A review code was used, with many thanks to Keymailer.
I got to take a look at a demo for the upcoming Nora: In Search of Hidden Ingredients, so let’s dive into this game and what this beefy demo had to offer.
The Basic Story and Gameplay of Nora
First and foremost, we are introduced to Nora, a witch who is failing out of witch school. She has been so busy trying to study and get her grades up that she hasn’t had time in years to visit her ageing grandmother. When Granny passes away, Nora heads to her home to see if her grandmother left her anything inside. There, Nora is put to the test to see if she can become the witch she has been struggling to be this whole time.
Nora: In Search of Hidden Ingredients is a hidden-object puzzle game. You are given a list of pictures, and you need to find each of those objects hidden around the room. It’s a fairly standard hidden object game with a visual novel style to the story elements.
The Style of Nora: In Search of Hidden Ingredients
I think the place where Nora: In Search of Hidden Ingredients stands out the most is its cute, visual-novel-style graphics and text. I try not to read descriptions, reviews, or information on a game before I review it to make sure I’m not coming in with any preconceived notions about it. So when I first booted Nora up, I thought I was playing a visual novel.
But after a few minutes, it dove into the meat of the game, which is the hidden object puzzles. You have to go around different rooms of Grandma’s home, looking for clues to the thing she left for you, guarded by a spirit. If you don’t find the objects in time, you won’t get any of your inheritance, and Granny’s home will be left to rot in the middle of the forest.
So you are given a room, hand-drawn in an adorable cartoon style, each room holds about 10-20 objects for you to find. The demo gives you access to three of these rooms. The objects will look exactly as they do in the room in the object menu on the left, so you just need to match the pictures.
While the art is colorful and cute, the puzzles are just kind of okay. I think that it would be okay for young children, but I feel like most people would be bored by the lack of challenge here. It just doesn’t feel like the developers put as much effort into the puzzles as they did in the art. I wouldn’t say the puzzles are bad, they are just a little boring.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Nora: In Search of Hidden Ingredients is fine. The art is good, the music is fine, and the puzzles are okay. I think that there is a lot more they could have done with the whole magic theme in this game, like needing to cast spells to see certain objects or something. But overall, it’s just another okay hidden object puzzle game without anything too special about it.
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