If you’re like me, a lover of lavish, Rococo-inspired art and someone for whom the word “extra” has lost all meaning, then you might enjoy the look of some of these games. That’s not to say all casual, hidden-object-style games are beautiful - but the ones that are fill a gap in the market for gorgeous two-dimensional environment design. Playing one of these games after playing your typical open-world RPG or FPS is like going to an art gallery after watching a long movie: Neither is better than the other, but the former is designed to let you slow down more than the latter. The limited viewpoint of the environments allows the developers to pack more into every scene. The style brings to mind old point-and-click adventure games like Monkey Island or the Nancy Drew series. One of the reasons I love the art of HOPAs is because the games are typically 2D. Within that framework, games can vary in types of puzzles, objects to find, and story genres. Still, if you’ve never played one before, here’s a general summary: Hidden-object puzzle games are typically two-dimensional games that require you to solve puzzles and find items in a cluttered scene as your gameplay objective.
I’m willing to bet several people reading this have noticed a game in this category in a Steam sale, and their eyes have slid right past it. Most are developed by small game studios and later distributed by one of the major publishers, like Big Fish Games. Hidden-object games and other casual games hang around the periphery of the gaming scene - they have their devoted communities, but these are not the games that will top the bestseller lists. But alongside my love for this style of art is also a desire to slow down and take it in. In the last year, the game that has scratched that itch for beautiful games drenched in bright jewel colors is Ori and the Will of the Wisps, as well as maybe Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Apocalyptic movies are all well and good, but sometimes you just want to watch a cartoon.
The bright, colorful art of these shorter games fills a need that most games, with their more realistic or neutral art styles, don’t always fulfill. When you think of beautiful video games, what specifically do you think of? The snowy mountain peaks of Skyrim? The lush green fields of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? The gleaming Manhattan skyscrapers of Spider-Man? While I do appreciate the beauty of those games, an entirely different genre of game comes to mind for me: the hidden-object puzzle adventures (HOPA) I play in-between these bigger, longer games.
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