Hidden Folks (PC)

This review was originally written on 09/03/2018.

Technical Information

Developer: Adriaan de Jongh
Publisher: Adriaan de Jongh
Release Date: Feb 15, 2017

Extremely fun hidden objects game, very faithful to those “Where’s Waldo?” books from the 90s that were sold at newsstands. The perfect example of “less is more.”

Final Thoughts – Analyzing the game as a whole

Graphics and UI

The art is creative, I really liked the style. Even though everything is in black and white (and might seem very confusing at first glance), you can see there was a lot of care, especially in the scenarios that always have something hidden!
It’s easy to navigate and the game gives you options to adjust the brightness and change the background color.

Hidden Folks gameplay in a forest with many campsites. Hidden Folks gameplay in a storage room. An early level in Hidden Folks. A city full of buildings in Hidden Folks. A desert stage from Hidden Folks. A snow-themed level from Hidden Folks.

Soundtrack and SFX

Although the game has no music, all the sounds were extremely creative and were made with the mouth.
You don’t even care about background music, it’s so cool!

Gameplay

The gameplay is easy to understand, you can adjust the zoom level to look for details, each hidden object has a hint when you select it in the HUD.

Very high difficulty, charismatic characters (a different sound with every click, very cartoonish vibe), confusing scenarios (in a good way!) and several hidden surprises (a click here, another there… an unexpected object appears, like an animal or a funny noise).

Replayability and Game Retention

The game retention is high, especially due to the fact that there are massive scenarios, making it impossible to remember where everyone is hidden.