Afil Games Try Their Hand At Spot-The-Difference With Mixed Results
There’s been an influx of spot-the-difference games on the Xbox Store – most of them from Jolly Lobster Interactive – and that’s far from good news. Play any one of them, and it becomes clear why it’s a problem. The Jolly Lobster games are gen-AI slop, full of repeated images, nonsensical artwork and the same differences in every image. Feel free to play them if you want any hope for humanity to spill from your ears.
But that’s an issue for games like Sticker Picker. This is a spot-the-difference game that, from screenshots, doesn’t look that different from the Jolly Lobster games. How is the casual player meant to know which one is shovelware, and which one scratches the itch of a spot-the-difference game (and is made by humans)? There’s a decent chance that Sticker Picker gets lost in the noise.
What Makes You Pick Sticker Picker From A Line-Up?
Sticker Picker is a reasonably straight-down-the-line spot-the-difference game. It has 30 puzzles to work through linearly, and each has ten differences to jab at with your cursor. Curiously, you can only jab at the differences on the right-hand image (we’re not entirely sure why this is the case, as it would have been such an easy change), but once you find and click on one, a red ‘X’ appears and makes it abundantly clear that the difference has been found.
There’s a hint system on hand if you get stuck, and it throws a kind of sword-compass onto the screen, spinning towards an unspotted difference. You only get three of these hints per level, which feels oddly arbitrary: we would have thought a cooldown would have been better. Still, it’s nice to get an actual hint, rather than a full-on spoiler.
There’s no timer, but there is a ‘Challenge Mode’ if you want to play with some pressure. A timer ticks up, and you get a three-star ranking if you manage to hoover up the differences quickly. It’s bullet-hard, actually: we only managed to get three stars on a couple of occasions, and that was because we pressed Retry on a level that we’d memorised moments ago. Even then, three-stars aren’t guaranteed.
And that’s it, really. Spot-the-difference games tend to be simple, and Sticker Picker is no different. You can finish it in an afternoon, on both normal and Challenge Mode.
A Guided Tour Through Afil Games Catalogue
This won’t be the case for many – if anyone – but I got some nostalgic joy out of Sticker Picker. The images are all drawn from the Xbox Store cards of Afil Games’ titles. The publisher clearly looked at their stockpile of marketing assets, created over the years for their titles, and wondered how else they could use them. Well, with some Photoshop fiddling, they became a spot-the-difference game.
I’ve played most of the Afil Games that are shown here, so I had a nostalgic ‘hey, I remember that one!’ reaction as I went through the 30 puzzles. I doubt many other players will be carrying that experience with them, so – as I said – I’m a little niche. But it does mean that the images are of a decent quality. They’re far from half-sketches, tossed away on a puzzle compendium: these are marketing illustrations that have a degree of polish, and the differences are chosen well. They are almost all clear, and the categories of differences are varied. You’re not looking for the same colour-swaps in every image (boo to you, Jolly Lobster Games).
30 puzzles, though, is paltry. I know Sticker Picker is only £4.19, but I’ve played a fair share of these budget spot-the-difference games, and I can’t recall one that has offered less than, say, 50 puzzles. Sticker Picker has no excuse. These images are all drafted from a hard-drive of marketing assets. There are plenty of games that aren’t included here, which means there are plenty of assets that could have been used. We can only slap on a cynical hat and assume they are being saved for a possible sequel.
A Blink-And-You-Miss-It Experience
We finished Sticker Picker in slightly less than an hour, and didn’t feel a huge amount of impetus to play the Challenge Mode. The differences are located in the same place, and the only variety comes in the form of that time limit. We ended up popping into the Challenge Mode for some achievements, and then scooting right back out again.
As Afil Games’ first attempt at a spot-the-difference game, there’s stuff to praise. The images, taken from their back-catalogue, are varied, attractive and detailed enough to make them strong puzzles. The hint system and controls are fine, even if they lock you into finding differences on the right-hand screen, and a Challenge Mode is there for the sweatier speedrunners.
But we can’t help feeling that a spot-the-difference template is being created, while not actually filling it with enough puzzles. Sticker Picker is so slight that even the £4.19 price starts to look steep. We swept through 30 puzzles in less than an hour, which left us wondering ‘if these puzzles are so easy to make, why are the pickings so slim?’. Hopefully that question gets answered positively in a likely sequel.
Important Links
Sticker Picker Puts Your Eagle Eyes To The Test – https://www.thexboxhub.com/sticker-picker-puts-your-eagle-eyes-to-the-test/
Buy, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/sticker-picker-xbox-series/9ppg7d7mqx98
Buy for Xbox One – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/sticker-picker-xbox-one/9p50btklk24p
Buy for Windows PC – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/sticker-picker-windows/9ndhxmw5sg0p
