
Lengthwise, expect around three hours of playtime with Allora and the Broken Portal, more if you're not a hidden object expert.

Not bad for a linear, casual sort of game! You can use inventory items at any time, leave scenes without finding all of the objects, and pretty much play the game the way you want to. So, instead of sending you on a quest that's interrupted with laundry lists of items and fancy mini-games, everything is stacked in one pile, allowing you to play the game without being jolted into another genre. Allora and the Broken Portal blends adventure and hidden objects together into a single experience. Which is a good thing.įortunately, the game is much more than a pretty face.
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The gently moving animations, the beautifully-colored objects, it all has a very professional comic-style look to it, and even though the gameplay and story are interesting, the art far outshines the rest of the game. Seriously, no part of this game was spared an artist's lovely touch, and you'll want to smack your face against the monitor and rub these stunning colors all over your eyes. You want to calm down and enjoy the scenery in this game, anyway!Īnalysis: Your first challenge when you play Allora and the Broken Portal: try not to gawk so hard at the stunning imagery that your eyeballs dry out. Just don't expect neon arrows pointing the way to your next item! Frequent mis-clicks are punished by a few seconds of lost cursor control, so forget about going on a click frenzy and instead take things slow and steady. They stick around for a few seconds, so you're not likely to miss them. Each time you use a hint, quickly scan the screen and look for yellow sparkles.

Hints are available on a recharging timer, and they're kind of tough to see once activated. Use the right item on the right object and a brand new crystal can be yours! You'll encounter a number of key objects throughout each chapter, denoted by your cursor turning into an eyeball. Click on the inventory tab at the bottom of the screen to select and use and item. When you find these guys, they'll stash themselves in your inventory. For example, if you're looking for a snake, check for drawings on the wall or carvings in pieces of wood instead of hunting for a real snake. Most of the time, items you're searching for aren't as literal as the name implies. What kind of game would be that easy, anyway?!Įach screen you visit comes with a list of items to find, all of which are cunningly hidden within the landscape. Sometimes you can see the crystals right in front of your face, but collecting them is never as easy as pointing and clicking the mouse. The goal is to find a number of crystals within these locations.

The game is divided into chapters, each containing three or four scenes you can wander around in freely. Now, an elfin girl and her rodent pal need a human - namely, you - to collect crystals and find the wizard, else the entire land will fall to ruin! So begins Allora and the Broken Portal, a gorgeously-drawn fantasy hidden object adventure from the folks at AZ Art development studio.Īllora and the Broken Portal blends genres together more seamlessly than most hidden object adventure hybrids, and the resulting mix of gameplay elements frees you from the constraints of unsolvable puzzles or too-difficult lists of items to locate. Note to wizards tinkering with space and time: if you're going to build a magical portal, be sure to calibrate it for humans before unleashing its unstoppable power on the universe! In the far away land of Sefirem, one such wizard failed to do this, and the high-tech portal he was working on went all wacky and trapped him inside.
