Hidden object games always seemed really uninteresting to me. I have never read much about them on gamer sites or ever heard much buzz about a specific title. But there seems to be a surprisingly high number of them made, and they would not get made if people did not play them.

I love PC games and I don't want to be a snob about what I will try. So I am interested in giving a hidden object game a try. But I figure if I am going to try out a genre that really does not interest me, I want to give it a fair shake and play one of the stars of the genre so I am not put off by one bad title.

Any recommendations for a hidden object game you would consider one of the best out there?

...ill ask my mother she plays them
i tend to avoid them

i think there are a lot of them aroudn because they are easy to pick up easy to play and easy to understand
especially for peopel who generally dont play video games ( our parents for example )
they are also cheap which allows the market to becoem saturated with a glut of titles very fast

i loved the hogs(hidden object game) from artifex mudi they tend to put in more stuff and story in their games.
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Artifex%20Mundi%20sp.%20z%20o.o.

Hero of the Kingdom
http://store.steampowered.com/app/259550/

Robin's Quest
http://store.steampowered.com/app/292880/

will post more later

I'm in the same boat completely(my mother plays them to death) and would agree with you 100% on all you've said.

Sometimes one needs to take a break from frantic games and play something more cerebral.

I enjoyed the "House of 1000 Doors series": "Family Secrets" and "The Palm of Zoroaster".

I've played the Collector's Editions only as I was lucky to stumble across them a while ago when they were on special at Gamersgate. They were also DRM-free.

The cutscenes were of a good quality, and there were various puzzles included in addition to the various hidden object scenes. They also include hints and a strategy guide which is really a complete walkthrough if you do happen to get stuck. And the Collector's Editions also include an extra chapter, with the same production quality as the main chapters.

There are really two different types of Hidden Object games. There are the straight up versions, or "HOG" games. Some of the older ones are seriously addictive, especially the ones that you can play over and over because the objects are random. Most of these you can even skip the.. er.. story. What Story there is, anyway.

I usually have two or three of these installed at any one time. HOGs, alongwith "FATE", are my go-to, time fillers on PC.

I also quite like Playrix games, in particular the "Gardenscapes" and "Aquascapes" ones. These are straight up HOGs, but the scenes are tied together with these wonderful little maintenance type frameworks. In the Garden series, the HOG scenes allow you to earn money to restore gardens, with help from a really nice gentleman butler and his pet. The Aqua Series, you earn money to make fish Tanks for fish that seem very much inspired by Finding Nemo. While neither of these really add any depth or actual gameplay, per se, they are great little distractions that politely encourage you to keep playing. Inoffensive and well put together. Recommended for sure.

Personally I prefer the more fleshed out games. the Hidden Object Puzzle Adventures. HOPA games. These have real characters, story progression, varied gameplay etc. Similar to old school adventures in structure, these usually have much higher production values with fantastic looking art and sound. The "HOG" scenes usually play a much smaller role here. Say you need to blow the entrance to an old mine, the game will start the HOG" scene, and they play out as standard, but some of the items you find are then written into the story progression. In this example you would find some dynamite, a fuse, some matches etc. However, back in the game, there will most likely be some sort of puzzle using those component to blow the mine, and continue on with your adventure.

Artifex Mundi make some great ones, as do Epix and Elephant.

My mum lives and breathes these games. She highly recommends "Puppet Show" series by ERS Games, as well as "Midnight Mysteries" by Mumbo Jumbo series. I have not played these myself, but she playes HOPA games constantly so I trust her call.

It's really just a different type of game, a cross between an adventure game and a puzzle game. A couple of the puzzles in the "House of 1000 Doors" games were a little tricky and did require a bit of logic and in my case a bit of luck.

At the moment I'm playing "The Da Vinci Code" which is marketed as an adventure game but is really an action-adventure game with lots of quicktime events when you're fighting bad guys. And it has a checkpoint save system, which may not be so bad... except when you're exploring all the nooks and crannies to find the secrets and fall through the floor a couple of times on the first level - forcing you to abort and restart from scratch. And on one of the later levels a bad guy fell through the floor preventing me from going through a doorway because you can't exit whilst engaged in combat, even though the bad guy was now on a different floor to me.

