Color Me Purple

I don’t know how many people reading this (if anyone) waste their time with free-to-play games, but I do.

Over the years, I have played a bunch of G5 games, and Hidden City is my favorite. It was the first G5 game I had installed on the computer I purchased in 2018, and I’ve played it everyday since. The game isn’t perfect, but it updates regularly, the in-game costs are generally low, and it’s easy for low-level players to advance. I’ve quit most of the G5 games I installed the past five years, but Hidden City is one of the few games I still play.

Recently, I started playing Hidden Epee, too. And it has become part of my daily rotation. I only started playing this game because a G5 “friend” incessantly sent me invites despite me declining them every time. So, I relented. At first, I was pleasantly surprised by the early gameplay and the interesting storyline(s). But the game’s issues have compelled me to make this writeup.

I’ve decided to leave this review on Tumblr because I don’t believe I can leave a long review on the game page in the app store. Also, Hidden Epee doesn’t have a wiki or a Facebook page.

What Do I Like About Hidden Epee?

I’ve been playing Hidden Epee for close to a month (since July 2023), so there must be a few things that brought me back to it day after day. Here are the things I like about this game:

1. I like the dialogue.

For now, the dialogue is clean, and the game has clearly defined characters. Of course, I like some characters more than others, but that’s to be expected.

2. I like the general story.

Hidden Epee takes place in 17th century France. The player needs to find the Silver Epee and solve the mystery of the eclipses that have caused several residents to disappear. There are also many interesting side stories involving characters you meet along the way.

3. I like the game’s music.

I don’t think I have a problem with any tracks, but some are more relaxing than others.

4. Many of the graphics are beautiful.

The daytime scenes look the best, and the faces of characters are realistic.

5. It’s easy to earn special items to enter the event scene or Other World.

Most locations reward me about 7 items to enter the special event scenes, while faction locations reward me about 10 items to enter the special event. I can earn candles to explore Other World locations by helping villagers, exploring some regular locations, completing contracts, or meeting other objectives.

6. Some actions in the game yield generous rewards.

Opening chests can give you important tools, keys to enter faction locations, and gems to fight monsters. Fighting monsters and successfully searching locations in the Other World can reward energy.

7. You can choose a faction.

The game has six factions: King, City Guard, Aristocracy, Cardinal, Citizens, and Sea Brotherhood.

In Hidden City, you can’t decide which profession you have, but you can choose your alignment in Hidden Epee.

8. It’s easier to replenish your energy with time.

In most games that have energy limits, it will take 3 minutes to gain back one unit of energy or power (you need the former to search a location and the latter to charge a friend’s location). In Hidden Epee, it takes 2 minutes.

What Don’t I Like About Hidden Epee?

Here’s everything that’s wrong with Hidden Epee:

1. The game crashes or freezes at least once a day, especially if you play it for more than 30 minutes at a time.

For example, if you click “Play” on a location or minigame and experience a crash before entering the scene, the game takes your energy and any special items you use to enter the location without giving you anything back. Other times, the game might freeze after certain ads appear. For me, I often see problems when an ad for the Sherlock Holmes hidden items game appears. One ad just won’t start, nor will it let me click out of it. I’ll have to close the game and start it up again.

The game crashing is perhaps its biggest issue. And it’s especially infuriating when that happens after I successfully search a location or defeat a monster but before I can click “OK” to collect my prizes.

2. You might not be able to visit all your G5 friends who have the game installed.

I can only visit a few friends (and perhaps only two are still playing this game). When I try to visit the rest, I get a message that those friends have a different update of the game installed.

How is that possible? With other games with a visiting feature, it doesn’t matter which update they have because I can still visit them. I contacted the support team about this issue, and they’ve done nothing about it.

3. The music is too quiet.

Above, I said I like the music. However, I can barely hear it unless I turn up my volume to an uncomfortable level. This isn’t a problem with other G5 games.

4. The game scenes are too large.

Searching a location can be harder and take more time because of how large each scene is. And the game doesn’t zoom in that much. If you were to take screenshots of a location, you would need to take three at a time to capture the whole scene.

