Hidden in Plain Sight

Most new games try to copy one another in regards to gameplay mechanics, which is the reason so many of them end up with very few players. However, the developers that come up with original ideas always seem to get a lot of attention, as it’s only normal, given the fact that they also put the most amount of work into their projects.

Hidden in Plain Sight is pretty difficult to put into words when it comes to how it’s played, given the fact that there’s no reference whatsoever. In essence, you play the role of a girl trapped between dimensions, which means that what you see is not exactly there. However, if you look through the girl’s silhouette, you can see into another dimension, and that’s the one you need to navigate.

Obviously, the game is played from a third-person perspective, otherwise the whole “looking through your own silhouette” gimmick wouldn’t work. In fact, your character is pretty much invisible most of the time, except for a faded outline that’s visible every now and again. Speaking of which, the goal is to find your way to the exit, which is tougher than it sounds.

Looking through your character does not come naturally for most players, except if you used to take advantage of glitches in old video games. However, Hidden in Plain Sight allows you to zoom in and pan the camera freely, which is very useful to see more of the hidden dimension at a time. It’s also a very intuitive method to take advantage of the gameplay mechanics.

As for the graphics, everything is as basic as it gets in this regard, but that’s to be expected. The whole thing was designed in just 72 hours for the Ludum Dare game jam competition, which means that there was little time to get artistic. Hence, most of the levels are just empty and textureless, and the people are quite boring to look at as well.

When it’s all said and done, Hidden in Plain Sight is really onto something here, and the mechanics could be used in a variety of interesting games. Hence, the game deserves a try from every curious gamer out there.