One of my most recent “blind” buys has been Jellies of the Deep. I was drawn to it because of its lovely hand-drawn jellyfish art that feels like a mesh of pencil sketch and digital painting, and its art is the main focus. Jellies of the Deep is a casual spin on the hidden object genre. Instead of finding a hidden object, you’ll need to spot uniquely designed jellyfish across the deep seascapes of the game. It isn’t too tricky, but there are some nice touches to elevate the concept.
There are 20 levels in the game, almost all of which take place across multiple screens. This is a key mechanic because the jellyfish swim around from screen to screen. It might look like there’s a unique design at the moment, but that’s because others are swimming around elsewhere. Keeping tabs on what you’ve spotted is half the difficulty. Later on, the game introduces a background layer of jellyfish that you’ll need to click on to bring to the front of the screen to view. Then you’ll have lightfish to illuminate dark areas, icefish to freeze everything in place for 30 seconds, and geysers that may need turning on or off to propel the jellyfish into certain areas of the level to make them easier to sort. These are all nice touches, and whilst they don’t bring any additional difficulty in the long term, they do switch up level designs a bit to keep things moving.
While the designs are nice, you’ll soon zone in on what changes from level to level. It’ll be a colour, an eye placement, a tentacle placement, or a polka dot design. This makes spotting differences quite simple, and if you struggle, there is nothing to stop you from just spam-clicking to complete a level quickly. The one negative comment I have, aside from the general lack of pace or difficulty (which to some will be a good thing), is that there seems to be a sizeable gap between clicking on something and their reveal or pop animations taking place. I can’t tell if it’s lag or by design, but it felt clumsy and sometimes animations and sound effects would trigger out of sequence or just long after something happened.
Nothing here is groundbreaking, but Jellies of the Deep is a perfectly fine odd-one-out casual puzzle game for those who like underwater bubble sound effects and some nice floaty jellyfish artwork. The cosy crowd might like the gentle pace, and its short duration means it doesn’t outstay its welcome either. Simple, traditional, old school hidden object styled time waster.
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