What is Hidden Object games
HOPA games (Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure) are casual games in which the player is looking for hidden objects. The list of desired objects is presented in the form of words, silhouettes and anagrams, limiting the time to complete the level, complicating the process in various ways
History of the genre and the first HOPA games
The first prototypes of casual games I-Spy (“I’m looking for”) can be found in old magazines. Entertaining sections like “Spot the Difference” and “Find 10 Objects” are the progenitors of modern puzzles. Remember a series of magazines about Wally with their colorful i-spy spreads, where in a crowd of drawn people, among hundreds of small objects, a guy in glasses and a red and white striped sweater was hiding. There are also wimmelbuchs – books in which each illustration is a “paper” search scene .
Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey (Book 3) Alice: An Interactive Museum At first, hidden object computer games involved only the simplest mechanics – finding objects and differences. One such HOG pioneer, Alice: An Interactive Museum, was created for Windows 3.x in 1991. The plot is inspired by the universe invented by Lewis Carroll. The player walks around the 12 mysterious rooms of the mansion, collects all 53 cards from the deck, and deciphers the clues to complete the game.
Management is carried out with the mouse: we click (often at random) on various objects, find hidden cards and move on. Despite the sometimes frightening graphics and sounds, the game turned out to be very atmospheric and generous for interactive.
The first major casual game developer to make headway in the hidden object genre was Big Fish Games. Starting with the computer game Hidden Expedition: Titanic and captivating thousands of fans, the second game in the series, Hidden Expedition: Everest, they have already released for the iPhone.
To understand the scale of the process of creating this hidden object game, it is enough to know a couple of facts: Big Fish Games has engaged the world-famous climber Edmund Vestures as a consultant and made him the main character of the game Hidden Expedition: Everest. And National Geographic was chosen as an information partner and supplier of photos and videos.
Hidden Object Genre Analysis
If the first hidden object games were essentially adaptations of paper puzzles to find hidden objects and differences in pictures, then modern hope games boast a variety of mechanics and a well-thought-out plot. In such quests, users are increasingly looking for not just a clicker game, but also a fascinating story.
Therefore, when creating a casual game in the hidden object genre, modern developers wrap successive search scenes in a wrapper from an interesting plot, add a mystery, colorful characters, humor and lively dialogues, season it with spectacular cutscenes. With each plot twist, the gamer is more involved in the process, imbued with history and more willing to return to the game.
The main components of the game Hidden Object
I-Spy games include the following elements and features: Story. To create a successful product that will captivate players, modern developers rely on narrative. search scenes. These can be rooms of an old mansion, street locations and even space landscapes. In the search scenes you need to look for hidden objects. Main character. As a rule, in HOG the main character is the player himself (he also has to look for items), so we do not see him.
But also, one or more characters are often woven into the game, who act as guides in the game. Logic should be everywhere: in the sequence of levels, in the trajectory of the characters, in how the ending of the story turns out. Consistency in the choice of items for search scenes in hidden object games plays a big role. All hidden objects must correspond to the location and situation (you must agree, it is strange to find a painting by a famous artist in a car dealership).
Therefore, the relevance of this or that item in a hidden location should not raise questions. Target. In games of the hidden object genre, the found objects are either used for some task (find a bucket of paint and use it to update the façade of the building), or earn points by searching to achieve a small goal and further progress. That is, the search is not aimless – the HOG player must clearly understand the meaning of what he is doing.
Difficulty levels. So that the player does not get bored, the developers of hidden object quests often alternate easy levels with very difficult ones: they limit time even more, add obstacles, encrypt the names of the objects they are looking for. Additional features in a hidden object game can be implemented in the form of a search inventory (with one click the player can get help in searching), in-game events and competitions that stir up the interest of gamers and help form a community. Manor Matters Search Scene
Hidden Object Quests: The Creation Process
A lot of work needs to be done to make the game exciting, unlike others, and at the same time be popular for a long time. Therefore, the first item in the plan for creating a cool HOG project by VOKI Games was a large-scale study. Based on its results, we determined the success factors of I-Spy games: Balanced content of search scenes. Empty locations and too “obviously hidden” items reduce interest in the game. Therefore.
we filled the search scenes in Manor Matters with various thematic objects, skillfully inscribed them in the locations and made these pictures come alive. We fill the locations in the game according to the principle of playing and non-playing items. Therefore, in each search scene there are both ordinary interior objects and accessories, as well as those that are to be found. Clicking at random will not work here When rendering search scenes and filling them with hidden objects, we take into account the resolution and brightness level of game device screens so that the search for objects remains possible, and most importantly, an enjoyable challenge. Exciting plot. In addition to the main storyline, games often introduce additional ones into the hidden object scenario.
