Out of Sight – The Gaming Experience

Out of Sight, just like your dirty laundry, you can probably see it if you look close enough.

This popped up on the front page of Steam, and being someone who loves hidden object games, I had to check it out. Plus, it stood out a lot more to me because it wasn’t the usual full screen of junk where you find a handful of items and you’re good to go with the storyline.

The small environments looked super cute and very cool and very unique. I thought it would add a bit more of a challenge and maybe even less so.

I wasn’t disappointed!

Developed by NinjaDuck Games
Published by NinjaDuck Games

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FAQ

What is this page?

This is an in-depth critique of the game Out of Sight. I go all in with my review by picking apart the game, piece by piece. By doing this, I try to help not only the devs that created the games, but also future aspiring devs by giving my viewpoint on everything as an avid gamer, but please understand…

There may be spoilers.

How long does it take to beat Out of Sight?

Around 2 hours if you’re actively searching for all of the objects in the scenes, perhaps.

If you don’t like wasting time with not knowing where the items are and prefer using the hint buttons then your time may be quite a bit shorter than that.

Title Screen

Background

Out of Sight is intuitive enough that if you’ve already begun the game and had to stop at some point and have started it back up, the starting screen is on the environment where you last closed the game.

So if you’re just starting, it’s going to be on the tutorial landscape–not that you’ll know–and when I found this out, because let’s face it, I thought when I booted the game back up, it just chose a random environment as the starting screen, I was pretty excited about it.

It just throws you back in where you were without a bunch of loading and waiting and whatnot.

Not only that, but the environment isn’t a static image.

Because they’re like little terrarium locations that look like they could fit into the palm of your hand, they slowly turn the whole time you’re on the start-up screen, that way it’s not just some image.

You have something whole to look at and admire before getting into the game.

Title Font

The objects in the game might be out of sight, but the title shouldn’t be.

I say shouldn’t, and I don’t think it is, but it’s certainly not glaringly obvious. I think this is due to the fact that it’s white text separated from the background of the game itself only by a darker stroke around the characters.

At the moment, I’m seeing it against a pale yellow-green background when the camera rotates it into the void.

I do like how it’s in the upper corner, away from the main attraction of the environmental theme though, instead of centered anywhere. That would distract from what the main attraction is, I’d think.

As for the font they chose? I’d say it’s a bit generic, but it’s also…odd.

It doesn’t align, and I think they were going for a disorganized look, now that I think about it, but I just don’t think it works, because it doesn’t match up with the rest of the font on the screen. It just seems…silly and rushed, maybe.

Like they were trying too hard to find the perfect font for a hidden object game when they should’ve just went with a plain one. That would’ve worked fine.

Misc.

Level Select

After you complete a level, you can go back through them if you didn’t get a high score and try to score higher.

Just click on Level Select and use the arrows to go back and forth through the scenes. There’s not a percentage to tell you how good you did–like an 80% or a 100%, so I’m thinking the best you can do is look at the score and guess.

But if you change your mind and don’t want to choose a level, just hit the X in the upper right corner.

Personally, I’d wait until after you finish the game just to see what your global ranking is in the end.

Screensaver

When you click this everything disappears from the screen and you’re able to take a screenshot if you want.

When you’re done, just hit Esc on the keyboard and wait about 3 seconds for everything to appear again.

Global Rank

After completing Out of Sight, your global rank is tallied up depending on your score.

I asked the dev about the scoring and this is what they had to say:

Each level starts with a x5 multiplier. Clicking on something that’s not and object (excluding ducks/interactables), the multiplier is reduced. Using hints also reduces the multiplier. Time has no impact on score. The multiplier is applied if you find all objects in that level.

High Score

This is, of course, your high score in the game, and it’s posted at the upper right section, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m pretty sure more than one person can have the highest score seeing as you can only find so many objects in the game, thus the score can only go so high.

Gameplay

Achievements

There are a total of 8 achievements, and if you complete the game you’ll get most of them, though 2 are a little more on the tricky side and completely missable.

Plot

No real plot point to the game. You just need to find the objects shown at the bottom of the screen within the small landscape given.

Game Length

The game shouldn’t take any longer than two hours, unless you’re hopelessly stuck in an area and absolutely refuse to use a hint on where that object might be.

Well, that and those rubber duckies hide in the darndest places.

But I’d say around 1-2 hours, depending on how good you are at finding hidden objects or how tired you get of looking for them.

Replay Value

If you’re like me and completely missed out on a couple rubber duckies at the start because you didn’t realize they actually meant something and were an achievement to collect them all, then there’s replay value in going back to collect all of them, which in turn should (hopefully) net you all the achievements.

If you’ve got everything you needed from the game, then there’s not much replay value, aside from wanting to beat your past scores.

But even then…there’s other games to play, y’know?

Genre(s)

Hidden Object

This is the main genre of the game and it’s the main purpose of its existence.

You’ve got an environment before you and in this environment it’s your job to find the objects shown on the bar at the bottom of your screen.

Why do you need to find these items? Because humans sometimes lose things, whether they’re important to our job, our lifestyle, our daily habits, our needs, our survival, or our paranoia–like where the hell that bear is so we know which way to run away.

