Have You Played... Hidden Folks?

Hidden Folks*bling!* is a hidden object game that's *whooooosh!* immensely satisfying to play yourself *thwip!* but an absolute nightmare for anyone else to listen to *boing!*

That's because *pfftttt* as you may have guessed *thwap!* every single click results in a *plink!*, *zip!* and the occasional *dingalingaling!* as you poke and prod its giant Where's Wally canvas (or Waldo, for the yanks out there) to find its errant citizens, fruit, birds and (sometimes) monkeys. All right, I'll stop with the noises now.

*brrrring!*

In all seriousness, though, these sounds are the life blood that makes Hidden Folks so wonderfully tactile and fun to play. They're voiced by actual human beings, for starters, which instantly infuses each of its monochrome landscapes with an endearing and cheeky sense of humour (albeit less so to nearby eavesdroppers). That's a pretty neat trick considering it looks like a children's doodle book. They're so endearing, in fact, that they make you want to click everything onscreen just to see what noise it makes, and when you're dealing with ever-growing metropolises, entire mountainsides of skiiers and snowboarders and a giant factory-like laboratory, there are plenty of things to click with which to annoy your significant other (sorry Matthew).

Each time I encountered something new or one of the little people waved at me with a tiny 'Hello!' in a funny voice, my heart practically burst with a childlike glee, bringing back faint memories of all those excellent noise-making picture books that kid Katharine used to have. You know, the ones with the buttons down the side that you had to press at important points in the story for MAXIMUM IMMERSION. Those were good, they were, and Hidden Folks is like the PC version of that but for adults.

What's more, it's not just one thing that's hiding in these giant drawings. Oh no. Sometimes there are dozens of things, creatures and people to find, making it by default infinitely better than any Where's Wally? book on the planet. There's just so much to chew over that you could spend hours and hours trying to find every last hidden folk - especially when it's so easy to get distracted by moving everyone's blinds up and down to see what secret naughty things are lurking behind the curtain.

If Hidden Folks hasn't found its way into your Steam library yet, then I'd highly recommend it. I promise you won't be disappointed. And if you are, well, you'll have to find me first! *zhroooooooom* *thwip* *shwaaaaa*