The two latest installments of the Chronicles of Mystery series were debuted at E3 this year: Curse of the Ancient Temple for Nintendo DS and Tree of Life for the PC. Both are expected to be released later this year, either in late fall or the early holiday season, though the exact date is still up in the air.

Tree of Life

Chronicles of Mystery games are your typical point-and-click puzzles but with elaborate backdrops and intriguing plots. In Tree of Life, you play as main character Sylvie LaRue, an archaeologist with a habit for getting sucked into Old World mysteries. Sylvie’s destination in this game is Spain — specifically, the gloomy mansion of her informer — where she must put together the clues to solve the mystery of the Tree before being killed by assassins.

The graphics in this game are both good and bad. All of the backgrounds and movable objects are well done; they look relatively realistic and create a nice, spooky ambiance. But I was really unimpressed with the look and feel of the actual characters. Their movements were stilted and bland, and their shapes were too boxy. Essentially, they looked and moved more like characters from old, second-gen systems than what I would expect from the latest advancements in PCs.

Speaking of characters, I had to actually fight to not roll my eyes while playing the demo because of the uber-cheesy dialogue. Tree of Life is still in beta, though, so I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that they get some good writers in there to fix it. If they don’t, I don’t know that I would want to play it even if it were free. Seriously, it was that cheesy.

Besides those few things, the game was really fun. I’m a big fan of click-and-find puzzles even though I can’t manage to beat them without reading through a guide, and Tree of Life looks like it would be just as addictive as any others I’ve played. Also, I like the fact that it’s a long game rather than just a level or two. In terms of time, newbies to the game might take up to a day to get through each level, though experienced players could probably make it through the whole game in about eight hours.

One of the most interesting parts of Tree of Life is the way new items are created. Just like in other point-and-click puzzles, you go around grabbing items from the surroundings either because they are clues or they will aid in your escape. Occasionally you even combine two items, like a key and a stick, to make something new. But in Tree of Life, you often have to combine three or more items in a particular order to create that specific tool or reveal that hidden clue. This makes the game much more sophisticated and puts it a step above its online, freeware brethren.

Curse of the Ancient Temple

As for Curse of the Ancient Temple (the new version for Nintendo DS), there isn’t really too much to say. The graphics style has been changed to fit the capabilities of the portable system, so they’re more storybook and panel-like than realistic. One cool thing unique to this version is the minigame mode, in which you can play smaller puzzles that sit outside the plot of the main story. Curse of the Ancient Temple is geared more toward children than Tree of Life, but a fan of one is likely to be a fan of the other.

According to City Interactive, the developer and publisher of the Chronicles of Mystery series, our homegirl Sylvie is a “strong female lead” with intelligence and backbone. I’m glad to see that developers are trying to give us more female characters that we can actually look up to, but I think it would be more believable if Sylvie didn’t have a ridiculous hourglass figure and pouty lips. Plus, no archaeologist that I know (and I do know a few) runs around in high heels like those. Oh well. At least she does have a brain. You show ’em who’s boss, Sylvie!