Adorable animals frolic together in the forest, have picnics, go on camping trips, and even team up to pick up trash. Observing these scenes of cozy paradise, you are challenged to seek out hidden objects to help the animals with their various tasks. There are even sneaky, playful fairies hidden deep within the forest! Once you’ve found everything there is to find, you can create your very own paradise using the items you have collected – and even share it with your friends.
Hidden In My Paradise is an adorable, cozy hidden object game developed and published by Ogre Pixel. It features a variety of levels themed around locations in the natural world such as a forest campsite, a beautiful flower garden, and even a tropical island. In each of these levels – also known as “paradises” – you are presented with three different challenges: find the hidden objects, recreate the snapshots, and find the fairies.
The “find the objects” task is the most straightforward and similar to what players familiar with hidden object games will likely have encountered before. Items that you need to find range from flowers to camping gear to pieces of trash, and can be quite tricky to find depending on the level. Fortunately, your companion, the fairy Coronya, can provide you with hints by zooming in on the area an object is located in. There is no limit on the number of hints you can request per level, which is extremely nice, as some of the levels are quite cluttered and the objects are very tiny!
One of my favorite elements of Hidden In My Paradise is that you can hover over objects to look behind, inside, or underneath them, adding a layered, multi-dimensional feeling to each level. For example, an item might be behind a tree or inside a doghouse. In addition, Hidden In My Paradise offers great functions that can make levels easier or harder depending on your preference. You can zoom in and out, move objects around, change the time of day between day, dusk, and night, and even apply different filters such as “intense colors” or “black and white.”
Finding the fairies in each level is a different variation on the standard “find the hidden objects.” There are typically between four and six fairies per level, and they will always be hidden behind objects. Objects where a fairy lurks will be indicated by the purple sparkles surrounding them; you must move the object to reveal the fairy. This was never particularly difficult, but it added variety to each level so I did not mind it at all.
Finally, the third type of mission: recreating snapshots. This is a very unique type of mission that I feel helped Hidden In My Paradise stand apart from others in the genre. You are presented with two snapshots, and are challenged to recreate them by moving and positioning objects within the level. Typically, each snapshot will be a cute scene, such as animals reading together or picking up and sorting trash.
These were very fun challenges, although the hint system was less helpful here because it would only vaguely point you towards one or two of the objects you need to complete the picture. There are also a few moments where the game is quite fussy – for example, in one level, I had to put both a rabbit and a book on a bench, and I could not get them both to sit properly unless I zoomed in to the maximum level and moved them each a tiny bit at a time until they were in the right position. These moments were thankfully few and far between, as they were definitely my least favorite part of the game.
In addition to the levels themselves, Hidden In My Paradise features a sandbox mode. You can use coins and tickets earned by solving levels to purchase items in the in-game shop, and then use those items to design adorable scenes of your own. You can then even share those scenes with your friends and play scenes that others have created. Sharing your own paradises and playing those created by others can also earn you more coins and tickets. This sandbox mode adds lots of enjoyment to Hidden In My Paradise and definitely extends your play time significantly, allowing you to continue enjoying the game even once you have run out of levels.
In addition to being a cozy, fun hidden object game, Hidden In My Paradise also features adorable artwork similar to the developers’ previous games, such as A Tiny Sticker Tale. Each level is packed to the brim with cute animals ranging from dogs and cats to frogs, turtles, and even axolotls. The animals were my favorite part of each level, and I loved creating little scenes with them in snapshot recreation mode. The levels I created in sandbox mode were definitely animal-heavy, and I spent most of my coins on various critters – although the flowers, trees, water features and other items were also well-drawn!
I have only a few small complaints with Hidden in my Paradise. First, there are a few grammatical errors, possibly due to translation, which made understanding certain parts of the tutorial difficult. If it was a more text- and dialogue-heavy game, I think it would really have suffered from this, but fortunately little text is needed beyond the basic introductions. The other complaint is that there is only a small number of background tracks, and most levels consist of a single song looping over and over again. It did get annoying pretty quickly, and I found myself turning the music off on several levels.
Hidden object fans and cozy game fans alike should definitely check out Hidden In My Paradise. Due to its cute art style, variety of accessibility functions, and gentle difficulty curve, it would make a good entry into the genre for those not particularly familiar with hidden object games. However, veterans will also be able to enjoy it. Anyone who gives Hidden In My Paradise a try should definitely use the sandbox mode to create your own levels (and then share them with me, of course!)
Kate played Hidden In My Paradise on PC via using a provided review code.
