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7 Roses, developed by Dragonseye Studio, is a game based on the concept that the Tree of Life is dying.  This demise can have serious effect on the Land of the Ancients where it is based as it controls the four seasons.  You are cast in the role of the only person who can put matters right in this Hidden Object Adventure game.

Prior to setting foot into this world where magic potions, dragons and the evil Darkness exist side-by-side, you can create profiles so that different people can play the game and have their progress recorded.  Adjustments can be made to the volume levels used by background music, sound effects and ambient elements.  Along with a choice of viewing the action in either full screen or letterbox mode, you can opt for Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty.  The developers of the game have not indicated in what manner these difficulties vary.

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Following an opening introduction with strong influence from the original Moses story, your character is set afloat in a basket.  Quickly moving forward several years, your character, Amy, finds herself drawn into the task of restoring the Tree of Life currently under attack from the Evil Darkness.  The opening of 7 Roses does set the tone for the rest of the game with the various characters being presented in static mode with dialogue delivered just in text format.  A mouse click on continue will be required in order to proceed through the various segments of dialogue.

Positioned across the base of the different scenes making up the game is a collection of the basic tools available to you.  As usual the game's inventory takes up a central position to show the items you have collected.  To the left is a backpack which is really the game's menu option and a journal which records your findings.  A quill and inkpot will appear in the upper right corner of the screen to indicate when a new entry is added to the journal.  The game's rechargeable Hint feature is on the right.  Further assistance is provided by the mouse cursor which changes shape to indicate directions in which to move, examine or pick up an object.

Rather than stick to a single type, the game's Hidden Object game play uses a variety of formats.  In some cases you could be asked to create items listed in text or silhouette format.  At other times the list could be made up of images that you will need to locate within a cluttered scene.  Sometimes, when all the items have been located, the items will automatically combine to create a required object.  On more than one occasion. each item you find will be needed to be used in order to find one of the other items so creating a kind of linked chain effect.

As with Hidden Object game play, the title's mini game play puzzles vary in format.  Brief instructions are provided but are not as clear as they could have been.  Included among the puzzles were those for making potions, using of symbols as a guide, recuing a necklace from a jewellery box after clearing a passage for it and restoring a picture by rotating tiles.

While displaying some impressive scenes, the game really failed to draw me into its environment.  I also felt the game's cast of characters, such as the Elder, Hanu, Madame Everwind and Thistle added little to the game as they were too superficial.  The game requires a 1.0 GHz processor with 512MB of RAM and 376MB of hard disk space running Windows Vista and later.

7 Roses - A Darkness Rises | GameHouse