Hidden Object Puzzle Adventures

Calm and collecting.

- Philippa Warr

There’s a specific kind of relaxation that I associate with hidden object puzzle adventures. HOPAs are that endless stream of games, often aimed more at tablet than browser, about collecting and using objects. They get their name from the way the player is repeatedly given a cluttered scene and is tasked with finding particular objects within it, like a visual wordsearch. But they can also involve minigames, simple skill challenges and so on. As a very general description, they’re the beach read version of point-and-click adventures.

The relaxation I feel when playing hidden object puzzle adventures is a similar kind to that which I get from jigsaw puzzles, origami, crochet, romance novels, crime procedurals, Rubik’s Cubes and more. It’s the type of relaxation where your hands or eyes are kept busy as you follow a step-by-step process towards a certain (or at least predictable) outcome. Given enough time the jigsaw will be completed, the bird folded, the cushion finished, the love story fulfilled, the murderer caught and the colours matched.