Finding Stuff can be Fun for Everyone

Hidden puzzle mechanics make games engaging to all kinds of audiences.

As mentioned before, games and printed media that use hidden puzzle mechanics mainly appealed to children. As developers found new ways to use hidden puzzle mechanics, the audience for hidden puzzles significantly grew.

This can be seen when the Where's Waldo? series was created. When the Walker Books company was developing what would become the first Where's Waldo? book with the creator, Martin Handford, somebody asked, "Wouldn't it be good if you were looking for an individual within that crowd scene, rather than just looking at a crowd?" Shortly after two scenes were displayed at the Bologna Book Fair, "...there was a huge crowd of people standing round looking for [Waldo]." Simply by adding a distinct figure to the illustrations, the pictures were given a purpose and became a game for everyone of all ages to play. The books appealed to new audiences with their wordless picture books with one goal. As children's editor Caroline Horn puts it, "...the books' strengths are with boys and boys who don't particularly like reading. There's nothing else like it and it's a brilliant travel book...they're very quirky, very colourful, and you can get hooked."

This can also be seen when Big Fish Studios released Mystery Case Files: Huntsville and hidden puzzle mechanics became a huge hit with casual gamers. With the portal already popular for its marble popper, match-3, and mahjong games, their audience instantly clicked with the new kind of gameplay hidden puzzle mechanics offered. Even when other developers jumped into the genre, many of their first games paid homage to the first Mystery Case Files games.