Hidden Folks

The most absolutely adorable game I can remember playing for a very, very long time. Hidden Folks is basically a hidden object, Where's Wally? kind of game, but it takes that concept so far and pours so much heart into it that the comparison between the two doesn't do this game any justice at all. Each level is hand-drawn in monochrome and most of them are absolutely massive and teeming with life, taking more inspiration from the paintings of Bosch and Bruegel than any children's picture book - there is as much fun in picking up all the detail in the scenery, in exploring how imaginative Adriaan de Jongh's design is, as there is in actually looking for the things you're supposed to be finding. Each time you find a new environmental feature you can play with - a door you can open, a hole you can dig up, a tree you can shake clear of snow, a drain cover you can open, a conveyor belt you can activate - there's a childish sense of glee about it, a sense only helped by the game's audio, all of which is made up of de Jongh's voice. That means when you click on a cow, you hear de Jongh moo - and everything in this game makes a noise when you click on it. He must have spent hours and hours and hours in front of a microphone doing impressions of animals, people, cars, and all manner of inanimate objects. It's exactly as bonkers as it sounds and it's wonderful.

I feel like there's a fairly limited shelf-life on this, partly in the sense that it feels like a game you'll spend a very enjoyable week with and never touch again, and partly because playing it for more than about an hour at a time really, really hurts your eyes. I would still recommend this unequivocally, though; I can't think of another game where so much of the developer's personality, humour, and charm shone through in the final product.