A Hidden Object Game That Lacks a Hook or Fairy Dust
CrispApp Studios have raided fairy tales for hidden object games before. Just recently, we had Sleeping Beauty: Hidden Object Game, while Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland have also had the hidden object treatment. But where that Sleeping Beauty game felt slight but polished, Peter Pan: Hidden Objects feels slight and very much un-polished.
If you had never read or watched Peter Pan, you’ll have no idea of what is going on. Peter Pan: Hidden Objects fumbles the story of the immortal Neverlander by being almost entirely incomprehensible. Wendy and Peter bicker in various locations, in garbled english that feels either mistranslated or misunderstood. Probably both. If you lined up one-hundred people and whispered the plot of Peter Pan into an ear and told them to ‘pass it on’, you’d end up with something like this.
Rufio! Rufio! Rufio!
Bizarrely, there are about four different versions of the character Peter Pan. The one you see on the Xbox Store card is different from the one in cutscenes, which is different from the one in the hidden object scenes, which is yet again different from the one in the hand-sketched hidden object scenes. Artistically, tonally, this is a collage of different Peter Pan media, without any connecting tissue. It’s like stopping Steven Spielberg’s Hook halfway through and continuing with the second half of Disney’s Peter Pan.
The disjointed art styles are bemusing. Sleeping Beauty: Hidden Object game managed to feel cohesive, with a kind of ‘realistic but painted over’ aesthetic. But Peter Pan: Hidden Objects is a jumble. There are some lovely scenes that abide by Sleeping Beauty’s tone. But there are also half-finished sketches which can’t help but look placeholder, far from releasable. I feel bad for the artist who made them, but they just aren’t suited to a hidden object game. There’s not enough detail on them (“wait, you’re telling me that’s meant to be a flower?”), and they’re certainly not consistent with the rest of the game. It’s telling that CrispApp Studio haven’t included any of these images on their Xbox Store screenshots.
We will acknowledge that not many people are coming to a hidden object game for the story or the art. I just wanted to communicate how lackluster the presentation is on Peter Pan: Hidden Objects. It’s bordering on cheeky.
These Lost Boys Should Stay Lost
Elsewhere, the usual CrispApp Studio formula is on display. You are getting a sequence of hidden object ‘levels’ which are gated behind star-rankings. You need to stock up on stars to move onto the next level, and that means playing the same scene repeatedly – just with game mode changes.
‘List’ asks you to find objects in the scene based on their name. ‘Silhouettes’ are a dark outline of the item, so you’re often hunting for a shape without a clear idea of what it refers to. ‘Differences’ is a stripped-back game of spot-the-difference, where three items are missing from one version of the image, while ‘Puzzle’ and ‘Jigsaw’ are both much of a muchness. One jumbles a picture into puzzle pieces, the other rotated blocks.
As a hidden object game, Peter Pan: Hidden Objects isn’t all that bad. Unlike the story, the shopping lists are clearly worded and comprehensible. There is a distinct lack of clutter in the images, which makes the items easier to find and harder to lose. The art is clear (when it’s not half-realised), and nothing is hidden in shadows or overly camouflaged.
I wish the jigsaw puzzle pieces weren’t placed over the game board, but every puzzle game seems to make that mistake, so we will let Peter Pan: Hidden Objects off. The spot-the-difference also has an annoying habit of being offset. You can be looking at a slightly different image on the left than the right. But generally the controls are good, the art is precise, and there is little to grumble about.
Coasting on Former Glories
CrispApp is also very good at the supporting stuff. Highscore tables wait for you at the end of each level (look out for Dave Ozzy at the top of a couple of them. Knock me off if you can!), and they seem to aggregate your scores across every game mode. A hint system also lets you view the item without spoiling where it is, while a game map presents all the levels in a one-stop location. The map is a little frustrating to interact with (why does my cursor reset to the bottom-right ‘play’ icon, rather than the most recent level?), but it brings your star-ratings into one simple view.
Peter Pan: Hidden Objects isn’t a large game, though. We managed to 100% it in three hours, and completed the game in roughly two. To get the most out of it, you need to be motivated by highscore tables and multiple game modes within the same hidden object scene. If you’re not, and you’re eager for new locations to explore, you are going to be somewhat disappointed. You are forced to grind on levels to achieve star-rankings, and there’s no means of skipping that grind.
Stumbling Over the Line
Having played a few CrispApp Studios hidden object games, Peter Pan: Hidden Objects is comfortably their worst. It smacks of rushed timelines and half-finished art. It only stumbles over the finish line thanks to the CrispApp scaffolding around it. The hint systems, leaderboards and game modes are all very good – but are imported from any number of other games from the studio.
We would go as far as critically (Peter) panning this take on the little green guy, but J.M. Barrie’s creation deserves more care than what’s on offer here. Peter Pan: Hidden Objects comes across as an unfinished hidden object game.
Important Links
Peter Pan: Hidden Objects Invites You Back To Neverland – https://www.thexboxhub.com/peter-pan-hidden-objects-invites-you-back-to-neverland/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/peter-pan-hidden-objects/9NTCHTBM7R9V/0010
