Alex Hunter: Lord of the Mind

Alex Hunter: Lord of the Mind is an adventure game that combines hidden object scenes with mini-games and more complex puzzles using items or through the discovery of patterns. The player controls the private investigator Alex Hunter. A young woman visits him to ask for help. Her father, professor Isaac Patterson, has disappeared and is now gone for a month without leaving a trace. The police is not able to offer any help, so she comes to Hunter. The game is set during one long night in Europe at the turn of the 19th century.

In the bottom left side of the screen is a journal where clues and information about events are stored, and a compass to access a map to move around. Most locations remain question marks until they become important for the investigation. The hidden objects scenes are fairly standard, but next to the regular objects displayed in white, there are orange ones. These cannot be spotted right away, but require manipulation with an object. For instance, to find the wood shavings you use a scraper on a plank, and for a painting you use a brush on a canvas. Completing hidden object puzzles is often rewarded with an item, stored in a separate inventory. These items are used with characters or with objects in the environment to progress.

There are two difficulty modes: casual and expert. In the casual mode the hint and skip buttons recharge quickly and a tutorial is available. In the expert mode there is no tutorial and the recharge time for the buttons is much slower. The game includes optional collectibles to discover. When 25 (casual mode) or 35 (expert mode) are collected, an additional chapter and a secret room are opened up. The game also has a built-in strategy guide shown through a footsteps icon in the bottom right corner. In most similar games of the genre those features are limited to the collector's edition of the game, not the standard one.