Myst was not a scary game, but that didn’t stop it from making me feel uneasy when I was younger. I don’t know that I’d describe the game as frightening but there was something about the abandoned world that really put me on edge while stumbling through it. Of course now, years later, that’s not the case, no matter since Myst was not necessarily intended to scare to begin with, the same cannot be said of the recently released: Hidden: On The Trail Of The Ancients (OTTotA for short), which aims to infuse the first person adventure genre with a little HP Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood.
The game tells the story of Thomas Farrell a young anthropologist preparing to join his Uncle on an expedition aimed at uncovering the mysterious Legend of the Ancients. Thomas’ adventure begins in a boarding house in Buenos Aires, where a former colleague, Adriano Scopelli, has uncovered some important information for the expedition, but also seems to have come down with a nasty case of death in the process.
Like the games it draws inspiration from, Hidden takes place in a 3D world but locks the player’s movement, allowing you to only control the camera and click on the screen to interact with the environment or move around the world. There are a few keys to bring up your inventory or menu items but for the most part you’ll be playing the game entirely with the mouse. The system works just fine, though I did find I enjoyed it more after turning on the “smooth camera” option in the menus.
I have some pretty pointed opinions on how adventure games should be designed, and my criticisms for these types of games are almost always the same. First of all I wish Hidden: OTTotA offered more feedback on why some item combinations or proposed solutions don’t work. As it stands if you try to use an item in the environment and it’s not the right one you’ll just receive one of several different canned responses saying “that won’t work” or “that doesn’t seem reasonable”. But when I try to fit a key into a keyhole and it’s just for the wrong door, is that really all that “unreasonable”? I’m a big believer that feedback is the easiest way to give the player hints without using a hint system that drags you out of the game world.
Speaking of hints the game does offer up a system in case you get stuck, but it’s not particularly well designed. Pressing “G” will bring up your daily goals and each goal has a question mark next to them that will give you a hint when clicked. The hints are brief single lines of text and using one kicks off a ninety second timer before you can see the next one. The problem is that the hints aren’t aware of what tasks you’ve already completed meaning that if you’re 80% done with a puzzle and have to use a hint the system is going to start at step one regardless forcing you to check back in 1.5 minute increments to find some sort of guidance.
Puzzles in the game are generally pretty solid. I will mention though that there are a few moments that are less about making the player think logically and more about making them find items that are either concealed in the dark or too small to be noticeable. I enjoyed fixing a music box to earn the cooperation of the owner of the boarding house I was staying in, I was less of a fan of rooting around for a key on the floor in the dark.
I have to pay my compliments to the game’s soundtrack. Music is so critical to the horror genre, and here the mood is expertly set for the entire adventure. From Scopelli’s creepy trashed hotel room to an abandoned expedition site, every creepy set piece features the perfect audio to put the player on edge.
The game’s story is largely told through spoken word and books found throughout the world. A quick word of advice on accessibility, it seems that subtitles have been overlooked for the initial release, but according to the game’s developer should be a priority for the game’s first patch.
Voice acting isn’t quite as uniformly perfect as the soundtrack with a couple odd or unnatural line readings spread throughout the game. Having said that though I expected much worse, especially for a title hailing from a country where English is not the first language. The game’s dialogue is stone cold serious, but almost all of the lines that might come across as goofy in the wrong hands are delivered just right.
Admittedly I had a little help along the way but all in all the game took me just about under four hours to complete. That might be a little low for some when factoring in the $14.99 asking price. Personally I think it rides the pricing line a little closely, especially considering it’s only a portion of the full story. Developer Lost Spell’s intention is to release a second game: Hidden: The Untold at a later date to wrap up the story.
Hidden: OTTotA is by and large the kind of game that you don’t really see anymore, and if you’re a fan of the genre then this is kind of a case of victory by default. There are a few missteps in this first entry, but with the right feedback and a little extra hard work I think Lost Spell could really knock the second part of this story out of the park. If you’re ready to have a little faith go track this one down on Steam.
This review was done on retail code provided to us by the developer.
