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Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





Hidden Object Games are the modern version of the I Spy books of the 90s and similar books. It’s a very simple premise: Find all the objects on the list in this scene that is cluttered with a bunch of stuff. Hidden Object Games take it a step further by adding adventure game puzzles and a convoluted storyline complete with voice acting. While the actual “I Spy” sections aren’t that challenging (for the most part) or interesting to view, the convoluted puzzles, storylines and voice acting are really the reason to play them. In almost every game you have to save the world or your life or someone else’s life by solving these ridiculous puzzles using the items you find by rummaging through junk. Frankly, I find them to be hilarious and charming, hopefully you will as well.

If you decide that you want to buy these then I highly suggest checking out Big Fish Games as that’s the best place to buy them since that’s most of their catalogue of games. A lot of them have been ported over to Steam so you can always check out the Hidden Object tag to find them.

I don’t want to watch you play I Spy for 30 minutes just for a bit of dialogue!
I don’t want you to either which is why I’ve edited down every single puzzle and hidden object scene so that they’re 30 seconds or less. Generally it’s less but I kept them in there so you can see the main gameplay aspect as well as give my commentators some time to breathe.

What’s the plan for this megathread?
Well I didn’t exactly know what to call it since I’m not going to just be playing one game. I usually get through a hidden object game in around 2-3 hours so that would make for a very short thread if I did just one game. Instead, I’m going to run through as much of my library as is feasible and that’s where the obligatory :siren:thread participation:siren: comes in. I have a library of about 40 games and I’ll be completely honest in saying that I haven’t played all of them yet. I buy a bundle of them and play one or two in one sitting then never touch the rest. I have played enough of them to keep things moving if a consensus can’t be reached, don’t worry. The thing is, I want you to decide what I play next. Good, bad, who knows? We’ll find out together!

I want to make videos/guest commentate/suggest stuff!
It wouldn’t be much of a megathread if I discouraged other people from making their own videos, would it? If you want to guest commentate then please send me a PM and I’ll add you to my skype list. The only rule is that you have fun and enjoy the silliness inherent in these games. If you want to make a video, go ahead! There’s plenty of hidden object games out there so have at them! As a suggestion, I’d say do something similar to what I did and keep the puzzles and hidden object scenes short. If you want to suggest a game that I don’t have then please do but beware that I’m not rich and probably won’t pick it up unless it’s cheap. I will keep an eye on it and if it goes on sale/bundled then I’ll pick it up and do a video immediately.

I have a game that I think is a type of hidden object game but isn’t exactly like the ones you’re playing
That’s perfectly fine too! One of my cohosts suggested the new game Californium which is a bizarre and short title where you’re actively hunting for hidden symbols to change the world. I see no reason why that wouldn’t count since you are looking for hidden objects. I’d say that as long as the game is focused on object hunting and is reasonably similar then go for it. Basically: Object hunting and puzzles ought to be the primary focus so no easter egg hunting in Serious Sam :v:
Games List
If I made a text list I feel that it would be entirely too long to do any good. Instead, I made an image of my library. The checkmark means that it’s completed.


Video schedule
As you can tell by my first set of videos, I’m going to try to do the recordings all at once for a few reasons. The first one is the obvious “it’s easier on me” since it’s often difficult to round up everyone to do commentary. The second is that I intend for my commentators to be able to keep up with the plot (assuming they’re paying attention that is) and I don’t want to open every episode with a summary of the previous events as I feel that would bog things down and generally make things a slog to get through. Since the games are so short the stories move very quickly and so I think it’s easier to keep up with everything that way. I’m going to try to get a set of episodes out every 2 weeks. If the game ends up being much longer than normal I’ll definitely split it up.

