Rogueside gamesHidden Through Time 2: Discovery has been fun for the past week despite some issues. Since it was my first real experience with the series, I bought the previous two games to play after finishing this one, and I’ll probably level up over time. But this review is about Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery and I’ve played it on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPad Pro (2020), and Steam Deck. I’ll focus on the iOS version, but it was also interesting to see how it controls and feels with a controller.
If you have never played a game in Hidden over time series, these are colorful hand-drawn hidden object games with beautiful animations, puzzles, and even a story. While it starts out relatively easy, finding every object in a given level is difficult, and later levels become more complex. You interact with the levels by zooming, panning, looking inside rooms, and even opening certain things as you search for the specific things, people, animals, and more for each level. The good news is that you don’t have to find every single thing a level asks for to move on to the next one.
Some levels have different times of day that items or people appear, which adds another layer of strategy, but I love just tapping on everything to see the team’s interactions and animations. It’s worth clicking on everything as there are some surprises and references to other games or characters. While you can just view the level requirements below, tapping on one of these will give you a vague hint to find said item. Some of these click immediately, but Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery doesn’t reveal everything from the beginning.
Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery is divided into three sections with their own stories and levels: Noir, Victorian and Science Fiction. The stories are nothing special. After playing through them and looking at previous games in the series, I feel Hidden in Time 2 was originally planned as the first game with multiple DLC packs, instead of two Hidden over time Games with a “2” in the title. Either way, Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery is an excellent hidden object game.
In addition to the main campaign levels Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery offers online levels on all platforms, but the level editor (Architect) is not available on mobile, at least not in the version I have. I didn’t spend too much time creating levels on Steam Deck since this review is for the iOS version, but keep that in mind. If the final version on the App Store includes this, I’ll update this review.
As for features, I’m disappointed that there’s no cloud save on iOS. I couldn’t sync my progress across either device. The Steam version supports creating accounts or linking your Steam account, but I haven’t seen that on iOS. That’s my biggest issue with the iOS version at the moment. That being said, some UI elements look a bit blurry on the iPad Pro and two of the menus have tiny text with a lot of white space for some reason. These minor issues don’t affect gameplay, but are disappointing in an otherwise polished and great game.
Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery The controls work best with the touchscreen in my opinion, but the iPhone version feels a bit cramped. I ended up enjoying the game a lot more on the iPad, as with most point-and-click adventure games and hidden object games. The iOS version doesn’t seem to have controller support, and I only tested it to mention it here. I wouldn’t play it with a controller after seeing how it controls on Steam Deck. It doesn’t feel as intuitive, but was fine after I got used to it.
The levels, performance, and loading times are all good on iOS and Steam Deck, it runs smoothly and there are no frame drops in my testing. I hope future updates can fix the UI issues and introduce cloud saves. If there is iCloud saves, I couldn’t get them to work at all on my build.
Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery is an excellent hidden object game with a campaign and many user-created levels that I have played so far on iPad and iPhone. There are a few UI issues that hold it back, but Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery is an easy recommendation if you like the genre or are looking for a new game to relax with.
