There isn’t much to talk about when covering a hidden object game besides saying you need to find a series of objects scattered across an image, diorama, or your parents’ underwear drawer if looking for that vibrating candle you found as a kid. Hidden Around the World has a few more secrets to discover, and here’s an overview of what to expect.
So what are Ogre Pixel able to do that others haven’t been able to achieve thus far? There seems to be a theme with these sorts of titles, such as Hidden Cats in… or Hidden Through Time, that have a cute air to them, unlike Perky Little Things, which is wholesome, latte-sipped and patchwork quilt-wielding innocence that you could effectively play this at a cafe. In Paris. Least, that’s where we’re heading in our first stage on our world tour, and like each city you’ll visit, you need to find the hidden objects, but also hidden snaps and fairies, too.
Right, cute characters and being able to pet animals for coins aren’t enough to stand out, so let us look at the hidden snap elements. When you first move around using the Joy-Con, you might wonder why you can manipulate objects and move them around. What’s the point, right? It’s novel at first, but you just want to play the game, right? Well, on each stage, there will be photos that you need to replicate. This means locating animals and objects and then positioning them to emulate a scene. It’s quite a unique idea, as you can have the snapshot on screen while you’re figuring it out. It doesn’t have to be perfect, though a nice addition for when crawling through the pixels to find a teapot that resembles the image.
Once you have the scene set up, you click the camera and can then resize what it captures. The other option is to locate the fairies, which are noticeable from their glowing bits. These are the trickiest parts, usually, and you have to find almost all of them. Each category you complete awards a paw, which serves as the currency to move onto the next area. Besides a Sandbox mode, you’re pretty much locked into playing the same thing until you beat it. A little frustrating, though there are plenty of hints for the object and snap side of things.
That’s pretty much the routine in Hidden Around the World – a tried and tested formula that once you’ve found everything, surely that’s all there is to it? Not really, as there’s the option to create your own levels through moving them around (including being able to share and download others online), plus a ton of customisation features such as a day/night cycle, and a good selection of filters. Some of them are novel, but just changing the colour tones makes the game feel pretty different to the rest. This really adds to the longevity of the game, as from my own experience of owning approximately 30-odd hidden object games, they aren’t the same when you know where everything is.
Hidden Around the World is a decent hidden object game, and probably one of the better ones out there, considering the competition. My biggest issue with the game is a platform-related one, which is in no way a reflection on the developers and is out of their control. Playing with Joy-cons is abysmal. It lacks that precision that a mouse offers, and without any touchscreen options either, the experience is very clumsy, considering how small items are on the screen. I often had to zoom right in just to even the chances of being able to interact with something. The number of times I drifted past an object that was right in front of me was endless. Again, no reflection on the devs, but a touchscreen option could have helped. With the level editor in effect, plus the generous filters, you’re going to get your money’s worth here. Just maybe use a third-party control? The Switch 2 mouse function didn’t work at the time of review, either.
