Desert Things Reviews

Desert Things is a simple, unpretentious hidden object game, I advise you to try it.

I'm saying I recommend this game but there are drawbacks: the game has no instructions; the soundtrack is depressing (thankfully, you can mute it); and trying to move the view to find the items is very difficult. Moving the view is the most frustrating for me as the board moves in a circle and getting a close-up of certain areas is nearly impossible. It came to the point where I could not see the item but would blindly move my cursor over a mountain or house just to have the item silhouette behind it light up so I could click on it to "find" it. Overall, the graphics are good and I liked the challenge and satisfaction of finding the items. If you are up for a not-so-easy search game, this is for you.

As far as Hidden Object games go, this game does two of the things no Hidden Object game should never do: - force you to "find" items in a specific order, even though you see them over and over again (ie, find 10 tables, but can't click on them until the game lets you) - won't let you proceed to find the next thing until you've found the 1 single thing it wants you to find (ie can't find that 10th shoe but there are still 9 tables to find, can't progress in the game)

Not really liked the locations in the game. Maybe, of course, it's just me, but the deserts, which also have a monotonous yellow color, make me sick.

I thought that the idea looked cool and the graphics look appealing, so got the game and its sibling at a sale. Both of the games suffer from the same flaws. The camera controls are horrendous. Even thought you have to find stuff in the edges of the map, you can only circle around a fixed point in the middle of the map. On top of this, they add a mist if you zoom out. You have to find a bunch of objects. They write "similar to" but they have to be exactly what they show. Items are often small and hidden inside parts of the landscape, so you have to be lucky to find them with a mouse-over, which outlines them. There are a bunch of different objects to find, but if you get stuck on one you cannot switch to another, which can be frustrating. From what I have been able to tell, the order you are asked to find the items is random for each play through. There is no hint function and no possibility to save progress and no instructions on how scoring works (seems that you get penalized for missed clicks). Object placement seems random and not suiting where they would normally be in a landscape, so no help there. Hidden object games are supposed to be relaxing, but this quickly led to frustration.