To get a feel for today's game before you download it, please check out the following game play videos of Jane Lucky HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. You can also see a couple of written walkthrough HERE and HERE You can also see more videos in the ‘Other Reviews and Videos’ section below.

Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls@

In Brief

A hidden Object adventure game with mini games.

Installation:

Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls downloads to a 179 MB zip file that unzips to three files, (a setup.gcd security wrapper, the set-up file and a read me). Those with multiple hard drives can save games on any drive they wish. The newly installed game is 229 MB 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\Sandra Fleming Chronicles - Crystal Skull

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:

The legendary Crystal Skulls have been lost for centuries. Sandra Fleming is hired to find them for Professor Harold Wagner. Will Sandra be able to retrieve the skulls from a terrifying volcanic island, the snowy mountains of Nepal, or the jungles of Amazon River? Join her on her quest in this fantastic Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game! Dive into Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls and go on an exciting journey!

Reference accessed HERE 19th Aug 2018

The Game:

From Intenium, the makers of the equally awesome Insider Tales: The Stolen Venus 2 and Tulula: Legend of a Volcano, comes Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls, a hidden object adventure with heavy emphasis on the latter. Sandra Fleming cuts out most of the casual stuff we see in modern games, leaving you alone with a strange world with nothing but your wits to get you out. It's a challenging and intriguing game that goes to greater lengths to satisfy your puzzle solving itch than most other games of its species!

Summoned to the museum by a curator friend, you learn of the legend of the Crystal Skulls, relics of the old world hidden away by the natives of South America and sought after by conquistadors. The museum has one of the skulls, but now, information has surfaced leading to the remainder of them, sparking your pal Tom to head out on an adventure. You quickly follow, landing on the beach ready to scour the landscape for clues.

Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls is much more adventure-oriented than most hidden object hybrids out these days, and for that reason alone, you should try it. You'll spend most of your time searching scenes for the odd item or two, poking your cursor around sparkling areas and investigating small mini-scenes within the larger areas. Often times you'll come up with a useful item or two, stashing it in your inventory for later use. Only when you collect the right things can you start solving puzzles, and even then you'll find you have to go exploring to pick out more necessary objects.

Puzzles take the form of multi-part riddles that require several items as well as some sleuthing on your part. For example, early on you'll be confronted with a locked safe with a three-digit combination. Normally, a casual adventure game would throw the numbers on a piece of paper and place it right in front of your head. In Sandra Fleming Chronicles, however, you'll learn these numbers one at a time, but only if you're paying attention to your surroundings. They're never thrown right in your face, forcing you to actually get involved in the game!

Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls isn't quite your ordinary hidden object adventure hybrid game. In fact, in several areas it goes out of its way to be just the opposite, preferring not to hold the player's hand and opting instead to throw you in head first to see if you can survive. Fortunately, even for non-adventure game buffs, it's easy enough to stay afloat, as the difficulty level won't drown you as long as you keep an eye peeled for random clues hidden right in front of your face!

Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls has a lot of nice animations that are both fun to play with but also serve to liven up the hidden object scenes. Some of them add a bit of depth to a scene, like doors that open to conceal items hidden on shelves, or things you have to repeatedly click to swing them out of the way. Try clicking on everything, see what moves!

Sandra Fleming Chronicles dares to do what every other popular hidden object game does: provide a challenge and draw the player in to the game's world. If the same old formula is what you're looking for, this game probably won't please you. If you want something different enough to be satisfying, Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls is worth downloading today!

Edited reference accessed HERE. Originally posted by JohnB on 3rd July 2011. Edited and reposted by Whiterabbit-uk 19th Aug 2018.

Other Reviews and Videos of Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls:

You can see community reviews of Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls HERE and some more videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE (German), HERE (German), HERE and HERE.

Conclusion:

I’ve not played the game long enough to give a fair conclusion, that said, what I did play was decent and I will be returning to the game soon. :)

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game free 24/7 via MyPlayCity HERE; or If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it directly from Big Fish games HERE

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank MyPlayCity for giving away Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls with the toolbars etc removed and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Suggestions:

After you've had an opportunity to play Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls please take a few moments to give some positive or negative feedback about the game; for example, what you liked or disliked, or how improvements could be made to make it more enjoyable and perhaps change your mind about this game? If you don't like Hidden Object games at all, please explain why? If you don't have time to post a comment today, please do so at your convenience. These comments will always be accessible for as long as this site is open and provide a valuable resource for game developers, thank you. To access the comments once the giveaway is over, open the game giveaway to its home page then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Archives and select the date the giveaway was live (giveaway days are in bold type). This will open up the appropriate page for you to post your comment or review.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly roundup of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

The rest of the information that used to be posted here can be found in the forums HERE. Also, check out Delenns thread over in the game discussion forums for details of other free games and offers HERE. There are two Steam games temporarily on offer for free i.e. Orwell, which you can get via the Humble Bundle Store page HERE and BROKE PROTOCOL: Online City RPG directly from Steam HERE (you need to be logged into your Steam account to get the game). I don't know when these offer end so don't delay.

Having problems installing today's game?

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Sandra Fleming Chronicles: Crystal Skulls to work please visit the problems section, which you can find in the FAQ's thread HERE. Also read through the community’s comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted. The main issue we have is with the giveaway wrapper, which uses a Themida based code to protect the games executable. Unfortunately, Themida is also used to hide malware; so, as a precaution, some security software may block the installation and sometimes even delete the executable file. Blocking or deletion is usually determined partly by the way your computer is set up. Usually you'll get a message saying ''the file is corrupted'', but, the files are okay. There are a couple of things you can do to overcome this issue. The first is to reboot in safe mode with networking, install the game then reboot, or secondly you can (at your own risk) temporarily turn off your security, install the game, then turn your security back on. A note of reassurance to those that choose the latter and quicker method. The game giveaway team have been giving away games for over a decade (Dec 2006 & prior to that, via the main site 2 or 3 times weekly from Oct 2006 to Dec 2006) and have 'NEVER' given away a game infected with malware; they always test every giveaway with several of the top anti-malware suites to ensure all games are free from malware.

If for any reason you want to contact the giveaway team, for example, if you have a problem getting the latest game or other issues that the FAQ's thread or these comments don't cover or solve or if you have a game to offer the community you can do so HERE