Different Gameplay Mechanisms in Hidden Object Games

Any avid hidden object game (HOG) fan will tell you that hidden object games aren't exactly the "you've seen one; you've seen them all" sort. Many interesting variations to its gameplay have emerged over the years, and in this article, we'll attempt to cover some of the more common ones.

The classic and most common type of gameplay is where the player is given a list of words to find. Sometimes, that can be swapped with a list of object pictures, which is, frankly speaking, a lot easier to find since you already know what the items look like. Some games may even combine the two, giving players both text and images to go with when looking for hidden objects. This kind of gameplay is prevalent in our older titles, like Mess in the Mall and The Hidden Antiques Shop.

There are games that build on this gameplay mechanism by adding a number to it. What do I mean by that? Well, in certain games, you are asked to find multiple copies of the same item instead of looking for one of each hidden item. Of course, the games change things up a bit by presenting the same "item" in different ways, such as getting you to find various types of balls like basketball, golf ball, and football, despite the clue at the bottom simply stating "ten balls".

Another interesting gameplay mechanism that is pretty common in hidden object games is the silhouette. Instead of showing you the name or picture of the item you need to find, you only get a shadow image - a silhouette - of the item. This ramps up the difficulty quite a bit since, as you can imagine, a circular-shaped silhouette can be a ball, a plate, a hat, and many other items.

Some hidden object games like to get their players thinking. As such, they present the hidden items as riddles or vague-ish clues that the players will have first to decipher before they could have any chance of finding the item needed. For instance, in Aquascapes, you may encounter clues like “a circle with 4 holes”.

Of course, to spice things up even more, some games add a time element to their gameplay, forcing players to quickly find what's needed. This is often combined with a shop management aspect, similar to that of time management games, where customers will approach you for something, and you'll need to find what they need before delivering the item to them. Naturally, you'll want to do so before their patience level becomes too low, at which point they may leave the waiting line or impose a penalty on you, both of which have monetary consequences.

There are actually a whole lot more creative gameplay mechanics that will make you go, wow! There's the Night mode that darkens the entire screen, leaving you to search for objects using the narrow beam of a torchlight. There's also an invert mode where the scene you're looking for objects in will get inverted to provide a unique perspective on the same scene.

Let's also not forget the recently released hidden object games like Hidden Folks, which have made the news for being simplistic yet fun. If you enjoy those games, you might want to check out Hidden Fellas and Scavenger Quest.

All in all, hidden object games may have a long and rich history prior to being reimagined in video game format, but it's not a stagnating subgenre at all. Developers who grew up enjoying these games have poured their heart and creativity into changing things up, breathing new life into the genre with the refreshingly new and different gameplay mechanisms that they came up with. Hopefully, as time passes, we'll be able to see more interesting gameplay mechanics emerge for the subgenre, and even new features that will shake up the entire genre and HOG community.