So it’s true that weird things happen in the Bermuda Triangle… Not only do planes and boats mysteriously go missing, but the strictly seek-and-find Hidden Expedition series bravely headed in for its fourth iteration… and came out an adventure game! A casual adventure, certainly, but with free exploration, increased story emphasis, and a concerted effort to make any standard hidden object challenges entirely secondary to its fully integrated puzzles. None of these elements were on the franchise map previously, so their inclusion here should catch everyone by surprise. A few design weaknesses reflect the developer’s inexperience in this unfamiliar genre territory, but for the most part, Devil’s Triangle provides an enjoyable lite adventure excursion that’s worth going along for the ride.

After previous trips to the sunken Titanic, the peak of Everest, and the wilds of the Amazon, Big Fish’s newest Hidden Expedition takes players some place a little more ambitious with a lot more risk. Of course, the actual Bermuda Triangle is really just a stretch of Atlantic ocean, and there’s far more to it than that here. It is where the game starts off, however, as players are sent off in search of a missing colleague, the latest pilot to fall victim to the triangle’s clutches. First you’ll need to get there, however, in a prototype submarine with its spiffy new bio-coil (whatever that is, but it seems pretty important).

Apart from the fully animated opening cinematic and some partial voiceovers from the sub captain in the early going, at first there seems little to distinguish Devil’s Triangle from its predecessors. With its traditional first-person, point-and-click interface, you're immediately charged with getting the journey underway by… collecting useless objects. Like any standard hidden object game, you’re given a list of random items deviously camouflaged in a cluttered screen, and it’s up to you to find them. Business as usual for the series, then, right? Not so fast. True, there are almost twenty such scenarios scattered throughout the game, some involving sets of the same item, some matching pairs of unique objects, and none with any time constraints to pressure you. But while these sequences dominated the earlier series games, here they comprise no more than a quarter of the overall gameplay, if that.

Instead, you’ll spend most of your time exploring a handful of screens at any given time, solving numerous inventory and standalone puzzle challenges, and even talking to the odd stranded inhabitant in the triangle itself. The early sub trip alone sees you constructing an escape pod, repairing and tuning a shortwave radio, and re-establishing sonar contacts from equipment on the fritz. You’ll also have to retrieve a box of engine parts you accidentally eject, which inconveniently lands near a giant fish that rivals the whark (Riven fans know what I mean). The latter is a blatantly contrived exercise, but collecting junk through an underwater window with a submersible machine arm is still very cool. Shame the arm doesn’t actually move, but still.

Naturally, you too must fall prey to the triangle’s curse (whether real or imagined, I won’t say), and things really open up once you wash ashore on an uncharted island. Without spoiling all the plot details, suffice to say that the island’s total secrecy is ultimately explained, along with its ability to almost totally negate the effects of time on anyone on it. It’s no surprise, then, to discover an eccentric scientist and his daughter from Da Vinci’s time, along with a married couple from the 1920s, a singer from the ‘60s, and others in your travels. The time element has no real bearing on the game’s events, which portray more of a near-futuristic sci-fi atmosphere than anything, but it makes a nice backdrop for conversations, as the characters remain psychologically rooted in the timelines they came from.

Your overall goal is fairly simple, which is reclaiming your lost bio-coil to get the submarine functioning again. Accomplishing your task, of course, is anything but simple, as the hi-tech gizmo becomes the target of several unscrupulous people who want it for their own purposes. Well, that and the fact that just about nothing works. The scientist’s home is flooding, the wind-generated power station is kaput, and the Canadian space capsule-turned-elevator doesn’t move (though as a Canadian myself, I think that’s probably not unusual). When things do work, you won’t want them to, like a bomb that needs defusing or logic puzzle door locks throwing up obstacles at every turn.

As a predominantly puzzle-centric game, Devil’s Triangle is often quite successful. The sheer number of puzzles is fairly impressive, and unlike many casual games that depend on a lot of repetition, here you’ll encounter most kinds only once (outside of inventory types and the intermittent hidden object tasks, that is). From pattern rotation puzzles to jigsaw-like challenges (minus a convenient template to follow); from sequencing conundrums to balancing exercises, each subsequent task feels like something new. I was particularly impressed by a simple but effective mirroring puzzle and a numbered code that requires thinking from two perspectives instead of just one. Better yet, the difficulty seems nicely balanced, presenting just enough substance to challenge but never to the point of frustration.

If you do need help, there’s an ever-increasing “hint” option, though beware using it too early. While in the hidden object sessions this button reveals only one item, for the standalone logic tasks it instantly solves the puzzle for you outright. Most players should be able to resist the urge, however, as solutions always seem within reach, even if you haven’t quite worked them out yet. I only discovered the blatant-giveaway issue by accident, as I expected the hint button to give me a clue to my objective, not finish it for me completely. I couldn’t simply restore a save before the bypassed puzzle, either, as progress is recorded automatically. Even casual games should offer at least one manual save slot, especially when incorporating a higher degree of freedom in the gameplay itself.

If there’s one objection to the puzzles (and there is – a doozy, in fact), it’s that they are often incredibly contrived. Puzzle lovers will gleefully overlook this, but those who want any sense of organic integration will rarely find it here. A tile lock on a tombstone may strain credibility enough, but all the moreso when it proves to conceal nothing more than a mundane item only you might possibly need. The game acknowledges its own indulgences playfully, with occasional commentary from the unseen protagonist like “What kind of a sick designer would make a power station this complicated?” Ha ha! That fun-loving protagonist! Why indeed. But wait… why DO we need to key colour-coded musical notes in with a Simon-based minigame to restore electricity? We’ll never know, because Devil’s Triangle makes little effort to justify its puzzle-solving scenarios.