Hidden in my Paradise
Find more than the usual hidden object game in this gem.
Hidden in my Paradise is a hidden object game with a cute aesthetic and some nifty extra features that make it stand out in a crowded market. When you’re spending the whole game scouring the levels in detail looking for the last thing you need to find, the game has to look good, and HIMP delivery well on that front.
In a huge plus for the game, it can be played entirely with just the mouse. I suffer with recurring wrist issues on my left hand so having something I could play and enjoy whilst resting the troubled hand was great.
The design of the levels and the characters is really cute. The game is populated with a gaggle of little creatures including axolotls (a personal favourite), little bunny-adjacent creatures with luxurious tails, dogs, cats, frogs, and a bunch more too. The design is really appealing and seeing the little critters on swings and in tractors brought a smile to my face.
The environments are also charming. You spend a few levels in each area including a farm, a beach, a city, and a forest. You get to see a lot of them but they don’t get boring – the pace of the progression from place to place is pitched really well.
I think hidden object games can be very cosy when you’re having a nice time and there’s a decent level of challenge to find items, but it’s so easy for them to fall into the camp of frustratingly difficult, and there’s no way of knowing what an individual person will experience as particularly fiendish to find. Luckily, HIMP has a good hint system. It’s not limited in any way and it never makes you feel guilty about using it. Just click on the item you can’t find and the camera will swoop over to its general area so you know where to focus your attention. For me, this is a great balance of actually helping without doing the game for me.
As well as the finding hidden objects part of the game, HIMP levels have two additional features that add to the overall experience really nicely, expanding on the game’s main schtick without being something else entirely.
Each level has four fairies that you can’t see, but you find by spotting a little pink sparkly particle effect. There are also several treasure chests in each level, though the number is not given to the player. When I finished the last level having found every item and every faerie I was certain I’d completed the game, but the achievement for the treasure chests didn’t trigger. I do wish I knew which levels I’d missed them in. I am a bit of a completionist but not enough to go back through every level to find a hidden chest.
The second thing that the game does that I really liked was providing you with little scenes to recreate, positioning certain animals and objects as directed and taking a photo of them. It plays on the hidden object formula well but provides a little extra something to do in each level.
HIMP has something else going for it on top of cute design and interesting spins on the formula though. Through the levels you earn coins and tokens by opening chests and completing objectives. You then use these to unlock items that you can use to create your own hidden object levels in the sandbox level maker. These can then be uploaded and played by others, and you can in turn download levels made by other players so the game can keep going after the official levels are over.
It’s such a simple idea. There’s nothing complex about the level design in the game – it’s intricate in places, and there’s a lot of thought behind them, but it’s totally achievable with some time and thought, and the fact that they have opened it up to players in this way is extremely cool. It’s the kind of thing where if they hadn’t done it, nobody would be mad because it’s a good hidden object game on its own merits, but the fact that they have makes perfect sense and will prolong the enjoyment of the game for many players. Future games in the genre take note!
I firmly believe that games like this – extremely casual, low commitment, gentle, fun – deserve our attention just as much as the big hitter heavy story games do. There’s still to this day a sense of elitism in gaming that makes people think anyone who primarily plays games like this aren’t really gamers or somehow don’t count, but I vehemently disagree with that sentiment. Hidden in my Paradise is as much a game as Baldur’s Gate 3 is, it’s just a different one. And that’s fine. Let people enjoy things even if they are things you don’t like. It’s fine.
Game: Hidden in my Paradise
Developer: Ogre Pixel
Publisher: Ogre Pixel
Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch
Time to complete: 3.5 hours
Note - I received the key for this game for free to write this review
I'm glad to see other genres getting into user generated content!
It just adds so much longevity to the game and gives the developers a lot of options to also add content in the future!
I love hidden objects games, and have quite a few, so this will be added to the list. The fact that it's community expanded is brilliant, and adds so much value.