Hidden Folks is a hidden object game (HOG) that departs from the usual genre standards and instead emulates an animated “Where’s Waldo” book. There isn’t a story like a typical HOG. Instead, the game focuses on detailed environments that range from very small areas to huge, expansive settings. This allows the game to avoid one of the biggest pitfalls of the hidden object genre, boredom. For me, most HOGs tend to get uninteresting once the story comes into play. The plot is often an afterthought and only serves the purpose of driving you to the next puzzle. Hidden Folks skips the story entirely, giving only a sentence or two about each “object” your are supposed to find. Because they give you so little, figuring out what some of the descriptions mean is its own little puzzle. This further separates the game from its peers, which usually just tell you the name of the object.
The game’s puzzles often require you to think as well as look. Many of the levels are huge in scale and you won’t be able to find everything just by glancing around randomly. Instead, you will need to use context clues to find them. For example, on one of the farm levels, you are tasked with finding a chicken. Unfortunately, the farm is full of chickens, so you can’t just click on the first chicken you see. You need to read its description to find out that it is an escaped chicken. You first find the pen that it escaped from, then need to follow its escape route to ultimately find it. Most objects in the game require a similar level of thinking, aside from a few outliers that are either very straightforward or extremely difficult. The game allows you to progress to the next level after finding most of the objects, but doesn’t force you to find everything, which can become frustrating if it takes too long.
Hidden Folks also features unique sound design, with every sound being made by a real person, rather than just using a sound effect library. It isn’t amazing or revolutionary, but it goes above and beyond what it needed to do. It creates a fun, lighthearted atmosphere that keeps the game relaxing.
Hidden Folks is a well-rounded game that manages to be a high-water mark for a genre severely lacking in originality. It achieve all of this with an affordable price tag and a number of free expansions to the game.
