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Ankh: the Lost Treasures, created by Prime-Games, is a hidden object game which leaves you feeling a little irritated. You play as the Egyptian Thara, a young girl who must get a job in order to pay for her dying father’s medical bills.

After the introductory level, where you find various objects to clean up a camel-wash, you locate a mystic crystal. When you look through this crystal, pieces of a map become visible. After finding all the pieces, you can move to different areas in search of the ancient Ankh of Life, in order to save her father. The storyline is probably the highlight of the game as it’s actually pretty interesting, humorous and a good break from the unfortunately tedious gameplay.

There are two game types, the timed story mode, and a relaxation mode. After losing the very first level while timed, I quickly switched over. The game has no options to speak of besides that. You can’t turn the sound off, no highscores, nothing. It’s okay, but I was surprised. The game is played by tapping on the screen trying to find the objects listed at the bottom. While the objects to find vary from sea-urchins and crocodiles, to candles and chili con carne, it’s all pretty much the same. Sometimes an object is used in conjunction with another, i.e. find the spear to kill the eel, but it’s all quite repetitive. The items are hidden very well, in many layers at times. You will later return to levels you’ve already played only to realize that the objects you are looking for were there the first time and you hadn’t even noticed. So in the sense of production quality and planning, the levels are very well designed. Sadly the levels blur badly when you zoom in, necessary in every level.

You will most likely be able to beat this game in a few hours, and it ends with a To Be Continued… leaving the story at a very confusing conclusion. I was honestly infuriated to realize that I had beaten the entire game to be left at a cliffhanger like that.

There is a hints function that I ended up using only twice. If you find an Ankh in a level, you can tap the icon in the lower right to highlight one of the objects you are trying to find. In principle, it should have worked. However, in practice I found that I never actually had a hint when I needed one. I found myself randomly tapping the screen in the hope of stumbling upon whatever random object I was supposed to be discovering, and I’m certain I wasn’t the only one.

Ankh: The Lost Treasures was an ok game. It was a strong attempt by the developers, but ended up just not being fun. At a ₤3.49/$5.99 price point, this is definitely for fans of the genre.