Summary
- Release Year: 2016
- Genres: Point-and-click, Puzzle
- Platforms: Android
- Developers: Online Game City
- Publishers: Online Game City
Mystery of Hidden Book is the latest hidden-object puzzler from a small Belarusian team that usually sticks to cheap mobile ports. This time they aimed higher: a self-contained, PC-first mystery set in a crumbling Victorian manor, wrapped around a supernatural story about a cursed tome that erases itself as you read it. The elevator pitch—”What if Return of the Obra Dinn had hidden-object scenes and a magic book?”—is irresistible. The execution, unfortunately, lands somewhere between “pleasant surprise” and “polished prototype.” After 11 hours, two crashes, and one genuinely clever twist that I refuse to spoil, I’m convinced Hidden Book is worth your evening… but only if you calibrate your expectations to AA scale, not AAA spectacle.
Gameplay: hidden-object comfort food with a crunchy layer of point-and-click
If you’ve ever lost an afternoon to Artifex Mundi or Big Fish, you’ll slip into Hidden Book like a warm dressing gown. Each chapter drops you into a hand-drawn room stuffed with just-enough clutter. A list appears—”Tin soldier, cracked monocle, three moths”—and you click until the scene surrenders its last paperclip. Where the game pivots is in its “living inventory.” Every object you collect can be dragged back into the scene to reveal new hotspots: dunk the tin soldier in the melted candle to reveal a hidden key mold, then use the mold on the furnace to cast a brass key that opens the next room. It’s a simple glue, but it stitches the hidden-object screens to light adventure-game logic in a way the genre rarely tries.
Puzzles range from jigsaw-style “reassemble the torn photograph” to a surprisingly mean sliding-block maze that took me 25 minutes and a sheet of graph paper. None are genre-defining, yet none feel phoned-in either. A rotating cipher wheel that translates glyphs into directions for a clock-based safe had me mumbling “okay, that’s clever” under my breath. Difficulty options let you remove the mis-click penalty or add extra hints, so genre newcomers and veterans can both find their comfort zone.
Story: a page-turner that occasionally sticks together
Hidden Book’s framing device is classic campfire stuff: estranged siblings, a suicide note that may be forged, and a leather-bound grimoire whose text rearranges itself nightly. You play as Evelyn Moore, antiquarian and occasional insomniac, returning to the family estate after 15 years because the book has started bleeding ink into reality. What follows is a four-act chamber piece that never leaves the manor grounds yet manages to visit a 17th-century galleon, a WWI field hospital, and a future London skyscraper—all rendered as frozen dioramas inside glowing doorways. It’s ambitious, and for the first three acts the writers juggle timelines without dropping a beat. The finale, sadly, rushes to tie every loose thread with a single exposition dump that lands somewhere between Stephen King and daytime soap opera. I didn’t hate it, but I audibly said “Wait, that’s it?” when the credits rolled.
Voice acting is a mixed bag: Evelyn’s actor sells the weary academic shtick, but her brother sounds like he recorded lines in a tiled bathroom between Zoom meetings. Subtitles are comprehensive, so you can mute the voices without penalty.
Graphics: Victorian clutter porn at 4K
The art team only built 22 scenes, yet each is stuffed with period bric-a-brac: taxidermied ravens, absinthe spoons, stereoscopic photos, and at least three different kinds of ouroboros motif. Running on an RTX 3060 at 4K, I hovered between 65-75 fps with occasional dips when the screen filled with particle ink. The lighting model is more “enhanced mobile” than ray-traced showcase, but the artists compensate with sharp texture work and a muted palette of Prussian blues and burnt sepia that sells the gothic mood. Character portraits during dialogue look hand-painted and occasionally dip into uncanny valley, though they swap facial expressions often enough to keep scenes lively.
Performance & tech: short book, small problems
The whole package clocks in at 8.7 GB and loaded in under 12 seconds on an NVMe. I hit two hard locks—both during transitions from hidden-object scene to cut-scene—but the auto-save is generous, so I lost maybe 90 seconds of progress. The build I played was labeled 1.04; the day-one patch promises better controller glyphs and ultrawide support. On Steam Deck, Proton compatibility is “playable but not verified”: expect 40-50 fps with occasional stutter when the ink shader kicks in.
Replay value: one-and-done with a post-game chapter
Hidden Book is honest about its scope: a single evening, start to finish. Once you know the solutions, a rerun takes about two hours. The devs added a “Curiosities” tab that unlocks concept art and a bite-sized bonus chapter set the night before Evelyn arrives. It reuses rooms but adds randomized object lists, effectively a New Game+ for trophy hunters. One playthrough netted me 17 of 24 achievements; completionists can expect another 3-4 hours to clean up.
Pricing & value proposition
At launch the game is $19.99, 20% off during the first week. That positions it above the $9.99 shovelware pile but well below the $29.99 Artifex Mundi tier. For genre fans, the price feels right: you’re getting a compact but memorable mystery with higher production values than most hidden-object comfort food. If you only dabble in the genre, wait for the inevitable $14.99 sale.
Worth your time?
Yes—if you come for the hidden-object zen and stay for the spooky manor vibes. Hidden Book doesn’t revolutionize adventure games, but it modernizes a niche that still thinks 1024×768 is an acceptable default resolution. The story sticks the landing about as well as a cat on a waxed parquet floor, but the journey there is atmospheric, occasionally brilliant, and never cruel. Fire it up on a rainy night, pour something dark into your favourite mug, and let the cursed book do the rest.
Review Score
7/10
Art
Cover Art
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