Does this game have high replay value?

[ChizBallz]

Thinking about getting this game. It seems like a casual, fun and relaxing game. Since I love Find Waldo books when I was younger. But one thing I'm worried about is the replay value. After you finish finding everything, whats left to do? I mean are the levels dynamic? Meaning you can go back to find the same items, but in different locations? Or will they always be in the same exact place?

[scallysche]

The folks and items will - unfortunately for you case - always be in the exact same place, there are to this date no dynamic levels. But for me personally that doesn't mean that the replay level bad. I mean, even though I went through the levels a bazillion times, I still forget some targets.

Don't let levels being static rob you of the fun you'll have. And you can always look forward to new levels (like with the Factory or Winter Updates).

[palex00]

Yeah like scally said - the objects will not move. However we're experimenting with a "do it yourself and share your level"-thing (that will take a while tho.) and more updates will come (I think per DLC tho).

[JPMcMillen]

One way to add replay value would be to have more findable things on each level, but only select some of them for each playthrough. It could be random each time, or in sets that change each time you start over.

[palex00]

Yeah but imagine that you're looking for one specific last thing and it doesn't show up in the hints list - yet you found it in the level. Also keep in mind that that wouldn't increase neither the replayability nor the level quantity - it would however artificially stretch the game length and we don't want to do that.

[Meng]

Bought the other day, no replay value but to be fair, if you bought a where's waldo book, you can only really 'play' that once as well.

[Hanomaly]

i think it has replay value if you wait some time in between playing again. Like a Where's Waldo book or a I Spy. If you wait a month or two and play again usually you cannot remember where all the items are when you play again (or do the book again).

i had this game on my cellphone and played it several months back, and didn't remember where anything was from the levels i'd played on my phone all those months ago.

i think it is fun to play this game with someone else. Me and my friend played together sitting side-by-side at my computer. It was fun to see who could find things first. ALTHO we did fight over who got to control the mouse

[pb]

I really think it would be great to play the same level again, but with different objects to find. There are lots of unique objects in every level that I sometimes find by accident and I wonder why they're not included in the list to find...

[Furnoodle]

It has decent-to-high replay value, provided you give it a few months in between plays. Most areas are large and complex enough that people won't remember everything about them. A few clues/answers will probably jump out from memory but many will simply be forgotten over time.

[palex00]

(as far as I'm concerned I'd say that by the time a new theme is avaible, you may have forgotten about the last areas so you could replay them)

[Lazypete]

Originally posted by palex00:

Yeah but imagine that you're looking for one specific last thing and it doesn't show up in the hints list - yet you found it in the level. Also keep in mind that that wouldn't increase neither the replayability nor the level quantity - it would however artificially stretch the game length and we don't want to do that.

Haaa I think it's sad. I played other finding games that were playing like that and I found it quite fun. You visit the same place but there are still things you had not found yet. IMHO it makes the game replayable and make it that each level is even more fun.

I agree that with time it will surely be replayable, but not right away I think... but I dont have the game I just watched someone do the first three level. I hope that the other level have much more things to find. I enjoy being stuck on something I can't find.

This seems like a great game it should be next in my buy list.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by palex00:

Yeah but imagine that you're looking for one specific last thing and it doesn't show up in the hints list - yet you found it in the level. Also keep in mind that that wouldn't increase neither the replayability nor the level quantity - it would however artificially stretch the game length and we don't want to do that.

wait so the searchables arent changing each time i play?
That doesnt make much sense.
The pictures are quite big and complex with lots of things to find. If the searchables would change and be mixed through each time i play then not only would i explore the picture differently each time and so find new interesting details, i would also be entertained by each picture for a much longer time.
I dont want to search for that chicken or the panda every time i play the jungle picture. I hoped that the next time i play i have to find totally different items/animals/people and not the same again.
Its not that hard to remember or even find that dude balancing on that log on the water. But maybe i forgot where i once saw that one ape playing with the bongos and now i have to find him again.

I just started to play the game, but i thought that when the pictures are so vast, big and complex that i have to find new things each time.
When thats not the case, then thats a big let down and failure at using the games potential.
It further is kind of weird that the creator put so much effort into placing all the details but then have none of them ever used. I imagined that the creator even crafted hints for every single item on each picture to then have them mix through each time i play.

