From mobile app to home PC, EnsenaSoft’s Where’s My What brings casual, time-killing seek & find gameplay to the Steam marketplace. As much as I love a good hidden object hunt, I think this one was better left to tablets and smartphones.

Imagine pulling open your junk drawer–come on, everyone has one at home or in their office/desk, right?–with a list of random items in hand to quickly spot and collect while being timed with a stopwatch. That’s the basic gist of Where’s My What. Each level has a randomized task list of specific objects that must be found from a jumbled mess of things strewn out across a side-scrolling play space. Looking at the list itemized horizontally across the top of the screen, you must find the items, visualized as cute, sticker-like icons, and click them to scratch them off the list. Making correct selections adds bonus time onto the clock, while an instant time penalty is incurred for miss-clicking objects that do not fit an assigned category.

Most of the item collection goals are vague–animals, something round, something sharp, electrical products, items that belong in a kitchen, cleaning items, tools, letters in the alphabet, numbers, music symbols, toys, paper things, and so on. Occasionally the targets will be more specific, like finding a doll with blonde hair, a black dog, or a sock with polka dots. There are two main problems here though.

First, there is too much ambiguity with objects that seem to fit a description but for some reason don’t count, or items that fall under a particular classification when the ties are very loose. For example, strawberries, cherries, and pineapples count as fruits, as they should, but also as dessert items, which is a bit of stretch. On the other hand, a tomato, which no one seems to remember is a fruit, counts as a vegetable but not a fruit. When asked to simply find a number, clicking the 8 on an 8-ball doesn’t register, but if the specific task is to find a number 8, then suddenly clicking the 8-ball counts. The logic is baffling. I don’t know about you, but my vacuum cleaner is an electric product, but in this game it only counts as a cleaning item while the game accurately recognizes objects like hand mixers and blenders as both electrical and kitchen items. And for the life of me I still cannot figure out what the game wants me to select when asked to find “Greetings.” It’s such a vague description, and no object I’ve ever selected has counted. At least the tasks are random each time a level is played and replayed, so getting stumped doesn’t derail progress.

The next problem is the simple fact that the music, color palette (which is incredibly bland and underwhelming), item artwork (at least the pictures are somewhat cute), and objectives remain the same from the first puzzle to the last. The lack of variety turns the process of seeking and finding objects, which actually is relatively fun for an initial 10 to 15 minutes, into a snoozefest. The adventure mode consists of 100 stages and takes no more than two hours to complete, with the starting time limit and time bonuses for correct selections decreasing in value at certain intervals in an effort to increase the level of urgency as you go. With the level selection map divided into blocks of twenty stages, the game would have been so much better had each section had its own level theme with different artwork and objects. But since everything looks the same from start to finish, once you understand the object classifications and memorize the picture art, the game becomes so easy that the ticking clock rarely is a factor.

While adventure mode becomes dull rather quickly, free mode hits the mark better as a quick pick up and play bit of casual time wasting, challenging you to simply find as many items as possible within a starting time allotment of 120 seconds while adding time onto the clock for each correct selection. There’s also a local multiplayer mode, which has two players take turns trying to find more items than their competitor within a firm 60 seconds. I could see kids or parent and child having some fun with this a couple rounds at a time. According to the Steam page, the game is supposed to have a 3-star rating system, but I couldn’t find its existence anywhere, across any of the modes.

Where’s My What plays well mechanically (a mouse is a suitable replacement for putting a finger to a touchscreen) and the core seek & find framework is sound, but with such little diversity of, well, any aspect of game or audiovisual design, there just isn’t enough here to hold your attention span beyond a few minutes. Without any perceivable content additions or upgrades from the free mobile app, it’s hard to justify paying a premium to play on a PC.

Pros:
+ Simple, intuitive seek & find gameplay; interface adapted well from mobile touchscreen to PC mouse
+ Free play and 2-player mode offer bite-sized moments of enjoyment

Cons:
– Some of the object classifications range from ambiguous to outright illogical
– Nothing really changes from the first puzzle to the hundredth
– Greetings? What the hell are these Greetings you want me to find?

