Once upon a time there was a wicked witch who wanted to get married. Unfortunately all three handsome princes across the land were alreadyOnce upon a time there was a wicked witch who wanted to get married. Unfortunately all three handsome princes across the land were already engaged to beautiful princesses. Upset that her supposed ‘beauty’ was being ignored she decided to kidnap not just the three princes but their would-be brides as well. She locked the brides away somewhere secret and then cast a deep sleeping spell across the land as revenge. That of course was not the end of this mad road of revenge. The witch turned each of the princes into helpless frogs because after all, if she can’t marry the man of her dreams then no one should. You were out on duties when what befell the kingdom occurred. Noticing what has happened you race into action. Sure the witch has trapped you but you can’t let this evil woman have total control. It’s your job to rescue the princes, reunite them with their princesses in the hope of breaking the enchantments set by the witch as this is one prank that needs to be undone.
Known for making some rather polished games Shaman Games Studio built up a solid reputation for casual adventures when it came to develop Witch’s Pranks: Frog’s Fortune (2014). Putting aside a clumsy title that does the game no favours this Russian made game proves to be one of their best. The game’s story has your peasant character journey through different mirrors to different lands each rescuing a princess from a famous fairy tale. The presentation is incredibly polished at times with CG cutscenes looking like something out of a Disney animated movie. The frog princes are frankly adorable with their highly detailed expressions of interest or vulnerability. From one screen to the next they’re always doing something that’ll make you go “awww that’s so cute”. Witch’s Pranks is an interesting game. It’s not a HOG in the traditional sense as you don’t explore a screen to find hidden objects off a list. It does contain every other element of a HOG whether that’s puzzles or finding pieces of items dotted around to form a complete inventory item yet it seems Shaman rightly or wrongly (depending on your own point of view) have decided to consciously streamline the gameplay a little by removing the actual HOG list screens. Now how can you have a HOG without HOG screens he asks but…it does work. Besides, in creating a fantasy world how many times have we been taken out of it by having to collect items that don’t belong there like tyres or comic books? One criticism I would say is it’s a fairly long HOG but the weird structuring lets it down by having the second half of the game (with the second prince) be bigger than the first half. Game difficulty is also reasonable although halfway through there’s a puzzle involving untying threads on a locked door and using them to form shapes. Bearing in mind the threads cannot be overlapped to form the shapes it becomes more difficult than it needs to be, especially the second shape puzzle which I spent hours trying to figure out.
There are a number of achievements to collect via game cards of the frog princes in different poses although those are pretty simple to get. The Collector’s Edition also comes with an artwork gallery, game guide, wallpaper, screensaver and a bonus game section yet with the length of the latter I have to wonder why the developers didn’t bother just incorporating it into the main game as it’s too long to be a bonus. It’s such a shame that at this time of writing Shaman have gone downhill. A few years after the release of this game saw the studio repackage titles such as these under their Hiddenverse series, replacing your peasant character with a witch, replacing the adventure with just puzzles and rewriting the whole plot to take out what made Witch’s Pranks successful. If you see Witch’s Tales 1, 2 or 3 for sale that’s the original chopped up and split so best to stick with this original.
Witch’s Pranks is an overlooked gem which bar an uneven structure is both enjoyable and often humorous in equal measure. The game has a good selection of puzzles and enough wit to tell you how ridiculous the developers at Shaman Games Studio knew the plot of the game was. It proves to be every polished with nice music, with few bugs and some fun gameplay. The clunky and stilted title is what lets it ultimately down.… Expand
