Epic Adventures: La Jangada is a hidden object/puzzle game. In this case, I played it on the iPhone.

The opening screen is fairly typical. You name your save game (as the character’s name is set) and then you can adjust the sound options, look at the potential achievements, and share info on Facebook. There’s not a difficulty level setting for La Jangada, which makes sense once you actually get into the game.

The story begins in Peru in 1907. You’re given the option to skip the story scene, but I don’t recommend it. If you aren’t going to get drawn in by the story, why bother?

You’re playing as a young lady named Minah. The first chapter has your beau send you to the garden looking for roses. When you put them all together, it’s his marriage proposal. Yes, this is definitely aimed at the female market. The next few chapters have you cleaning your room and packing for your wedding. Cleaning your room is a hidden object game, and the packing is a puzzle that makes you fit things into the right shaped spots in your suitcases. During the trip you’ll even have a scene where you have to find matching accessories for an outfit.

The voice acting isn’t bad, though Minah sounds more like a young British girl then a young lady from Peru. The most jarring thing is that the text almost never matches what she’s saying out loud. Some of the changes make sense, like how they shorten things when doing subtitles on television, but some of the changes are confusing. At one stage of the story, you’re on the boat sailing to Brazil and yet the text references rooms in a house — not places on a ship. I’m pretty sure ships have holds, not cellars, for example.

There are a certain amount of typos in the printed text beyond the differences with the dialogue. There’s one character, for example, that keeps switching one character’s name between Fibiano and Fabiano. Please commit to one or the other and be consistent. At least make it match how Minah pronounces it.

As for the mechanics, there’s no penalty for tapping everywhere in a scene, and given how hard some items are to see, I highly recommend some mad tapping skills. I used a stylus, which was very helpful. There is a hint button available. It does a good job of marking the spot you need to tap. It recharges over time — not super-fast, but reasonably fast.

There are many times you have to combine items or move items. You’ll get a little gold gear symbol to indicate these situations.

As you travel, darker things behind the scenes are hinted at and the story becomes quite a soap opera. There’s a villain trying to blackmail your father into make you marry him instead of your beloved, hidden clues to find and your father’s name to clear. The story leads you away from civilization and the luxurious boat into the depths of the Amazon.

I was concerned as I started the story that it was going to be too “girly” and gamer light, and I am happy to admit I was wrong. Yes, it is aimed at the female audience, but the story has some meat to it, and I keep playing, not to solve the game as much as to find out what happens next in the story. La Jangada started a little slow for me, but I’m glad I kept going because now I really want to continue the story and help Minah exonerate her father. Good job, game.