Review – Hidden Folks

Developed and published by indie artists Adriaan de Jongh and Sylvain Tegroeg, and released in 2017, Hidden Folks is simple little clicker game has a lot more to it than meets the eye. But it also has some serious pricing issues.

This is a casual game, so there is no time limit, no rush, and only one objective: find some stuff. Each mission/level is a fully hand drawn, and animated, picture. They can go from small and primitive, to huge and extremely detailed. If you have ever played Where’s Waldo, you will be somewhat familiar with the game-play, and this will feel pretty nostalgic. However, unlike with finding Waldo, items and people can be hidden in this game. You will need to click on environmental objects in order to get them to move.

Almost everything is animated to move, so you won’t find your objective in a window just because it opens and closes. You will be clicking on a lot of stuff, for example: pull aside a tent flap to find a hidden camper, or click on a tree so it drops a banana to draw a monkey out of hiding. Sometimes what you have to find is directly stated, other times you need to work off of hints and clues. Sometimes you need to click on multiple things in a row in order to get specific things to happen to complete your objective.

This really livens up the game, and makes it a fun little game to play when you have some time to kill, and don’t really feel like booting up a game that will take some time to get into. It is perfect for playing a bit right in the middle of things, or wasting some time when bored somewhere. Eventually the clues can become a little bit obtuse, and the maps crowded, but I suppose that is an ok increase in difficulty for a game that revolves around finding hidden objects.

The sound effects in this game are great, all made specifically for the game. They were the highlight of the game for me. Everything that you click on will give you a little sound, made by humans. So, for example, you can click on a car and hear someone making a car engine noise with their mouth, done in a really funny way. I found myself clicking on everything just to see what silly noise I was going to get next.

I can see this game as being endlessly entertaining for young children, but I can only play it in small bursts. It can be hard on your eyes after a while, another reason why I could only play for short periods.

However, they have some settings that try to help and fix that. I like the game, but for what it is and what I got out of it, I can’t really recommend it at the current price. It used to be $9.00, and now it is nearly $15 dollars. I don’t see what they could have added into the game that warranted this increase in price, other than it was selling well with good reviews and they wanted to make more off of it. If that is the case wait for it to go on sale for a lot cheaper. Get it at least 50-75% off.

I am not saying the game isn’t worth playing, or the developer shouldn’t get paid, but for what you will probably get out of the game it isn’t worth $15 dollars. The highest amount that I have seen this game played from other reviews out there is a total of 16 hours, but the average is far lower than that. The average play time seems to be around what I have or just a bit higher, at around 3-4 hours. So yeah, I would say play it, but not for $15 bucks.