The Magic Storm

The Magic Storm belongs to the HOG genre, but it’s not your typical hidden object game. There are no minigames / puzzles to solve, you don’t have an inventory filled with items, and you won’t have to hunt for missable collectibles – in that regard, it is very similar in structure to the games developed by Crisp App Studio, yet much more polished, with a better design and perhaps a third of the price, if not less.

The game consists of 10 hidden object scenes linked together by beautifully narrated cutscenes. These tell the story of a young boy, Timofei, who gets lost during a storm and is transported into a magical realm of wolf riders; it’s a simple and charming story that you would expect to find in a children’s book. The soothing voice of the narrator, the minimalistic yet heartfelt text and the delightful, colorful art make it really seem that you are listening to a bedtime story told by your grandma before putting you to sleep.

The hidden objects scenes are extremely well made, and finding some of the items proves to be a real challenge – they are hidden very well, blended perfectly with the background and often appearing as part of the scene. Each level requires you to find 20 objects that are randomly generated from a list of 40+ possible items. These are displayed 5 at a time, as a list of icons which can also be clicked if you want to reveal the item’s location (this hint function can be used with a cooldown though).

The Magic Storm is a delightful little game, definitely worth checking out. It’s a short one though: going through all levels takes around 45 minutes (more or less). A note of warning to all achievement hunters that will want to pick it up for the easy cheevos: you will need to repeat each level 4-5 times in order to go through all 40-ish items (since they are randomly generated every time you start the level).