What Is a HOPA?
Hidden-object games and other casual games hang around the periphery of the gaming scene — they have their devoted communities, but these are not the games that will top the bestseller lists. Most are developed by small game studios and later distributed by one of the major publishers, like Big Fish Games. I’m willing to bet several people reading this have noticed a game in this category in a Steam sale, and their eyes have slid right past it.
Still, if you’ve never played one before, here’s a general summary: Hidden-object puzzle games are typically two-dimensional games that require you to solve puzzles and find items in a cluttered scene as your gameplay objective. Within that framework, games can vary in types of puzzles, objects to find, and story genres.