HIDDEN THROUGH TIME
Looking closely for the good stuff
As if we don’t all stare at our screens too much, Hidden Through Time asks you to stare even harder. A hidden object game more in the vein of Where’s Wally than Artifex Mundi’s more adventuregame-lite efforts, you’re presented with various ‘historical’ scenes and a selection of objects to find. The four time periods (Stone Age, Egypt, Middle Ages, and Western) are tropey and full of fantastical elements, like goblins ransacking castles and cavemen hunting dinosaurs.
There’s a small amount of interactivity to each scene. Tapping an object often plays a sound effect, you can remove roofs to peer inside houses, and some characters move around or sway in place. Sometimes this is fun, like looking inside the Great Pyramid, but sometimes it can be hard to pick out what’s important in a sea of very similar assets. 1
Later stages in each time period can be huge, and while you can zoom in to see the cute cartoon artwork up close, it becomes hard to keep track of objects you’re looking for when you have to keep panning over large scenes. To help, each object has a clue, though these vary wildly in helpfulness.
What really makes the game is Map Editor mode, where you can create your own maps and share them online. This is much more worth your time than the main mode. Many of the creations already available show great inventiveness with limited assets – things like cross-time football games or ‘Little Yharnam’, a Bloodborne-themed map. 2 Hidden Through Time is basic, but at a low price
(£6.49), it’s worth fooling around with if you’re still fond of Wally. Oscar Taylor-Kent