Lost Chronicles A quiet town with secrets

Leonor comes to Forest Hill to apprentice under Magnus, the local elder, healer and alchemist. Shortly before she arrives, a child disappears and a string of strange crimes starts, and clearing her path to a future in town means getting to the bottom of them.

The story carries you along: you befriend the townsfolk, take on quests, and slowly uncover what this deceptively quiet place is concealing. There is a journal, a task list and a map to keep track of where you are and what you are chasing next, which helps in a plot this size. The hand-drawn town, with its warm inn, bakery and market stalls, looks like a storybook and sounds like one too, with chill music underneath and plenty of voiced dialogue.

The heart of the game is dozens of hidden object scenes, and they are built with care: objects sit where they logically would, and the scenes change as the plot moves on, so a room you have memorised gets a new twist just when it grows stale. Revisits become a small sport of their own, racing to clear a familiar scene in seconds.

When you are not searching, there are plenty of mini-games and puzzles, each keeper opening with its own kind. Here is the smart part: most items you need can come from several places, so you pick how to work. Prefer a block-pushing puzzle or a solitaire-style tile game over another search? Go that way. And if a puzzle stumps you, hints and skips are there, generous enough that the main story can be finished without spending anything.