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Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





Videos - Image will have link to playlist

Let's Play Hidden Object Games - Brink of Consciousness: The Lonely Heart Murders Episode 1
Lonely Hearts Episode 2 - Who's the Killer? Who cares?
Lonely Hearts Episode 3 - Plans Fall Apart
Lonely Hearts Episode 4 - The 4 Cowmen
Lonely Hearts Episode 5 - Evans is a Moron

With me on these games are CombatLobster, Mateo360 and Scarybagels


[img]http://i.imgur.com/8MK99UV.jpg[/img]

Let's Play Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome Episode 1

Let's Play Dorian Gray Episode 2: Rated B for Butt

Let's Play Dorian Gray Episode 3: The Show That Never Ends

Same people in this one.



Let's Play Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden Episode 1 - Hidden Bioshock: Desync Den

With me are the usual crew of Mateo360, CombatLobster and Scarybagels.

Cowman fucked around with this message at 03:49 on May 1, 2016

LordHippoman
May 30, 2013

I, frankly, want this smug Jagen to be my avatar on all forms of social media immediately.
Oh man, I adore these budget hidden object games. You can get some really funny poo poo out of these. Looking forward to the rest.

(Do you have any objections to people posting Screenshot LPs in the thread, by the way? Considering jumping in on this, but I'm awful at VLP.)

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





LordHippoman posted:

Oh man, I adore these budget hidden object games. You can get some really funny poo poo out of these. Looking forward to the rest.

(Do you have any objections to people posting Screenshot LPs in the thread, by the way? Considering jumping in on this, but I'm awful at VLP.)

I have no objection at all, go for it! I would recommend at least recording the cutscenes if that's possible just so we can get the voice acting and all that.

I forgot to mention that there's no "Cut" commentary as of right now. Thanks to the sheer amount of dialogue and my editing down of the puzzles and hidden object scenes, there's not much time in between the dialogues so there wouldn't be much point to having commentary if I cut them out every time there was dialogue. I still have the uncommented videos up on my youtube, though they're unlisted at the moment, and can post those if wanted. Some of the other games might have enough space between dialogue that "Cut" commentary is feasible.

Edvarius
Aug 23, 2013
What, no Mystery Case Files? My introduction that this particular odd genre was from that series, specifically The 13th Skull. As for your list though, I think the only one I've played is House of 1000 Doors: The Palm of Zoroaster.

Mraagvpeine
Nov 4, 2014

I won this avatar on a technicality this thick.
I remember playing a bunch of Hidden Object games on Big Fish Games years ago. I remember this one game where you find objects to use on other objects and I think it had stuff with fairies and jewels.

Deformed Church
May 12, 2012

5'5", IQ 81


Oh, you're thinking of every big fish game ever! I loved that one.

I do love these as non-taxing casual experiences. Sometimes it's nice not to have to deal with lose conditions or narrative tension or difficult gameplay.

Asmodai_00
Nov 26, 2007

Cowman we've been steam friends for as long as I've had steam friends, so I'm here to support you in your dumb endeavour

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





For the next game, Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome there's a lot of brief quips and lines. The antagonist basically comments after every puzzle you solve so my plan is to just skip the more inane/uninteresting ones and play them at the end of the video. It has a recorder so I can play back any lines that I miss/skip. I felt like the large amount of dialogue in the previous game kind of dragged things down so I want to do my best to alleviate this for future videos.

Edit: Just finished recording it all and it's not that bad and the quips I skip aren't that important.

Cowman fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Mar 4, 2016

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





Well sorry for the extremely late update. First I had Windows corrupt itself so I had to spend a bunch of time getting that fixed instead of recording. Second, I just got a new job and it's been tough organizing around that. I've got the videos edited and uploaded, they just need to be commentated. Assuming things don't break horribly again, the videos should be back on track.

mateo360
Mar 20, 2012

TOO MANY PEOPLE MERLOCK!
ONLY ONE DIJON!
Got to love incompatible schedules :shepface:

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?
Oh my god, this is extremely my poo poo.

It's very premature, but can you do Abyss next? Gotta love that budget Bioshock vibe it has going on.

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





Roro posted:

Oh my god, this is extremely my poo poo.

It's very premature, but can you do Abyss next? Gotta love that budget Bioshock vibe it has going on.

