WHY I LOVE Pip on the pleasure of HOPAs.
Calm and collecting.
There’s a specific kind of relaxation that I associate with hidden object puzzle adventures. HOPAs are that endless stream of games, often aimed more at tablet than browser, about collecting and using objects. They get their name from the way the player is repeatedly given a cluttered scene, and is tasked with finding particular objects within it, like a visual wordsearch. But they can also involve minigames, simple skill challenges, and so on. As a very general description, they’re the beach read version of point-andclick adventures. The relaxation I feel when playing hidden object puzzle adventures is similar to that which I get from jigsaw puzzles, origami, crochet, romance novels, crime procedurals, Rubik’s Cubes, and more. It’s the type of relaxation where your hands or eyes are kept busy as you head towards a certain (or at least predictable) outcome. Given enough time the jigsaw will be completed, the bird folded, the cushion finished, the love story fulfilled, the murderer caught, and the colors matched.
Whether or not the outcome is important, it’s the process of getting there that’s valuable. With jigsaws I can shrug off stress or anxiety by narrowing my focus to exactly 1,000 puzzle pieces, all of which have a single correct placement and will eventually build into an image I already know I like, because it’s why I picked the box up in the first place. Jigsaws are the opposite of that ‘Where do you see yourself in five years time?’ job interview question.
With origami, I’m essentially following instructions, but there’s a joy in manipulating the paper. There’s the pleasure of a sharp crease, or a deft movement. There’s a sense of familiarity when a new project requires you start with a shape you’ve made thousands of times before. There’s a soothing rhythm of production when you’re making lots of the same object.
For fiction, particularly murder mysteries in the vein of Bones or CSI, you’re both watching other people assemble a jigsaw made of forensic clues and trying to piece them together yourself. Because it’s fiction you know that everything will be wrapped up neatly so the cast’s end of the jigsaw is basically sorted.
On your end you’re partly picking up on their science chat and partly using your own expertize in TV. ‘That lad’s the murderer because he was one of the first three guest actors we met and he’s the one who doesn’t yet have a clear motive!’—it won’t stand up in a court of law, but you’ll be correct. This is just engaging enough to hold your attention, but it won’t consume you. Instead it acts as a canvas for interpersonal drama, character jokes and more.
So to circle back round to hidden object games, I used to think of them as closest to jigsaws. There’s a preordained location for each piece of the puzzle and the pleasure is in slotting them into place. Within that there’s the test of visual skill as you pick objects out of a scene. But after my most recent binge I’ve seen more elements from those hobbies at play.
Finding your feet
The common basic structure of HOPAs allows you to notice the differences between studios, picking out favorite developers or franchises, as with authors or TV showrunners. I have a preferred style for the hidden object scenes themselves. I like them to be incredibly cluttered, but hate finding long, thin objects because I struggle to notice them. On the origami side, returning to a scene for a different set of objects offers that flicker of familiarity I get from paper base shapes, and a similar divergence of purpose.
For the stories I like them to be a little menacing, but without going full horror. That cuts through the genre’s more saccharine tendencies without resorting to creepy doll faces. And, even if a specific plot isn’t interesting, there are often characters and settings I’ll like enough to follow them across multiple stories.
There’s a preordained location for each piece of the overarching puzzle
Not every purchase has been a good one—there are duffs, cash-ins, and franchises that aren’t as good as they used to be. But it’s also easier to notice the constant mechanical pleasure of hidden object puzzle adventures. Clicking through a to-do list, remembering the heart-shaped lock when you encounter a heartshaped key, and, above all, the knowledge that all loose ends will be tied up in a neat, conclusive bow.