How did the history of hidden object games begin, and how indie developers breathed new life into the genre
Polygon has published a lot of material about the history of the genre of hidden object games. It tells about the first projects with Hidden Object mechanics, their popularity among the casual audience and a new wave of indie developers who are trying to rethink the genre. We have chosen the main thing from the material.
Manor Matters
A little background
Puzzles tied to the search for objects appeared at least in the middle of the last century. For example, in the children’s magazine Highlights there was a regular heading “Hidden Pictures” (Hidden Pictures) — in it you had to look for small pictures hidden in a large image. A similar concept was used in the book series I Spy, published since the early 90s. On each page there was a riddle in which a list of items to search was rhymed.
The first hidden object video games also appeared in the early 90s. They were mainly aimed at a children’s audience. For example, in Mother Goose: Hidden Pictures, players were given hints in the form of nursery rhymes, and after solving a visual puzzle and finding all the objects, they could watch an animated version of the scene.
Scholastic publishing house, responsible for the I Spy series, decided to use a darker aesthetic. In 1999, the company released the game I Spy Spooky Mansion, which weighed 300 MB and was sold only on disks. In it, the player had to get out of the haunted house by solving puzzles. As in books, the list of items to search for was submitted in the form of poems.
Interestingly, at that time the term “hidden object game” had not yet been applied to such games. The same I Spy Spooky Mansion was described as a game in the genre of “search-and-find” (search and find).
The success of Big Fish Games and focus on women
The forerunner of all modern games with Hidden Object mechanics was Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, released by Big Fish in 2005. It was with her that the rapid growth in popularity of such titles began, and the genre itself went mainstream.
As Professor of the University of Georgia Shira Chess notes, hidden object games have become one of the first genres to find popularity with a female audience. Among the main reasons are the presence of a large number of female protagonists, the availability of mechanics and plots inspired by mystical stories, detective stories or romance novels.
Mystery Case Files: Huntsville
Thanks to the success of the first Mystery Case Files, Big Fish publisher has become one of the leaders of the new wave of casual gaming. Unlike more hardcore titles, the games in the series captured an audience aged 35-50 years. According to Big Fish production manager Christine Zeigler, over time, the share of players in Mystery Case Files over the age of 55 reached 76%. At the same time, 85% of the user base are women.
Back in 2013, the number of downloads of Mystery Case Files titles exceeded 100 million, and the company itself continues to release new parts annually.
Game designer Jane Jensen, creator of the Gabriel Knight adventure series, tried to bring variety to the genre. In the noughties, she became a co-founder of Oberon Media, where she worked mainly on casual games.
In such titles as Deadtime Stories and Dying for Daylight, Jensen tried to turn projects about finding objects into full-fledged adventure games with complicated puzzles and increased attention to the plot. However, the Hidden Object genre was still not taken seriously.
“I think that hidden object games are usually ignored and separated from other casual genres, because we tend to consider video games in terms of gameplay speed, the presence of action and actions that occur on the screen,” says Professor Chess.
Deadtime Stories
Despite this, the genre continued to gain popularity. As a result, many companies appeared on the market that wanted to repeat the success of Big Fish. They produced games with minimal costs, saving on animations and making many puzzles in the form of static pictures.
Due to the oversaturation of the market, players have developed a negative attitude towards the entire genre. With the release of mobile platforms, games with Hidden Object mechanics were filled with advertising and artificially inflated content, which only worsened the situation. Despite the fact that fans continued to download new projects, the genre lacked new ideas.
A new wave of indie games
Indie developers tried to refresh the genre. Over the past few years, a lot of titles have appeared on the market, the authors of which, even though they use Hidden Object mechanics, resolutely refuse to associate themselves with such projects.
A striking example is the Hidden Folks puzzle, released in 2017. The player needs to find certain people or objects on a large hand-drawn location. Sometimes game scenes contain more than a thousand details, many of which are animated and interactive.
Obviously, Hidden Folks uses the basic mechanics of Hidden Object. However, the game’s developer Adrian de Jongh describes it as a “searching game” and admits that he hates the Hidden Object genre.
Thanks to the visual style and sound design (all sounds in the game are recorded with the help of developer voices), Hidden Folks has become a hit. According to de Jong, more than 2 million people have already played it.
A similar visual style was used by the developer of the Small Life puzzle, inspired by life in the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The author describes it as “an interactive game about exploring the city.”
As another example of a new approach to the genre, Lofty can be called. In it, the player can rotate the space, opening new faces to search for items. Developer Devon Wiersma also notes that in the sequel Lofty Quest, he wants to weave the mechanics of finding objects into the narrative. He strives to ensure that history and research are closely related to each other, including revealing the character and past of the characters.
Lofty
The authors of the HoloVista game went even further and tried to give users a new experience. In it, the player uses his phone to search for objects in mixed reality, taking pictures of found objects. The search for objects here is also closely intertwined with the narrative, which raises topics like the dependence of modern society on technology.
“It seems to me that the indie scene has its own niche for games with Hidden Object mechanics. Large companies are not interested in taking risks and going beyond their market. However, potential players who are not interested in casual games may be interested in these mechanics in a new form,” Viersma notes.
Because of its “casualness”, as well as popularity among the age audience, hidden object games have earned notoriety among more hardcore gamers. However, the new wave of the indie scene may be able to change this perception and rethink the very essence of the genre.