After I get the Brink of Consciousness videos taken care of I'll do that one next. I don't think I've actually played that one so it'll be interesting.

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





After a much too long wait, I finally have the videos edited and uploaded. I'm extremely sorry for it taking so long. I got a new job as I said and it's a lot of hours so I don't have as much free time as I'd hoped. That being said, here's Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome

[img]http://i.imgur.com/8MK99UV.jpg[/img]

Let's Play Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome Episode 1

Let's Play Dorian Gray Episode 2: Rated B for Butt

Let's Play Dorian Gray Episode 3: The Show That Never Ends

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?
My recommendations for anyone interested in playing HOGs would be to try Nearwood, House of 1,000 Doors - Family Secrets (the sequel is a bit hit and miss in terms of fun, imo but try that too), Mind Snares: Alice's Journey, Dark Arcana: The Carnival, Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden, Sacra Terra: Angelic Night and the Mirror Mysteries games.

I found that Midnight Mysteries were good games in general, but the Edgar Allen Poe one felt a little hard to get into at the start. Nearwood is a 100% recommend, it has gorgeous artwork and lovely music, and the story is mostly pretty solid for a HOG, if a little rushed at the very end.

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





Roro posted:

My recommendations for anyone interested in playing HOGs would be to try Nearwood, House of 1,000 Doors - Family Secrets (the sequel is a bit hit and miss in terms of fun, imo but try that too), Mind Snares: Alice's Journey, Dark Arcana: The Carnival, Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden, Sacra Terra: Angelic Night and the Mirror Mysteries games.

I found that Midnight Mysteries were good games in general, but the Edgar Allen Poe one felt a little hard to get into at the start. Nearwood is a 100% recommend, it has gorgeous artwork and lovely music, and the story is mostly pretty solid for a HOG, if a little rushed at the very end.

The Midnight Mysteries series is really good and a lot of fun, to be honest I'd recommend anyone with a casual interest to pick them up. I'm going to get to the whole series later on since I want to do Paranormal State and Infected because they're both really funny to me. Paranormal State is a half-assed licensed game that's quick and really makes me laugh hard at the dichotomy of the voice acting and on screen character.



On another note, I thought the Brink of Consciousness games were pretty good and fun. The puzzles were pretty nonsensical but nothing too unusual for these types of games. I think the sequel is miles better but I really enjoyed the melodramatic radio drama in Dorian Gray.

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?
That Dorian Gray game was hilariously over the top. Especially the bonus chapter at the end - did Oscar not even consider that the police would have found the state Sam was in when he escaped from the green goo vat? And all the notes he wrote to Sam? Write out your plotholes, dumbasses!

I have just this moment remembered a really good HOG called Tiny Bang Story. It is the most relaxing game I've ever played, and despite being so short I think I've racked up like 14 hours on it. It usually crops up super cheap during the sales.

Combat Lobster
Feb 18, 2013


Man, the Home Alone movies got weird.

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?
I feel I should apologise for requesting Abyss because I played it again last night and holy poo poo the characters look grotesque.

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





Roro posted:

I feel I should apologise for requesting Abyss because I played it again last night and holy poo poo the characters look grotesque.

Yea they're loving terrifying. I've got it recorded and just need to edit it and get it commented on. It'll be another quick one

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





It's been a month of nothing and I deeply apologize for the extreme delay. The new job's been rough but I'm just about done with it and will have way more free time. This is the first episode of Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden



Let's Play Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden Episode 1 - Hidden Bioshock: Desync Den

With me are the usual crew of Mateo360, CombatLobster and Scarybagels. Things get weird and steadily terrifying as we explore Not-Bioshock and discover the muppet people that inhabit it.

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Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow







Let's Play Abyss Episode 2: Ken Levine's Call of HOG

With me are the usual crew of Mateo360, CombatLobster and Scarybagels. We wrap up this main storyline with an unsurprising twist and some failed jokes.

Next episode will wrap this game up with the bonus chapter. It should be up later this week as I just need to edit the commentary.

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