And you can forget about using screenshots for Past and Reflection modes (that would require 9 screen captures at a time).

5. Some items are too small or otherwise hard to see.

This problem also makes it easier to waste time during a search.

Some items might be nearly transparent, so you will need to use tools to find those items initially. Other times, some parts of the scenery can completely obscure items. Listed items should be possible to find without the use of tools.

6. During special events, the game asks you to find (too) many extra items.

You can see the extra items (by silhouette) in the upper right corner of the scene, and they appear one at a time. At most, you can get five tickets that you can use to earn up to 50 items during the designated period (40 or so days), but to earn a ticket, you need to find 2-3 items. Why not just require players to find five extra items?

7. The game’s responsiveness is unbalanced.

It can be harder to move about the scenes in a timely manner, especially with Night mode. You must hold down your left mouse button to move down in Hidden Epee, whereas in most hidden object games, just moving your mouse is enough to move your area of vision.

Also, it takes more than a second to charge friends’ locations or flags or to get rewards from your flags. For example, if you click on a flag, you need to wait for any items you receive to reach your inventory before you can click on another flag. A quick double click might speed up the process, but I don’t have this issue with most G5 games.

On the other hand, Hidden Epee is too sensitive to the input from my mouse when I’m searching for items on the list. That’s a double-edged sword, no pun intended. While the game’s sensitivity helps during a search (when I can’t find specific items), it can lead to inadvertent double-clicking and time penalties.

8. I don’t like the match-3 game mechanics.

Specifically, it’s hard to create bombs, fireworks, and scepters for the Market (where you play the main match-3 game), and the scepter will only take away pieces of the same color or merge with bombs and fireworks. In other match-3 games I’ve played, boosters that function like the scepter will only take away pieces of a color based on which piece I select. Ultimately, it can be extremely difficult to create boosters and cascades in Hidden Epee that make it more likely to win the game. Often, it requires a few plays just to beat one level of the Market.

9. Leveling up isn’t that rewarding.

Since it’s easier to replenish your energy, you’re unlikely to use it all up before you reach the next level. Also, you’ll only get 3-4 extra points of energy with each level up. I think 5 extra points is better than that.

10. Not all assemblers are free.

In a game like Hidden City, you can give any assembler (except the newly introduced one for the current event) to each of your friends once per day. In Hidden Epee, some important assemblers will come out of your inventory if you want to give them to friends.

11. The game’s items are too expensive, even if you don’t pay actual money.

The game doesn’t drop enough of the tools you need to progress during some searches, and you can’t purchase some important tools with coins. Even coin purchases can be too steep. I believe all the basic tools should have a coin purchase option (1, 5, and 10), and buying 10 of those items should cost no more than 45,000-90,000 coins.

Making matters worse, some tools are only available at the end of a search. I wasted tens of crystals buying extra moves while trying to defeat monsters (I know, I know), but now I will avoid those monsters until I have enough gems to fight them. Speaking of the monsters …

12. Fighting monsters is more difficult than it needs to be.

And it requires you to play match-3 games, and the top-level monster needs you to create boosters to take amulets off the board. That can be next to impossible without boosters or losing a few times. I prefer fights that only require you to use a few items to repel the threat. Why should you need 2-3 amulets to fight a monster, only to lose the fight because you ran out of moves?

13. Some of the contracts are too punishing.

Some days, the daily contracts (there are five a day) require me to do 10 or more searches in the Other World or receive 10 or more Amulets of Courage. That can be impossible for players who don’t have enough Babylonian Candles. I also hate it when the contract calls for me to use tools or activate bonuses from my inventory. I want to stockpile those items for emergencies.

14. The game doesn’t allow you to keep more than 100 gifts at a time.

It only allows 60, and it’s easier for gifts to quickly accumulate on the map. Ideally, only 2 or 3 gifts should appear after each successful search of the event location.

15. The game doesn’t have a full screen option.

When I play a PC game, I want to see the clock and my app taskbar. With Hidden Epee, I need to set the screen ratio before the game loads, or the display will be messed up. This doesn’t happen with other G5 games.

Why Am I Still Playing Hidden Epee?