Game Info:
Platform: Reviewed on PC (also on mobile devices)
Publisher: EnsenaSoft
Developer: EnsenaSoft
Release Date: 9/27/2016
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1-2

Source: Review code provided by developer

Buy From: Steam for $4.99

What is it and who made it? The first title in EnsenaSoft’s Mahjong Deluxe casual puzzle game series to come to Steam.

What platforms is it on and how much does it cost? The Steam version is out now for $4.99. Both free and premium mobile versions are also available for Android and iOS devices. Find links to the different app store options at www.mahjongdeluxe3.com.

How much did we play? Finished 45 puzzles across different sizes and difficulties in approximately an hour and a half.

Any technical concerns, hardware requirements, or other details you should know about? Nothing of concern to report in terms of bugs or performance issues. However, the game is missing all of the usual Steamworks features modern Steam users have come to expect, like achievements, trading cards, cloud saves, leaderboards, and so on. Hopefully with more experience on the platform EnsenaSoft can tailor its games to take full advantage of Steam in the future.

Why should you play it?

• Enter the Third Dimension: Though introduced in Mahjong Deluxe 2, this game has been my first experience playing Mahjong with three-dimensional layouts–and I like it! The rules aren’t as challenging since you aren’t dealing with tiles layered on top of and surrounding each other in 2D formations; you simply need to find matching tiles and click the pair to clear them. Even though the tile faces are all visible the puzzles sort of take on the feel of the classic Memory matching game in the way it helps to memorize where tiles are while panning the camera around a 3D formation to find their mates. Only the top side of tiles are printed, so as the camera is rotated the tile faces come in and out of view. It’s a fun alternative to the traditional method we’re all familiar with at this point.

• Mahjong Be Nimble, Mahjong Be Quick: While you can play at your own pace for casual enjoyment, the game features a nifty scoring system to give another layer of challenge for experienced Mahjong players to master. A score counter immediately begins ticking down at the start of a puzzle, and for every tile match made points are earned equal to the number left on the timer, which then resets to the maximum value and begins counting down again to determine the score for the next match. At the end of the puzzle, your total score is tallied up and rated with one to three gold stars. This is a clever way to promote and reward snappy recognition skills. The only thing missing is a clear delineation between the score values required for each star. For replaying puzzles to earn all three stars, it would have been helpful to have a visual indication of the point tiers.

• Enough Puzzles to Make Your Head Spin: If value is of any concern, let me set your mind–and wallet–at ease. This game is loaded with puzzles. 640 in total, presented in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and difficulties. All of them are available to play in any order from the outset as well–no having to accumulate stars or complete a certain number of puzzles in a preceding difficulty bracket to unlock more puzzles. Mahjong purists will also be relieved to know that the vast majority of the puzzles follow the traditional 2D format and rules; the split is 160 in 3D, 480 in 2D. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of Mahjong! I only wish there was a greater variety of tilesets, as seeing the same tile face graphics used for every single puzzle does become visually stale after a while.

Parting Thoughts: As bloated as the Steam marketplace has become in recent years, there still aren’t many options when it comes to Mahjong. On quantity alone, Mahjong Deluxe 3 has to be the best bang for the buck currently available on the platform. The presentation could use more pep in its step for sure, but the solid core Mahjong mechanics along with the sheer volume of puzzles is a hard match to beat.

What is Indie Quickie? It takes a lot longer to fully review a game than it does to get a good sense of what a game is. Even with a full-time staff of writers it would be impossible to fully review the thousands of games that are released every year. Indie Quickie is our way to offer snap impressions of the countless indie titles small teams and one-man game studios are releasing literally every single day, and to help guide players to worthwhile games they may not have heard about before.

Disclosure: A Steam code for Mahjong Deluxe 3 was provided to VGBlogger.com by the developer.