Hi and welcome to a new post here on the Gaming on AmigaOS 4.1 blog! 🙂

Today we’re going to have a look at a puzzle game called Dale Hardshovel & The Bloomstone Mystery, which was created by Phime Studio and ported to AmigaOS 4 by HunoPPC.

It should work on most AmigaOS 4.x configurations, including emulation in WinUAE.

Installation

You can get the game directly from HunoPPC’s website or from OS4Depot. You can also use the links below to download it directly:

http://os4depot.net/share/game/puzzle/dalehardshovel.lha

http://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/sites/default/files/software_files/dale-hardshovel-os4.lha

When the game has finished downloading (the archive is 53 MB in size), enter its directory and right-click on the appropriate file. Choose “extract to” and then select a destination. The game will unpack, and when done, enter the directory and double-click on the main icon to launch it (you might get a requester asking you to assign, but it works just pressing “ok” on these).

According to the readme-file, the game is shareware and costs 3 EUR to register.

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, this is a puzzle game. The aim of the game is to match items together to make them disappear. When all items are gone, you progress onto the next level. I tried it a few times and must say that it requires a lot of thinking and pondering to solve the puzzles. Fortunately there is a hint-system in place if you are really stuck. 🙂

What is the game about? Let us have a look at the background story.

The story is about Dale Hardshovel, an Australian archaeologist. While working in his study, he gets a visit from his daughter (Daisy). She has an old roll of papyrus that needs to be translated for her exhibition. The papyrus intrigues Dale, who then checks his archaeologist network and discovers that the inscription is the belonging of an ancient brotherhood from Egypt. The only key to the translation is the mysterious Bloomstone. Now, the problem is that the secret is hidden in the Big Pyramid, guarded by Anubis, an ancient Egyption deity. Dale has to solve 100 puzzles and to collect all the missing pieces of the Bloomstone. He will discover that there is much more to the challenge when getting further on his quest.

Now that we have the story in mind, let’s have a go at the game. 🙂

So, how did it play?

I must say that this is one of the better puzzle games I’ve played on AmigaOS 4. It’s challenging, fun, and well made. As you can see from the screenshots above, the graphics is very nice. Looks polished! Controls are great too and there is plenty of information on how to play the game for new players.

I will not hide the fact that this is a difficult game. Some of the more recently released match-three (and similar) games are easier than this one, but for those looking to twist their brains a bit, thinking of how to solve puzzles, this game is highly recommended. 🙂 I give Dale Hardshovel and The Bloomstone Mystery a big thumbs up!

Thanks for visiting my blog and see you in another post here on Gaming on AmigaOS 4.1. 🙂