[Adriaan]

@Wooden King

We designed Hidden Folks to stand out from other searching games by giving every target a story, a way they make sense in the world of Hidden Folks, a story you can search for that will help you find the target. In Hidden Folks, the targets and their stories shape the area around them - therefor 'randomising' a target's location is not possible, because it would have to reshape the whole areas every time.

We thought about replayability a lot early on in the project and experimented with procedural generation: to build both the stories, the illustrations, and the targets based on rules and algorithms. But this led to really, really poor results, visually and story-wise. We couldn't find a way to have an algorithm make an area that was even close to the appeal of the handcrafted area. I still believe there is probably a way, but it would take us ~at least~ 10 years to make something that looks okay-ish. This is not an exaggeration. And so we decided against procedurally generated areas, but for a linear handcrafted areas. We decided to give people X hours of guaranteed fun as opposed to 10X hours of okay-ish fun. The whole concept of 'replayability' therefor doesn't really apply to Hidden Folks. The game has as much 'replayability' as a book has 'rereadability'.

You say that we as creators do not use the details we added, but I disagree. A big appeal of the game is that it's a big living world, and all the details add to that.

Anyhow, it saddens me to hear you expected something else and think this game is a 'failure at using the games potential'. What made you think the target's locations were randomised?

[katabatic]

Listen, I'm not Wooden King, but from what I understand they're not trying to say that the locations of the existing targets should be randomized each time... rather, that the list of targets should be randomized. For example:

So in the scene, there are
- A monkey
- A butterfly
- A man studying the monkey
- A lizard in the flowers
- A man bathing in the river
- A cat hunting the butterfly

In your first playthrough, you're tasked to find
-The monkey
-The butterfly
-The man studying the monkey

The next time, you're tasked to find
-The lizard in the flowers
-The man bathing in the river
-The cat hunting the butterfly

In both cases, all of the things are still there. Some of them just aren't what you're looking for that go-around. It's not procedurally generated, and everything makes sense, but it would still add replayability. Wooden King thought that this might be the case, as most of the pictures are large enough to have more targets than those provided, but was disappointed to learn that this was untrue.

Does that clear things up?

[Buntkreuz]

This is what i meant.
Which is why in another thread i explicitly said that i think that the pictures/sceneries are so complex and nicely created featuring so many details and therefor different items/persons/animals and i dont understand why only such a small portion of it is used.

I see so many details in each scene that i played till now, that the game could easily have me search different items each time i play a scene.
I NEVER said that target LOCATIONS are randomized.
I would like if the dev would look closer on what i explicitly said because he has a totally wrong understanding of what randomization means in this context.

You can randomize different aspects in a game, but what i talked about was NOT that the game puts objects into a scene randomly.
The game has a bar on the bottom showing me my targets. These targets are spread and hidden on the picture, i have to search them and click them to hit a checkmark. Finding all items/targets will complete the search.
But whether the game now has me searching for the bird in the picture or a butterfly is of no special importance.
The game currently can not randomize the targets i have to search which is what i expected from a game like this because it IS a mundane feature.
Simply because it does NOT need to change the picture in any way, but simply switch the targets on the bottom panel.
Randomizing the searchable targets has NO effect on the picture itself.
And i repeat again, there is NO randomization of locations in any way.
The picture stays as it is and how you intended it to look. No changes needed.
The only change i expected was that the game has me looking for different targets in the scene each time i play, not the same 10 over and over again.

Why is this a mundane feature to add and pretty easy?
I could fire up photoshop, make a screenshot of a scenery in hidden folks, then use photoshop to erase the targets shown on the bottom, copy other targets spread in the scenery and then paste them on the bottom bar.
In the end that would pretty much have the same effect i asked for, only that i thought the game would do such a mundane task for me.

[pb]

It's a very good suggestion and it would not only add replay value but also pleasure of recognition ("a man in the gorilla suit? oh! I remember seeing him the previous time, now where was he..."). All it takes it to prepare a list of all unique targets and shuffle it for a given playthrough. A welcome option would be to avoid repeating targets so that each playthrough is unique and equally fun (after all repetition is what we're trying to avoid here). You can even make a set of "static" unique scenarios for each picture (f.ex. five pre-made sets of targets for a big map) and have the player play each of them, that would still be a great improvement. :-)