Product Description

The Scruffs need your help to save their beloved family home from being sold! Grandpa Scruff has a solution - a scavenger hunt to recover his valuable artifacts. But in a surprising twist, Grandpa Scruff reveals that he's been hiding something else - a shocking family secret! Help the Scruffs uncover the secret that will change their lives forever by finding lost items and putting together the clues they need! The Scruffs - laugh at their witty family banter and fall in love with their charm!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14248 in Video Games
• Brand: Sweet Tooth Games
• Released on: 2007-10-25
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: Download

Features

• Meet The Charming Scruff Family.
• Immersive Storyline With Witty Banter.
• Unique And Fun Hint Mechanism.
• Innovative Mini-Games.

Customer Reviews

Elaborate 'I Spy' type puzzle game
This is my first Amazon game download and, since it's 'free' I can't see how I could possibly complain.

The start is a little depressing: daddy just got fired and the family needs to sell the house but... wait... grand daddy, an 'old timer' kind of... remembers that there was something that, if found, maybe they didn't have to sell the house.

What follows is a series of puzzles where you must find various items inside rooms full of hundreds of artifacts. Then, if you do find them, you restore a torn picture off its fragments and then... there's some secret code that it's revealed if you find more items and so on, and so forth...

Not bad, for something that's 'free'. You get a story line and you it's a pretty good brain tease.

The following are notable features:

- Compatible with Windows XP, Vista.
- Plays in a window or 'full screen' - resolution seems to be 800x600.
- Time constrained or 'relaxed' mode.
- Some help is available if you really, really can't find an item.
- When played in a window, the game (clock) stops whenever the game is not the 'active' window.
- I experienced no display issues on a Vista laptop
- I found no evidence of any malware/spyware attached to this game. So far, the game played cleanly, strictly my computer - did not have to reach out over the Net for anything.

Overall, not a bad game, if you have the time and the patience. I've been actually playing it for the past couple of days and, to my surprise, my 11 yr. old kid asked that I downloaded a copy to his own laptop.

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Notes:

- I had to install Amazon's 'downloader' software before downloading the game itself. It was pretty quick and it appears to be harmless.
- When installed, if you keep the defaults, all games go as subfolders inside a folder named Amazon Games.

Highly amusing!
"The Scruffs" is a hidden object type game directed towards kids but the hidden objects are often very hard to find. As an adult you could consider this game worthy of your sleuth talents in finding all the stuff you're obliged to locate. How many kids know what an "epilator" is, let alone what one looks like? Often some very sophisticated orchids and other exotic plants are mixed into the jumble. Can you recognize an aloe verde? That will help! As an adult you will not be bored with the environments as the objects are often unusual. But kids will also revel in this game with its quirky story line.

There are jigsaw mini-puzzles to do along the way as you travel the world with the Scruffs, and these are entertaining. One object is featured in each puzzle and you will have to locate that object in the Scruff's messy house before you can proceed to the next level.

The "hint" mechanism, the little dog Scruffy, who jumps up and down ecstatically when you feed him a dog biscuit and he gets close to the hidden object is -well- funny. Ten year olds will love him but so will the older folk. This game will appeal over a wide spectrum of ages, an enjoyable escape for all!

Kooky characters and interesting story
For the price, this game delivers a great deal. Other than the main scavenger hunt game, there is also a puzzle minigame, and two memory type minigames. The characters are fun and the artwork is good; however, the game gets pretty hard towards the end. This game can get kind of frustrating due to the nature of the game; however, the minigames break it up a bit and keeps it interesting. Depending on how perceptive you are, expect to finish it in about 10 hours.