by Jose Nuno Gomes

Created on: July 29, 2008   Last Updated: October 24, 2011

The Forgotten Riddles by Blue Tea Games

Rating: 4/5

The Moonlight Sonatas

This game isn't very impressive in graphics but has a lot of detail and the story is very interesting.

It's short but provides the player some fun with its clever riddles and the varied puzzles.
The game is composed by a series of puzzles and riddles that the player needs to solve by interacting with objects in a room in order to proceed to the next stage.

The story is about the tale of an opera ("The Moonlight Opera House") and the story of Francis von Amadeus, who worked and lived there in the 19th Century. The house has been abandoned a long time ago but local people say they still hear beautiful music being played there and a ghostly figure is seen in the balcony. You are an inspector with the mission of solving the mystery through the journal of Francis von Amadeus that is given to you.

In the game, the player has to solve riddles and puzzles in the various rooms of the house and the game ends when the player solves all riddles to the final chapter. The player doesn't needs to solve all riddles to pass a chapter though. You need to click the musical notes in the bottom of the screen in order to open a riddle which gives you hints in order to find an object in the room where you are. When you find the object the riddle is talking about you should click the object, it's not as easy as it may seem like because random clicking results on a 40 seconds penalty and the number of objects in each room is very high. You can ask for a hint that tells you more about the location and type of object you're looking for, but you only have a limited number of hints available in each stage. You can switch rooms at any time in the same stage of the game.

There are rooms with puzzles that are optional and give you more points in which your goal is to place pieces of the puzzle in the right place according to the musical notes in each slot of the puzzle.

There are also rooms in which you interact with the scenery making it change by placing certain objects in they're right places in the scenery. The scenery changes and when you finish it's different than it was at the first place. When you finish those rooms they turn into normal riddles puzzles but with a slight difference, you can click the objects in the scenery as it first was and in the area you uncovered in the first puzzle.

The game is very interactive and it's well made with a good but short story and the music is adequate to the game and the 19th century.

The Moonlight Sonatas has two modes: one is the Archaeologist mode in which you play the normal version of the game; the other is the Apprentice mode in which you have more time, more hints, and an alternate ending which extends the length of the game.

Personally, I found the game very interesting and fun and worthwhile to be played.

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