This specific problem gets worse the farther along you go in the game. Looking for an "egg", you'll need to consider whole eggs, scrambled eggs, bird's eggs, sunny-side up eggs, Easter eggs, etc. Also, keep in mind that clicking on the wrong item will take precious seconds off of the clock. Oh, I didn't mention the time limit? Yes, keeping things nice and stress-making, there is a time limit for jaunting through the mansion. Wait ... let's back up a bit.

The whole point of playing Ravenhearst is to unravel the mystery behind the mansion. Which mystery is this? Well, apparently that's a bit of a mystery as well. What you're doing, traversing the many rooms of Ravenhearst, is trying to find diary entries that tell an overarching story. Once enough hidden objects have been found, another diary entry is unlocked. However, actually reading the entry requires solving another puzzle.

You'll see a simulated duotone charcoal drawing depicting the subject of the diary entry, and a small number of puzzle pieces at the bottom of the screen. By choosing, rotating, and placing these pieces over the areas to which they belong, you'll be able to read the entire entry, which is added to the diary book you're recreating. At this stage of my play, the mystery remains enigmatic. I don't know anything about what has happened, but I expect it to unravel fairly soon.

The other game mechanic at work is the locked room puzzles. At various points throughout gameplay, you'll come across mansion rooms that are locked. These rooms contain a locked door, over which is arrayed a haphazard collection of items, some of which can be clicked. The trick is to unlock the room by figuring out how to make the Rube Goldbergian mechanism work. There are clues within the room itself, but I was able to figure most of them out by trial and error. Or, you could just click on the telephone icon to skip the entire room, at a penalty of five minutes from the clock, and the removal of all five hints on the menu.

Oh yes, the hints. Clicking on the Hints menu choice causes an area of the screen to be surrounded by a medium-sized glowing circle, indicating that one of the needed objects resides within. With a full load of items to look for, the Hint isn't terribly useful; it's more applicable when there are only one or two items left so you can recognize immediately the item you want.

Be prepared to endure eyestrain while playing this game, and to lose more hours from your life than you'd expected. You can grab the Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst Mac demo right here on Big Download.