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Beneath the Stones
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When I first saw the title of this next offering from Seven Sails, I thought it was another example of the popular Paint by Numbers concept. While, in a way, I was partially correct, my initial thoughts were a little wide of the mark. With Treasure by Numbers 2, you are not creating a painting through the use of pairing numbered paints with appropriately numbered sections on a working canvas, what you are doing is actually revealing an already created image by the removal of covering stones.
Following a well-established pattern, this Seven Sails title of Treasure by Numbers 2 (I seem to have missed out on the first title in this series) allows for the creation of profiles to record the progress of different players. Adjustments can be made to the volume levels used by background music and sound effects that indicate when certain actions have been completed. The title's content can be viewed in full screen mode and you have the option to increase the use of extra standard stones and formula stones plus an option for the use of grey stones as part of the game play.
Treasure by Numbers 2 is based around 64 images of depicted scenes. Initially displayed in monochrome format as the underlying scene is covered by different shaded stones, the scenes will need to be uncovered to reveal their colourful element. These images are displayed in a book type format with each page of the contain eight images. However, rather than give you full access to the complete 64 images, you are initially restricted to the first page of eight images. Once this first selection has been completed, you will be granted free access to all the images.
Once an image has been selected then you will be shown a screen covered by numbered stones which you will need to remove. Alongside this view will be a panel featuring the numbers 1 to 9. These are the same numbers which appear on the stones covering what is to become the finished scene.
To reveal the image in its full coloured appearance, you will need to click on the numbered stones so they are removed. However this process will need to be conducted in conjunction with the same number being selected on the numbered palette.. While slightly restrictive, you are allowed some freedom in the order in which the individual numbers are tackled. You can either let the software take the strain and proceed through the sequence of numbers in order or make you own choice over the order in which the numbers are tackled.
In standard operation, the removal of stones by clicking on them could hardly be describes as rocket science, as the saying goes. You can include some slight difficulty. I mentioned earlier that the game's option give you the opportunity to increase the number of stones being used. You can increase the number of stones being used to cover the scene by 30%, 75% or 100%. This increase can be applied to extra stones and those classified as formula stones.
The basic number on a formula stone will be replaced by a basic maths equation using either a "+" or "-" symbol. It was noticeable that the equation used for a particular number would never vary. So, for example 4 + 5 would be used to replace 9 every time rather than a mixture of 6 + 3, 7 + 2 or 8 + 1. By taking the grey stone option, also mentioned earlier, all the stone will be coloured grey but this will have no effect on the underlying image beneath the stone.
While the resulting images of scenes were visually impressive, the uncovering tasks were rather repetitive and boring. I can not really recommend this product as it lacks any real challenge of skill building. You can download this title from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $9.99 or Big Fish Games priced at £3.17. System requirement call for a 1.0 GHz processor with 256MB of RAM and 311MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later.
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