If you are in the market for a traditional hidden object game, then the third instalment of the Whisker Wanderlust series may be for you. It prioritises detailed hand-drawn artwork over innovation, but provides a solid old-school approach to finding those pesky objects.
There are ten stages in the game, with one more bonus level to unlock once you’ve found 40 gems (four per level), and each is a landscape or portrait drawing of a mystical land. There will be hundreds of tiny creatures, always including cats, and whimsical landscape oddities to zoom in and out of. It’s the artwork that makes this series, and whilst the style and themes remain consistent throughout each instalment, zooming in to see the detail never gets old. I do wonder if they have pre-drawn assets that carry over, though, as I’m sure some art from previous games makes identical appearances here.
Each level has five types of objects to find. Socks and gems will always be part of the five, and then there will be three unique objects for each level. As the levels are vast, zooming in and using the WASD controls to cover all the drawing rigidly (and not miss bits) is the best way to attack the game. What I always like about the Whisker Wanderlust series is that they use old-school tactics to hide things in plain sight. A sock will be shrunk and oriented to look like an eyebrow. A stick will blend into an outline. A gem will be placed inside a stained-glass window that’s already got a shaft of light beaming through. Whilst each level has hundreds of things thrown about in them, and honestly, a lot of it is noise and achievement unlocking, there’s always a good 15-20% of object placements that require decent concentration and a good eye to spot. A hint points you to an unfound object and works on a 90-second cooldown. You can dip back to level select and re-enter the level to clear that cooldown, though.
Whilst there is zero innovation or progression from this series, it does exactly what it says on the tin. I did come across a few bugs in Unwritten Chapter, which I’ve not had in previous entries, though. The music loops are short and occasionally fail to loop, leaving you with silence. More annoyingly, the final secret stage didn’t unlock for me because the UI that allocates your 40 gems to illuminate the hidden drawings that unlock the level glitched out. It meant that 8 of my gems vanished, and so I had to redo each level that glitched to find those gems and hope it worked next time around. Hopefully, these issues will be patched post-release, but I’d like longer music loops in future entries for the series, and perhaps a few additional bells and whistles to vary up the gameplay. I think I’ve been so spoiled by Lost and Found Co’s approach to hidden object games that this traditional approach feels less than in comparison. That feeling holds especially true when the artwork, whilst beautiful, feels very similar to previous editions. A tentative recommendation for most, but still a thumbs up for hidden object traditionalists.
A review copy provided by the publisher. Whisker Wanderlust: Unwritten Chapter is out on 10th April on PC.
Higher Plain Games is part of the Higher Plain Network. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. There are additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and downloads. You can also share the website or use the affiliate buy now links on reviews. Buying credit from CD Keys using my affiliate link means I get a couple of pence per sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. Thank you.
