and assemble your team of chefs in classic couch co-op or online play for up to four players. Hold onto your aprons … it’s time to save the world (again!); both will be available next week Thursday 17th June at 4pm UK time/11am EST

Also from Epic, If you play online with friends there's a decent PvE/PvP free FPS game called Scavengers with a coop mode (I checked it out recently and it looks fantastic as well as plays well) and you can still get the clicker RPG Idle Champions as well as other multiplayer games. I've been posting redeemable codes for free chests that contain various buffs and other items for Idle Champions (time limited for 5 to 7 days from the day of posting) over in the forums HERE. They contain various items that boost your heroes abilities and health as well as affect your group of heroes in game, for example potions that boost health or DPS, contracts that can improve armour or weapons already used by the heroes or other contracts that add specific amounts of gold to your bank as well as items of jewellery, armour or weapons that buff your characters stats. I don't usually play clicker type games, but this one is well supported by the developer and has a massive following. I'll be posting codes for as long as I continue to play the game. I've posted some help sheets and links to a game wiki via the above link as well

Please see Delenn's threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. Delenn has been updating these regularly for years now. It’s worth adding these links to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep. Delenn has recently posted details of more Steam games that are temporarily free. One may be until it leaves early access??? - i.e. Tower Ball - Incremental Tower Défense plus a reflex game called Keyboard Killers are still free. Delenn posted details of a free origin came called Battlefield 4 which is available for free if you have an Amazon Prime account (If you like FPS games, it's a brilliant game to own. (not sure if it's still live).

To those who contributed to the Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid over on Itch.io, they raised $899,963.91, which was a great achievement.

You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+). These included over 60 decent AAA games and indie arcade games ; for example some of the better AAA games included , lucky Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; Dreadlands, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained and Conan Exiles.

I've not posted details of any Indie Gala freebies since my older computer went on the Fritz back in October last year. Since then Indie Gala have added quite a few more free games, some of which are definitely worth downloading. You can find the latest freebies HERE and their showcase list, which includes all the freebies still current; (many of which have been included for a couple of years now) HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favourites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)