Platronic Games were recently in touch to give us a sneak peek at their debut Find the Hidden Object title, The Secret Castle! Now, if you’re a genre veteran, chances are you have certain expectations of a game like this — for better or worse. For example, you’d probably expect the game’s presentation to be entirely 2D. You’d probably expect it to feature absolutely bizarre objects that are all hopelessly camouflaged against backgrounds, making the player resort to just tapping everywhere until he or she finally hits on something. There’s always the Hint button to bail you out if you’re patient enough to let it recharge, and hopefully a creative puzzle or two waiting around the corner to make the whole ordeal worthwhile. If this all sounds painfully familiar, then get ready, because you’re in for something that looks like it’s going to be positively refreshing!
It’s not easy getting adjusted to a new community after a move. Certainly not when your new house is a creepy old mansion replete with cobwebs, where you’re plagued by surreal dreams every night. This is the predicament Jonas Lyons finds himself in. Information on how the game’s story and mode of play intertwine is still incredibly tight until we conduct our interview with the developer, but I’m going to take a shot at guessing that Jonas spends his nights probing ever further into the titular castle, and his days trying to figure out whether the dreams that take place there have any connection to the real world whatsoever.
The cool thing Jonas has going for him is a skill that many of his Hidden Object predecessors curiously lack: the ability to view environments in the third dimension! The genre has always revolved around trial and error — and up until now, that process has taken the form of tapping here, tapping there, then hoping like heck the player has some backup option when the next hidden object just won’t out itself. In The Secret Castle, the player tilts the iDevice to shift his or her perspective of the game’s environments. We get to realistically duck to peek beneath tables, or shift to the side and see if objects sitting just ahead have been shielding our eyes from some needed trinket all this time. Where the genre traditionally relies on extreme visual acuity, The Secret Castle demands real intelligence and curiosity on the player’s part. That’s why I’m pretty stoked to find out more about this one! Let’s allow Platronic Games’ creative director to demonstrate the player’s experience more fully, then leave you with the developer’s info after the jump:
We’ll have an interview with Platronic Games soon to learn more about The Secret Castle. In the meantime, keep an eye on the developer’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter account for the latest!