A Bruising Hidden Object Game That Needs A Lick Of Paint
There seems to be an unwritten rule when it comes to hidden object games on the Xbox. While they may be called ‘hidden’ object games, the objects aren’t actually all that well hidden. They’re not tucked behind cupboard doors or poking out from under a duvet: they’re in plain sight. Sure, there might be a jumble of other items around them, making the finding of them harder, but the objects are almost always clearly visible. ‘Messy’ object games would be the more appropriate term.
INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges laughs in the face of that opening paragraph. It picks up some sand and tosses it into the paragraph’s eyes. The objects you find aren’t just ‘messy’ in INK ENIGMA 2: they are carefully camouflaged into hair, grass and windowframes. The items are chosen so that they are excruciatingly hard to find. The scenes are all black and white, not just because drawing them is easier, but because the lack of colour makes finding the objects harder.
‘Challenges’ Is The Pertinent Word In The Title
This approach makes INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges a different proposition from 99% of the other hidden object games on the Xbox. You are not rattling off items at speed, tapping them with your cursor. You are spending ten minutes per picture, looking incredibly careful at every contour, trying to figure out which wavy line is a worm; which long block is a candle. INK ENIGMA 2 strays to the very edges of ‘cozy’ and wonders whether to dip a toe into ‘puzzle’.
There are 45 levels in INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges, and the general structure is similar to other hidden object games. You will have 5-15 items to find within a large image, and pictures of those items span the bottom of the screen. Control is via a cursor (slightly too imprecise and slippy, as it happens), and you move that cursor to an item that you think you’ve found. Tap A on it, and a big, fat red circle appears if you are correct. The item on the bottom banner becomes greyed out, and you have one fewer item to find.
There is a generous hint system, which is great as it needs to be generous. You have a minimum of three hints (bigger pictures have up to five), and selecting it will draw a border around the general area of the item. You still need to find the object within that border, but most of the time the hard job has been done for you. You can also tap the trigger buttons to zoom into and out of the scene.
No, YOU Used The Hint System A Lot
Aside from the slightly iffy cursor movement, these features are all pretty decent. The hint system is actually a hint system, rather than an outright spoiler, which is welcome, and other hidden object games would do well to take note. You have to be accurate with your clicking (there’s no expanded click-area for each item), but that was mostly fine, and it fits neatly within the more punishing identity that INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges has created for itself.
When it comes to the images themselves, though, I am less enamoured. The artwork is a real mixed bag, and it’s clear that different artists have been drafted in for each picture. Some of those artists are very good: they get the memo and produce a scene that is well-drawn enough that it is fun to scan on its own, and it just happens to be composed of the odd item. The picture is clear, and the items are cleverly incorporated. The arm of a chair and a tablecloth just happen to combine to make a sailboat.
But some images are a bit duff, in my opinion. They are sketchy, with wayward lines that don’t really make any structural sense. You have to kind of squint to imagine what the artist was getting at. And, of course, because the image is a messy cross-hatch of lines, the items are harder to find and less cleverly placed. It’s more of a needle and haystack job. And it’s these levels where the enjoyment drops off a bit. I don’t feel like I am solving a puzzle any more; I’m sifting through a doodle.
Clever, If Not Particularly Pretty
When INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges is at its best, you can get into a kind of rhythm. You begin to learn its rules. I wouldn’t look at the item-list at the start. I’d start by scanning the picture, eyeballing things that look slightly out of place, and I’d have a mental library of the kinds of item that INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges likes to drop in. It loves toothbrushes, worms, combs, candles, cups and plantpots. Instinctively, I’d be hunting for these kinds of shapes. I was onto them.
After that first scan, it would be time to check the ticker across the bottom of the screen. There are normally clues about where they might be. Combs tend to be located in places where the spines of the comb can stay hidden: long grass, slats on a blind, that sort of thing. And once I had a couple of items left, it was the judgment call about whether I kept hunting or opted for hints instead.
Sketchy, But Enjoyable
It’s a process that is reasonably enjoyable. It’s not sensational – even the good images are sketchier than the average hidden object game, and it can feel like the game is cheating by chucking a vague drinking-straw shape into a sea of similar shapes – but it works, and the harder difficulty makes INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges stand out. This is offering something distinct from the sea of other hidden object games.
If you like hidden object games but wished that they dialled up the difficulty a little more often, then INK ENIGMA 2: Hidden Object Challenges will make a punchbag of you. It chooses deviousness over looks, and proceeds to hide its items in the most concealed places possible. Personally, I’d have swung the focus further back into looks, but I can appreciate INK ENIGMA 2’s confidence. It attempts to take hidden object games in a different direction.
Important Links
INK ENIGMA 2 Arrives On Xbox And PC With 40 Fresh Hidden Object Challenges – https://www.thexboxhub.com/ink-enigma-2-arrives-on-xbox-and-pc-with-40-fresh-hidden-object-challenges/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/ink-enigma-2-hidden-object-challenges/9P9F4SWHBFQF
