Apologies for missing last week’s post. I’ve been a little busy (this week included) fending off exhaustion, imminent sickness, and trying to please my advisor with my mundane writing that I’m having difficulties getting right. In short, life has been stressful and frustrating. Oddly, my normal escape to gaming has taken that odd turn towards casual games even though I just bought another Humble Bundle. I haven’t been feeling that gaming urge and it’s most likely a cyclical effect and I’m just in my off-period.

So, less moping and on to hidden object games!

I’ve been playing three different hidden object games on Facebook. After swearing off playing FB games, I was sort of coerced into playing Mystery Manor by my sister who is hooked on the iPad version. I was also looking for a short break from academic reading and hidden object games provide the space for that. I think I’ve been playing these games for the better part of two weeks now, but even so I’m slowly getting off that high.

The first hidden object game I played was actually Hidden Chronicles (HC) by Zynga. Zynga has been sort of controversial for me (and other traditional/classic gamers), mainly for making these mindless clicking games. Cafe World was one that I played for a while before I hit level 100 and made myself stop. HC is different from Cafe World or even Farmville because it makes sense to be clicking on the hidden objects in a setting (as opposed to going down the line clicking stuff just to get a timer started).

What Zynga does best, that I’ve seen so far, is integrate the idea of social play into their games. It’s also really annoying for me because I don’t want too much integration with my FB friends. Let me illustrate by an example. In HC, you’re given a small square parcel of land to decorate when you first start the game. You’re encouraged to explore other parcels of land, but to do so, you need clues, money, and trophies earned from playing the hidden object stages. Money and trophies are easy to come by, but clues you have to get from watching friend feeds or posting for help. Once you have land to build stuff on, some of the buildings require help from friends (3-4 that I’ve encountered so far). I’m not sure if these are strictly the seasonal event or even regular buildings, but I spent the freebie money I earned just finishing up some of those. I’ve stopped playing the game simply because I don’t want to play something where progression fundamentally relies on having a large enough player base from your personal network to mooch off of.

The second game I played was Gardens of Time (GoT). This was one of the other hidden object games my sister showed me on the iPad. Similar to HC, you have to build things in order to progress through the story, but it’s not completely reliant on having a big network of friends. My garden looks like a mess because I’ve been building random buildings just so I can play the new scenarios, but the sandbox concept is fun for players who are into that sort of thing. (I haven’t played Sim City in years and I found that amusing for a little while and HC and GoT remind me of that to an extent.)

Lastly there’s Mystery Manor (MM) by 6waves, a Russian studio. The scenarios are literally the rooms of a mansion and I find the concept of building stuff in HC and GoT just to explore new scenarios kind of an unnecessary fluff but I can also see why it’s appealing to casual gamers. MM doesn’t have any of this building customization. Being developed by a Russian studio, I’ve seen a lot of grammar mistakes and typos but they have all been pretty minor. It adds a little flavor, a little character to the game in an odd way.

All three games have their own unique twist to the hidden object genre. HC and GoT are the most similar with the option to build things as I’ve focused on above, but all of their scenarios are pretty much the same. Random objects that have no place in the scenario are pretty much dumped in the scene and after a few plays, it starts to become a game of “How fast I can find all of the objects?” because you start memorizing where the objects are. MM on the other hand have objects that sort of make sense being in the scenarios, but are randomly placed around the room. There’s still the time goals, but it also makes it more interesting because each game is different until you’ve played a hundred times. Even then, there are a different effects on the room. Sometimes the presentation is the same, a list of words of objects to find. Sometimes its different, being given silhouettes of objects to find instead of words (which don’t always match up to exactly how the object is portrayed in the room; it might be upside down, for example), the letters of the words being mixed up either by being spelled backwards or the syllables are out of order, nighttime mode where the screen is pretty dark (best seen on an iPad; the computer monitor can actually show the contents of the room pretty well) and you have a flashlight to move around the room to find your objects, and lastly the timer can tick down in double time. A combination of these can also occur, making things more interesting.

Of the three, it’s hard to say which one I like the best. MM is the one my sister plays and the one I feel a little obligated to play since that’s her current passion and I’m such a good sister by playing it with her, even though the FB and iPad versions don’t connect. I do enjoy MM and while I didn’t like the random placements in the beginning, I’ve gotten used to it and accept it as it is. HC is next, despite my qualms with the whole social network integration thing. I think what compels me to like it more is the size of the estate to explore is actually quite large and the explorer in me wants to unlock it all even though in reality it won’t happen. GoT is last, but it doesn’t mean its bad, just if I were pressed for time, I’d most likely not get around to playing it.