Discovery: A Seek and Find Adventure Review

Written by: Keri Kunaschk Published: September 3, 2008 Discovery: A Seek and Find Adventure is a hidden object game Alawar Entertainment and Mumbo Jumbo that takes you on a road trip through beautiful countries around the world. You compete against two other contestants in a game show where you can win cash, earn achievement awards, play mini-games and prevail all the way to the jackpot round. There are 20 opponents to unlock as you play. You face two at the beginning of each new game. First, you spin a giant wheel, which lands on a dollar value. That's the amount of cash each item you find will be worth. (In the second and third rounds, landing on a colored tile earns you the right to play one of several mini-games, such as Price Tag Challenge or Trivia.) You are then taken to the next country. The object, of course, is to find hidden objects as quickly as possible and earn more money than your opponents. Each game consists of four rounds. In the first round, you search for a variety of items; in the second round, you must find a set number of the same kind of item, such as 10 animals; you repeat this process in the third round; then go back to finding a variety of items in the last round. As your opponents find items, red and green buttons light up. I suppose this is to make you stress out and search for items more frantically, but I stay way ahead of my opponents, with no fear of falling behind, no matter how long it takes me to find items. I've made it to the tourney round, and while items are becoming smaller and more difficult to see, my opponents seem to be having just as much trouble. So I don’t pay much attention to the lights. When each game ends, the winner (probably you) moves on to the jackpot round, where you take off on a road trip through several U.S. cities. You have five minutes to find one item at each location. Get stuck, and you can move on to the next city, looping back until either your time is up or you find all of the items. When you beat a particular country, that location then becomes available for play in Gauntlet mode, in which you must find every object as quickly as possible. There are no opponents to beat in this mode. The scenes in each country are neat and include some mild animation. The background music is fitting to each location and is quite pleasant. While playing most games, I usually turn down the music and turn up the sounds, but I kept the music up while playing Discovery Adventure. Discovery Adventure reminded me of Wheel of Fortune in that the host, Jim Summers, explains the rules and keeps things moving along, like Pat Sajak. Your hostess, Jill, doesn't tap a board to reveal a letter, a la Vanna White, but she does pop up to show you where an object is hidden if you request a hint. As hidden object games go, Discovery Adventure is pretty good. I especially like its length, the variety of games and oppoents, and the numerous achievements there are to earn, such as finding everything in a certain amount of time. Also, I like that you can go back and replay any location or mini-game. Discovery Adventure can also be played in Relaxed mode, if you begin to stress out too much. My only issue was with the look and placement of items in later rounds. They become smaller and more obscure, and I had to use hints more often. Other than that, no complaints here. Scoring (out of five stars): Graphics: Ease of use: Gameplay: Challenge: Sound effects: Music: Final analysis: Click here to download the free trial version of Discovery! A Seek & Find Adventure.