I usually try to review games separately. However, both of these games from Nevosoft, Magic Academy and Mysteryville, are both “I Spy” type search games, and are very similar in gameplay, graphics, and even storylines. They share some really good things, and they also have the same drawbacks.
Magic Academy is set at a magician’s school. You’re a student looking for your sister who disappeared a year ago. With the help of tutors, fellow students, and magical items, you search for your sister.
Mysteryville is set in a town where strange things are happening. You are a reporter trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings, and trying to stop a major disaster. Oh, yeah, and there may be romance involved, as well.
As I said before, both of the games are similar. In both, you must ask questions of various people, and they then send you to other people for more answers. You do eventually find out answers, but you must search for a lot of things in the meantime.
One thing that these games do very well is to mix up the gameplay. In addition to seeking a list of articles, you must also search for differences in rooms, and for the shapes of articles. But the most fun activity for me was finding a certain number of something (keys, bottles, papers, etc.). These puzzles are somewhat hard, and you may have to restart them a couple of times to find all of the articles as quickly as needed. If you buy the game, however, you can have unlimited play.
The graphics are excellent here, and the ambient music is very good. There are a lot of things to find, and I didn’t feel as if the objects were recycled too much from puzzle to puzzle.
And now time for my pet peeve. The conversations are in text, and, to be frank, they’re not that good. There were many mistakes and bad choices that broke me out of the game. I kept feeling frustrated that the language was so poor, but the gameplay was so good. To be fair, though, if you’re not an English freak and writer like me, the conversations may not bother you.
Overall, I think that these games are very good. They add enough twists to the formula to make them new. And the graphics are sometimes jaw-droppingly good. If you can disregard the sometimes stilted conversations, these may be the search games for you.
This very funny guide can be found at James Huggins’ Refrigerator Door site. It gives advice to your favorite feline on how to train you while having fun at the same time. Some highlights:
My cats would hate 
