Hidden object games can sometimes be a bit stale, especially when it has a paper-thin story and very samey ideas that rinse and repeat. This means the games can often outstay their welcome, but this isn’t the case with It’s Kooky. This is not so much a hidden object game – but rather a spot-what-doesn’t-make-sense game. It is a lighthearted twist on the genre that largely works well. The twist offers levity and interpretation into what is often a dry genre.
Each scene in It’s Kooky is hand drawn and in many cases, a lot of the objects, animals, people and things are animated too. They walk back and forth, swim around or rotate on an axis to make things feel more alive. The idea is that each scene will have a certain amount of kooky things in them. Kooky is wildly up to interpretation and the developers play with this idea for each scene. It might be a dog walking a human, or a polar bear on a ski chair. It could be something underwater that can’t swim, or something from the desert in a snowy mountain. It could even be a wizard popping up at a train station or a baby on a shop roof. If it’s weird or doesn’t make natural sense, you can call it kooky and click it.
Part of the fun is scanning the scenes and working out what is or isn’t kooky. Most of the time it can be obvious but there are some more subtle ideas that you might not spot at first. Half the levels are just you against the clues – trying to find them at your pace. The other half of the levels are timed and you must find all the clues within that time limit to unlock the achievement associated with that level. There is no level variation, so you can tackle this over multiple attempts and this is how I got the platinum trophy in the end. It is playful, fun, engaging and never too stressful or overwhelming. This is because the hand-drawn art means you don’t have layers upon layers of objects to scan. It’s like a sketch comic has come to life and so you don’t have added problems of opening doors or chests for example for hidden layers of depth. There are a couple of levels where moving cars and trains will require some light timing-based clicks to capture the kooky thing but that is as hard as it gets.
You can complete the game in a couple of hours but that is exactly what I wanted from It’s Kooky. A night mode is helpful to inverse the monochrome colour palette. There is a supportive hint system that tells you the vicinity of the next item to find, but it doesn’t call it out directly. I like that you still have to work a little bit for it, although how the hints replenished seemed a bit opaque. The next level unlocks as you cross a threshold of found items from a previous level. You don’t have to be a completionist to unlock all the levels but you will need to find everything to get all the achievements.
It’s Kooky is a breezy and light game, wearing its personality out loud and proud. It won’t change your life but it offers a jaunty young adult humour to spotting the weirdness in a drawing. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to the casual gamer when it is on sale.
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