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Developer/Publisher: Family
Games.com
Santa's Secret Valley is a nonviolent shareware adventure game aimed towards children. In it, you play as one of Santa's most industrious elves, Fizbin. Over the course of a hundred or so years, Fizbin has begun to feel slightly discontent with his life. Santa has noticed the elf's restlessness, and he decides to put Fizbin in charge of watching over his most precious possessions: his magic sack, his magic boots, and his magic bell. Santa needs these three items in order to deliver all of the Christmas gifts. Unfortunately, Fizbin the Elf has a tendency to fall asleep easily, and while watching the items he dozes off in the comfort of an armchair by a cheery fire. When he awakes, all of the magic items have been stolen! It is up to you to help Fizbin recover the three items or Christmas will be ruined. Though I found the story a bit hackneyed, it is probably just right for the young audience that this game is intended for. The story receives a B. The Santa's Secret Valley graphics are not bad, considering that this is a shareware game. However, they are very small. Using 1024 by 768 monitor resolution, the actual scene (not including the inventory and room description) takes up about a quarter of the screen. Obviously, using a lower screen area (such as 800 by 600) will make it larger. I think the graphics are adequate for a shareware game, but they could have been improved in my opinion (see the screenshots and decide for yourself). The graphics get a B. The game has several gameplay features that may please or annoy you, depending on the type of gamer that you are. But the variety of puzzles was pleasantly surprising. There are musical puzzles. There are word scramblers and combinations. There are sliding tile puzzles. There are a lot of mazes. There are even game shows. The worst are the mazes, some of which are confusing and can easily turn into a click-fest, even when using old-fashioned graph paper to map them out. Thankfully, these are relatively short. The rest of the mazes are genuinely fun, incorporating an interesting puzzle into their design. The music puzzles are fun to do because they often involve Christmas songs. Never fear, for they are designed so that you do not need special musical listening skills to complete them. The game show is enjoyable because the trivia questions (Christmas-related, of course) are interesting and unusual. It's a simple enough matter to just wing it though the show in order to win the prize, but all the information you might need to win is also stored in the town's library. Overall, despite a few badly designed mazes, I found the gameplay enjoyable and award it a grade of B+. The characters that Fizbin interacts with over the course of his adventure speak in text bubbles, so there are no voices. The music and sound effects in Santa's Secret Valley are sparse and probably could have been improved. Due to this, the music and sound get a C. The combination of Christmas spirit and enjoyable gameplay (mazes aside) make this game perfect for those little elves on your Christmas list. The tryout version of the shareware is downloadable for free at the Family Games website, and the full version can be unlocked from the download with the purchase of a registration key. Or if you feel so inclined, a CD-ROM with this game (and many others) can be purchased. Final Grade: B System
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