Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Curse of the Full Moon Review

Shadow Wolf Mysteries: Curse of the Full Moon is a rather chilling interactive hidden object game. You play as a detective that has been summoned to a small village plagued by wolf attacks. The villagers are held hostage by fear at night and rumors have sprouted that there is a werewolf. You as the detective is skeptical about the existence of such supernatural creatures but you promise to look into the matters and solve the mystery. Could there really be a werewolf? Or are all these deaths caused by the wolf that belongs to the circus in town? Maybe it's something else entirely...

I played only the demo version, which took me about about half an hour to complete.

Controls: You use your mouse to click around. The casual version will have sparkles to help guide you to important objects. Your journal will list the details of the case and will continue to expand as you find new information. Arrows will allow you to move from one scene to the next. Click around to speak to people, pick up new objects, do a closeup view, or move around.

Suitability: There is definitely gore in this game. There is a lot of blood lying around due to the wolf attacks. There is even a corpse in the demo. Also, the game contains frightening images because wolves will sometimes leap at you in the game in a closeup.

Voiceovers: Each character is given a voiceover for the dialogue. This is not something that you see in a lot of games these days. Plus the mouths move along with the dialogue. A very nice addition indeed.
 
Cutscene Animations: You will get quite a number of animated cutscenes throughout the game. The beginning cutscene is voice-narrated. The rest of the cutscenes are done pretty well too. Characters actually move in these animations and not just their still picture.

Hidden Object Scenes: As this is a hidden object game, there are obviously quite a number of hidden object scenes lying scattered around the game. These scenes will often result in key objects to be placed in your inventory for later use. Some of the objects in the list are straightforward to find but some require interaction with the scene. The names of these objects will be highlighted in yellow in the list. For example, you might need to open a drawer or a chest to find them. However, these are usually very easy to find. I usually only need to use the hint button once in each scene in order to save time from finding the last item.

There are a few animated effects in these scenes. Usually faint shadows that look strangely like claws will flicker across your screen. They're not obnoxious enough to interfere with your gameplay but will certainly send a few shivers down your spine every once in awhile. Perhaps leave you paranoid, causing you to look over your shoulder just to make sure nothing is behind you.

The Hint button charges at an okay rate. Not as fast as I would like it but also not obnoxiously slow like five minutes or something. I would say you would have to wait for about less than a minute. Do note that you can't use the hint button outside of these hidden object scenes, so you won't be able to use the hint button to figure out where to go next or where a key inventory item is. Quite annoying when you're stuck and have no clue as to what to do next. But, then again, the games that I've played that do have the hint button outside of hidden object scenes are not always very helpful:

Me: "Okay, I need to go find the key to unlock this door, but I've searched high and low and still can't find the key!"

Hint: We need to find a key to open this door! Try looking around in the forest.
Me: "Thank you, Captain Obvious. This entire game is in the forest! Now what?"

For better or for worse I guess...

Inventory Objects: These objects will be placed inside your inventory when found and used to interact with future scenes, such as unlocking a door with a key. They are not always easy to find. Some just lie on the side of the road while others are hidden behind puzzles or locked chests. Others will require you to use other inventory objects in order to get them, such as using a hook to get something at the bottom of a pit.

Music: I really like the music in this game. A little creepy to fit in with the atmosphere but otherwise hauntingly beautiful.

Conclusion?  A must have for any hidden object game fan out there!