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Taking a fresh approach to Hidden Object Adventure game play, Grandma embarks on Stephen's Journey in its City of Stories series.  You will need to follow Stephen on his journey as he sets out to forge a career and help raise his family's farm which has fallen on hard times.  The journey, which is set out in book format with a dual page layout, needs to be followed in its prescribed route but with a number of instances that permit you to make decisions that will shape Stephen's fate through a set route of actions.

Starting with leaving his family home on the farm, Stephen must venture out into the world as he is generally faced by a Hidden Object scene which is then followed by a mini game puzzle.  Each subsequent page of this adventure will remain locked until the previous page was completed.  Stephen's journey will include visits to a windmill, fairground, harbour, prison and feature tasks that involve a money-leader, blacksmith, fire fighting, hospital, trading goods and a naval battle.

The Hidden Object scenes will contain several items, listed in formats such as text, images, or silhouette, that you will need to find along with meeting various characters with whom Stephen will need to communicate with dialogue in spoken or printed format.  In some cases an item might involve a puzzle or game in the scene.  You will sometimes be offered a choice of responses with your selection playing a part in the flow of the story line.  At the conclusion of each Hidden Object scene, you will be given the option to replay it if you want to make changes to your responses. 

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A Hidden Object scene will be followed by a separate puzzle page.  A variety of puzzle types will be presented and generally their content will fit in with Stephen's journey.  You could be asked to create a scene by inserting pieces, more strips around or rearrange segments.  Other puzzles could involve word squares based on a particular subject matter, complete a nonogram, plan a route to collect goods, putting out a fire or creating a chart to show a character's image and its correct position.

Once Stephen's journey has been completed, you get the opportunity to check out a back story of one of the characters that has a big part to play in Stephen's life.  This back story provides more information about Anna.  It will follow the same format as that presented with Stephen's journey.

Adding to the stories of Stephen and Anna are a number of bonus items.  These bonus items include features such as Collectible objects, concept art and music.  You can also give Stephen's farm a make-over using the money awarded for completing tasks and replaying the mini game puzzles. 

There is also a Match 3 option which is not featured in the main game.  It uses the familiar Match 3 process of creating groups of three tiles by swapping two adjacent tiles.  This bonus game seems to be continuous with no set finishing post until you decide to bring it an end.

City of Stones - Stephen's Journey makes a pleasant change from the usual fare of Hidden Object game play.  I downloaded my copy of the title from Gamehouse.com where it is priced at $19.99.  The game can also be downloaded from Big Fish Games priced at £15.68.  The game requires a 1.8 GHz processor with 1024MB of RAM and 643MB of hard disk space running Windows 7 and later.

City of Stories - Stephan's Journey Collector's Edition | Big Fish Games

City of Stories - Stephan's Journey Collector's Edition | GameHouse