Ophelia Payne

My love of hidden object games is well known. There is something about searching for items you’re not really supposed to find, but they are all very similar in that respect. You have a list; you look for the thing. But sometimes a game comes along that shakes up what you expect from a genre you are too comfortable with. Nippets is that game.

Blink Industries describes their game, Nippets, as a “hand-drawn hidden object game inspired by the joy of people watching and telling small stories.” Nippets isn’t just made of still images of scenes, but moving stories. It’s like a “Where’s Waldo” book come to life. People and animals go about their day, each with their own needs. For example, you might see a small child crying and realize it’s because they kicked their ball up into a nearby tree. Search the tree, find the ball and give it to the child. You found the item you were looking for, and you completed the task associated with it. Now, not every item you need to find has to be given to someone, but many do. Finding multiple garbage bags? check. Load them into the garbage truck. Be sure to beep the horn before it drives away.

Sometimes you may not know where to look for an item, so you’ll need to click on the clues available to you. This is especially true when you have multiples of an item to search for, like the 5 garbage bags or maybe multiple lost items for a recipe you have a clue for. You can find hints by clicking on the items you’ve found for a clue to where these missing items might be. Nippets is far more interactive than a lot of games in this hidden object genre because you can grab, push and pull objects to find other locations. You can open windows and curtains and even go into some of the buildings and shops.

With 3700+ handcrafted animation frames (truly hand-drawn), composed of 400+ unique characters and 20+ explorable areas, you’ll find a few hours of fun hidden in this game. The original soundtrack, with warm lo-fi beats, is pleasant and understated. It isn’t particularly memorable, but it was a nice backdrop to the gameplay and bonus points for not being the type that makes you want to mute it after a few loops. Other than the soundtrack, there are some punctuated sound effects when you click on items, and I found them charming and amusing at times.

There is no pressure or time constraints, and I loved that you could start to recognize some of the NPCs across the maps if you paid close attention. I loved that there were little stories, some cute puzzle-like things to unravel, and even some unexpected Easter eggs. See a lock on a door? Now you need to find a key.

The scenes take you across multiple seasons from beaches to ski resorts, and everything in between.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the delightful menu screen that is a kitchen and focuses on the fridge with magnets and Polaroid photographs. As you complete tasks, you unlock more photos and magnets. As someone with a healthy (unhealthy?) number of magnets on their own fridge, this was utterly charming and immediately cemented its unique place.

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With about 2-3 hours of gameplay, you won’t be in Nippets for a long time, but it will be a good time. Interact with everything; you never know what you’ll discover. Turn the lights on, beep the garbage truck horn, and pet all the cats. This hidden object game was a unique take on the genre, and I have no issues recommending it to anyone.

Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.

**Special Thanks to Future Friends Games, Blink Industries and Press Engine for the review code**