So to contrast the two, I enjoyed "The House of 1000 Doors" games more despite their "simplicity", whereas I'm finding "The Da Vinci Code" a bit of a chore.

Edit: spelling!

I know just where you ar coming from agogfan. I'm playing Borderlands. I love borderlands. I adore Borderlands. I want to move to pandora and have a pet skag and restore my monster @ Scooter's garage.

..but I just sometimes need something less hectic. Something I can flake out with and just relax in a different way where I don't have to fight for my life due to a silly lapse in concentration, or spend 10 minutes failing at math to see if I need that new pistol or stick with my SMG.

In these times I go straight to HOPA.

I do this with anything that most people would consider real games. I am almost always playing something larger, grander, thicker. But it doesn't matter what it is, I will inevitably want a change for a while. When I do, there is always a HOPA game that I can tag in for a stress free breather from what ever else I happen to be doing.

I also think part of the problem is finding the time these days to play a comprehensive game.

I've been itching to play Icewind Dale for the first time... but I'm also a little daunted knowing the huge time-sink it will be... so maybe I'll just try complete another quick level of The Da Vinci Code instead ;)

Good point on the two different types! I'm a complete newbie to the genre but I got one in a bundle last year called Infected: The Twin Vaccine and it's actually really similar to point & click games, you solve puzzles using inventory items that you have to find, walk between areas, it has a story with cutscenes, etc etc. In other words you're not just staring at a static screens and pixel hunting all the time. Of course being a newbie I have no idea if games like this one are that common within the genre (regardless of the type).

Haha! Guilty. So many epic games on my backlog for this exact same reason. XD
Gamer commitment issues.

Yep. That's a HOPA. I picked that one up during the recent Steam sale. Coming off theback of "the Last of Us", this felt like a more "mum friendly" game along kind of simillar themes. I very recently played one called "Abyss: Wraiths of Eden", which was very much like a Mum Friendly game inspired by Bioshock.

Its pretty straight up example of a HOPA. They are extremely common. I once read a reviewer refer to HOPA as "Printing Money". The companies who make these know exactly who their audience is, and are more successful at delivering the goods than any other genre. The games are simple, quick, and cheap to make with an almost guaranteed audience.

I'd say that there are more than just two types of HOG's. It's more like shades of grey (50 of them or so?), in terms of how much story, how much adventure game (inventory / object use), how many puzzles are there. The only thing I find to be a consistent difference from adventure games is the lack of character interaction. Even in hidden object scenes there's some variation in terms of what needs to be found and how (based on words or silhouettes).

I started with games which are pretty much hidden objects with story, which was what was mostly available a few years ago. Samantha Swift is a good example of that. Letters from Nowhere is another example. I think Mystery Case Files also. Lots of others like this.

The Artifex Mundi and many other current games are more like what HeDanny described, more story, puzzles and some object interaction.


There's a lot of choice and what you might like depends on what kind of game and art appeals to you. Some game have great art, the Empress of the Deep games, for example, but the story/gameplay is merely okay.

listing a few more hogs from steam that have good user reviews and my favorites loved playing some of these
Nancy drew series
http://store.steampowered.com/app/42200/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_8

Melissa K. and the Heart of Gold Collector's Edition
http://store.steampowered.com/app/321150/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103

Nearwood - Collector's Edition
http://store.steampowered.com/app/286540/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_4

Empress Of The Deep
http://store.steampowered.com/app/299150/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_3

Pickers
http://store.steampowered.com/app/204440/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_6

Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of The Baskervilles
http://store.steampowered.com/app/209230/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_6

Hidden Expedition: Titanic
http://store.steampowered.com/app/50940/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_7

SEASON OF MYSTERY: The Cherry Blossom Murders
http://store.steampowered.com/app/39110/?snr=1_237_querypaginated__103_7

As others have said before there are certainly different types of hogs games they are certainly getting popular on steam and more and more seem to release. I usually jump into hog games as a stress relief if i get bogged down in the other heavy releases.
I have only listed steam links not sure if any of these are on gog

Only the Nancy Drew Dossier series are HOGs, the other Nancy Drew games are proper adventure games (at least on PC). IIRC, GOG has one of them.