For the more visually challenged amongst us, the game offers a hint system, which once used highlights the area of something you’re looking for. The game has this ability to leave you sat looking blankly at the screen for ages when the answer is right under your nose, and it’s here where the game really excels. The items themselves are very well integrated into the environments, with a lot of items either acting a part of the scenery, camouflaged cleverly or just represented in a way that you wouldn’t expect.

Some of the items in the list might be presented as cryptic clues, or they might require you to fulfil certain criteria, such as using tape to repair a wire, or putting items in a box. To tick an item off the list you simply click on it. You are presented with a picture of a decrepit and cluttered area, such as a library or train station and provided with a list of ten items to locate. The main bulk of the game seems to take inspiration from the old Virgin Digital Music quiz that did the rounds a few years back. ‘Where’s Wally’ crossed with Silent Hill… Thankfully, the core gameplay mechanics do actually work in the midst of a game that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. It’s a set-up that is bizarrely inconsistent, and it comes across scatter-brained. The grand finale is the only scene that requires any lateral thinking and it sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the game. With this you’d expect a point and click game, or something that requires investigation, only bizarrely, the way to escape is to find objects from a 2D image and occasionally solve puzzle mini-games. The premise of the game is to escape from what seems to be a remote and deserted Silent Hill-esque American town called Whisper Valley. All signs seem to point to some sort of dark narrative, but there really is no narrative at all. To hear the chilling music, see the title and the opening screens, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was not your typical Popcap game. Implying there’s a story when there really isn’t… The title intrigued me, but the premise intrigued me more in what I found to be a very strangely put together package. Billed as a ‘Hidden Object Game’, I had no idea what to expect when going in. One such smaller studio is Spintop Games, who haven’t exactly set the world alight with their contribution to the industry (I’d never heard of them before), however their latest game, Escape Whisper Valley, became available to purchase through Popcap and has received a fair amount of marketing. As part of Popcap’s quest to dominate the casual and puzzle market, they have been known to acquire smaller, independent studios along the way.

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