Controls

The main things you’ll be doing in Out of Sight are spinning the camera to look all around the environment at different angles, and zooming in and out, because, yes, by golly, you can miss things if you don’t zoom all the way out.

And if you don’t zoom all the way in just to find that black cat at night, I commend you, because the devil take that creature.

Besides that, just shift the screen and be on the lookout.

I do wish they had an angle-changer (not sure if they do…?), because there were some items just beyond my sight where I could only see a sliver of them and I wouldn’t have known it was the correct object if I hadn’t clicked the icon for a hint of its location to end the search.

Interactions

I was really hoping that when I clicked on one of these small objects on the screen, it would make a sound akin to what Hidden Folks did with their objects, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

But that’s the name of the game with Out of Sight–clicking on the specific objects given to you at the bottom of the screen in the little terrarrium-like habitats.

I noticed that in some areas you’ll need to rotate the screen so you actually have access to the item in question, instead of through a glass, which seemed kind of odd to me, but okay. I guess my invisible fingers can’t pick something up through solid forcefields.

One thing that someone noted that I wasn’t a huge fan of but could get over, because it sort of begs you to pay attention, is the fact that once you click on an object and it disappears from the bar at the bottom, it will remain in the environment. So if you forget, there’s a chance you’ll click on it again.

And I’m not too sure, but that might lower your score multiplier in the end.

Aside from the actual objects given, sometimes you’ll be able to find a rubber duckie in a scene (but not every single environment has one).

Why a rubber ducky? Not too sure on that one.

Not too sure why it explodes in confetti, yet remains in existence, either.

Graphics

Style

Each environment is done with a 3D pastel artistic look to it, and none of it looks the same, let me tell you.

Well, maybe some of the trees look the same, but come on, they’re trees.

We have office desks, and while a lot of them might have the same bland look (let’s face it, some might be empty, because times are tough), there are quite a few that have their own personality to the person that sits there–including bobble heads or little stereo systems and magazines.

Which actually comes up more than once in a few different scenes, so I’m not quite sure about that one.

But the underwater area?

That had to be an interesting one graphics-wise, because if the water surface isn’t done just right and if the objects look too distorted by the surface of the water, then the gamer is going to have one hell of a time trying to find the objects at the bottom of the sea.

Soundtrack

Background Music

It’s been stated that Out of Sight has some chilled out grooves accompanying the sight-seeing you’ll be having while you search for the items in the bottom bar, and they weren’t lying.

You’ll either be bobbing your head to the jams, or slouched back while gazing at the scenes before you.

At least, I was for a bit, until it got to the point where I became hyper-focused on the missing items and completely zoned out on the sounds and became one with the graphics and the static in my own head and the where, where, where of my own thoughts.

Truth be told, I’m pretty sure there’s more than one track to the soundtrack of Out of Sight, but it all blends in seamlessly that it all felt like one music track.

I would’ve liked a bit more variety to the music.

As it is now, it all just sounds the same.

That’s not always a bad thing, depending on the length of the game, and Out of Sight can be pretty short, depending on how fast you’re finding the objects or how impatient you are with hitting the hint buttons. But it also reminds me of those Mahjong games I play, that has that one song on a loop that just goes on and on and on, and while it’s okay, it can put one to sleep with the monotonous of it.

And I don’t want this game to toe that line, because the soundtrack really is good.

Ambiance

I kind of wish there was more to the ambiance of the small environments.

For now though, there’s not…any that I’ve really been able to focus on. It’s just the game’s soundtrack that you can hear playing out before you.

But what I mean is in the house section with the pool, I wish maybe you could hear a bit of ambiance of kids laughing and splashing water, maybe a diving board being used, and feet running against the ground.

And at the construction yard there could be machinery sounds in the background.

All very diluted, mind you, so as not to interfere too much with your concentration or the chilled out groove, but just some kind of ambiance to fit the theme of the environment. Otherwise it’s just an image of a place and we’re looking for things.

It makes it a game, and it could’ve been made into so much more with just a bit more emphasis.

Sound Effects

There aren’t too many sound effects to this game, which is good, because nothing gets too overloaded for your ears.

You’ve got the bad sound effect, meaning you clicked on the wrong thing and your point multiplier goes down because of it; you click on the correct item, so the item at the bottom of the bar disappears; and then the confetti sound which comes with clicking on the hidden rubber duckie.

In other words, three sound effects:

Negative sound effect; point reduction
Positive sound; item found
Confetti sound effect; rubber duckie found

Final Thoughts

As an avid consumer and connoisseur of hidden object games, Out of Sight was just barely out of sight, but I was able to see it all the same.

I know, I’m witty.

I’ve played a lot of hidden object games–lord just look at my Steam library that’s full of them–and Out of Sight was actually a bit of a refresher. No having to look at giant screens full of clutter that didn’t make a lick of sense.

Instead, we have these cute environments that vary in size so as not to stress us out too much time and time again with objects that make sense to find–more or less–with music that’s meant to de-stress instead of add stress.

If you’re looking for a short HoG with lovely graphics and a chill groove and no rush to it, look no further.

FAQ