[star ratings on scale of 1-5:]
fun 1
visual/sound 2
challenge 2
storyline 3
user experience 0
overall 1.5

tl;dr: I do not recommend this game!

The whole story:

I rate so many games 3.5+ stars that I wonder if I'm too much of a softy. But playing The Mystery of the Dragon Prince, I'm aware of how much better those other games are. I'm sure a lot of effort went into this one -- that's why I rated visual/sound a 2, rather than 1 -- but I'm about to get harsh!

The game is mercifully short. I finished it in two sessions, all the while wondering if I should quit while I was ahead.

It has a storyline ... sort of. I didn't particularly care, so even though it's fresh in my mind, the details are hazy. You're an everyday modern girl and out of the blue, you receive a letter in the mail that is post-dated 200 years ago requesting your presence. Then your cat knocks over a bunch of stuff including an old photo of a castle that you've never seen before. That's it -- you decide to drop everything and go investigate. You learn the history from the folks you meet at the castle and some of the puzzles. Figure them out and, boom, happily ever after, apparently with a dude ... who's a prince? ... and a dragon? And maybe you're a princess?

The stills are beautiful. But the hidden object scenes are murky and pixelated with teeny, obscure objects. I couldn't see anything even with the brightness turned all the way up. About two-thirds of the way through, I bumped up the gamma, which helped a little with the hidden objects and puzzles, but it made the rest of the game look washed out.

It was an annoying click-fest. I resorted to randomly clicking all over the place to find objects because I still couldn't distinguish objects, even with the brightness and gamma up.

It's a convention to use a different color for the names of objects that require an interaction to be found. For example, if you have to move something or open a drawer to see the object, it might be listed in yellow.

There's no distinction here. You have to click on everything ... and maybe something moves. When it does move, it's often too dark to see. So you're still click-click-clicking away on the chance that something is there. And you don't know if you're done because you can still move the objects around afterward.

The music is OK. I didn't pay too much attention because of the frustrations of playing the game.

The level of challenge and the user experience are intertwined. Both were so frustrating that I resorted to using the hints and a walkthrough.

Turns out the hints are sometimes wrong. Once it indicated a spot where there was nothing to do (I was supposed to be doing something else in a different room). And the hints work only if you are in the room where you need to do something. They can't direct you to where you need to be.

The mechanics of game play were so horrible -- and the artwork so dark -- they made the puzzles needlessly difficult. In one puzzle, I tried to put a valve where it seemed obvious it should go. It wouldn't take, so I figured it must go in another puzzle. I came back later to try a section of pipe that was the same size as the valve. But it didn't work. Turns out the pipe belonged in another part of the puzzle that was so dark I had to use a walkthrough to find it. Usually it's enough to have the correct piece in the correct puzzle, and the piece magically goes where it belongs. But if they're going to be such sticklers, they could give a little feedback -- like "Close! I almost got it" -- to suggest looking for other spots in the puzzle. And it turned out that the valve did belong where I'd tried it. Why not let me place it and then prompt me for the pipe?

Some puzzles seemed random. I clicked and clicked and clicked until they were solved. Others I didn't have the patience for and skipped them.

And there were some fun puzzles, but the frustration from everything else detracted from them.

Then there's the user experience.

Navigating was bizarre. Most of the time, I got little feet to show where I could go. In the dining room, no little feet, but a chat bubble. No big deal, just strange.

But what was a big deal is that there was no sense of direction. I was never sure which way clicking would take me. If I were moving forward or backward. It's a tiny world, but I spent most of the time lost, despite retreading the same ground over and over and over again.

The treatment of completed areas was inconsistent. When I was done with some areas, they became inaccessible. In two places, chat bubbles popped up to tell me that I'd done everything there. And then some areas remained available even when I was done.

Some areas -- like the bureau in the bedroom -- even remained active and sparkly, suggesting there was more to be done there. Not so. Just active and sparkly.

If I didn't click EXACTLY on an object, it didn't register. This was a big problem with the wispy runes. One object took 10 clicks to pick up.

There were no tooltips on the objects in inventory to identify what I'd picked up, so I wasn't always sure what I had.

On the plus side: With zero replay value, I can delete the game and clear a little space on my flash drive.

(System info: Win7 Pro 64-bit, 32GB RAM, i7-6700HQ, GTX 970M, 1920 x 1080 resolution)

Ridiculous game. Getting well rid of it.

Im having trouble installing the game. After I unzip the file, a dialog pops up saying "failure to launch program". It didn't even get to the installation part yet. Is anyone else having this problem?

Why can't I get the game launcher to launch? Before downloading I turned off ALL security devices. Download, extract, click set up. No matter what I do, it always comes up as failed to launch. Can anybody help me? This has been going on for MONTHS and I have not been able to download even one game. Please help!

internet walkthru

Hello Whiterabbit (hope bunny is better)
Thanks to you and MyPlayCity for the most challenging (to say the least) game. I must have downloaded this back in 2019 when first given away. Today I remembered it and since having cataract surgery on both eyes I tried again.
Mainly, guess work is what it takes and having played hundreds of HOG. It is so dark that when I go back in again I am going to try to brighten my screen. Once you solve a few of the puzzles and hidden objects you kind of get in a zone.
I must say that after solving a few there is a real sense of accomplishment. Haven't felt that with most newer games.
All best wishes and thanks for what you do. snow

Despite my concerns re: the issues noted by others, I went ahead and installed and really this is a thumbs down for me so far. The HOG scenes are extremely dark, and in the absence of a map I'm just wandering a bit. I did find a walkthrough and without that pointing out some of the TRULY HIDDEN objects in those dark areas I'd never have been able to proceed (that is probably what Vladimir meant by prompts from the internet.) In between the very frustrating HOG scenes the story is kind of silly and so far there's no real puzzles if you don't count trying to click on pitch black areas where you think an item might be hidden. One of the only thumbs down on a HOG I've given in all these many years! I really do love HOG/adventures and hope for more.

I've just played a little of the game (don't have the time to play more today), but I loved the detailed graphics/images.

The music is a bit jarring if you compare it with the music of more modern games, but you can always mute it or keep the volume low in game settings.

Continuing from my first comment, I see that this game is not without some problems. I do hope I am able to plow through it. Thanks so much for the warning about no map and other difficulties.

I'm so happy to get an HOG on the weekend. Made my day. Thank you Game give away of the day!

According to my notes following its last giveaway (8th Jan 19) it had "no map. Once saved goes back to some previous place"

This is a game that can be won only with the prompt from the Internet. There is a subtle moment: you start collecting glass fragments, you have a basket for this, it does not allow you to choose the desired object in the scenes that you did not pass on time. You have no opportunity to somehow start from the beginning, there is no user's profile in the game.