Hidden City: Hidden Object Guide: Tips, Cheats & Tricks to Solve All Mysteries

G5 Entertainment’s Hidden City: Hidden Object on Android, titled Hidden City: Mystery Seekers on iOS, is a unique puzzle-solving fantasy adventure where your quest to find the answers to a colossal mystery takes you through a seemingly endless series of puzzles that require you to find hidden objects. Armed with your wits and your eyes, you will constantly be engaging in a race against time as finding all the hidden objects in the location within the time limit is required for you to take a step closer to solving the mystery surrounding Shadow City.

Hidden City: Hidden Object hosts vividly detailed visuals and intricate level designs sure to immerse players into its magical world. Beyond the overall ambiance of the environments, your adventure is likewise made engaging by the slowly yet sensationally unfolding story that continues with each puzzle you solve. Whether or not you have played loosely similar games before, Hidden City: Hidden Object completely new experience with its abundance of game modes and features that make every puzzle you solve a unique one.

Finding supposedly hidden objects that are actually in plain sight sounds easy, especially for the uninitiated. Hidden City: Hidden Object starts you off with a tutorial session and some guidance to easily breeze through the initial challenges. Every new feature or item introduced as you progress with your adventure comes with a simple guide as well. The difficulty is expected to increase with each new puzzle ahead of you but, with commitment and strategy, you should be able to make it through everything.

If you have just started your adventure in the world of Hidden City: Hidden Object and want to dominate every challenge and become an ace detective, we have you covered. Read on and check out our Hidden City: Hidden Object Guide for a bunch of useful tips, tricks, and strategies!

1. Understand The Basics

Hidden City: Hidden Object lets you step into a huge fantasy city with an abundance of content waiting to be discovered. Although you will naturally start off having access to just one location, solving puzzles, earning EXP, and reaching level milestones will eventually broaden your horizons. Each location you visit has a wide range of items to find, ensuring that every visit comes with a random set of items to search for. Additionally, items will be located randomly in the scene, often defying logic and at the same time cleverly blending with the background.

Up to five items to find will be displayed at the bottom of the screen and each item you find fills up a bar at the lower part of the screen, just above the list of items to find. You will know when you are close to solving the puzzle if fewer than the maximum items are displayed and if the bar is about to become full. All you need is to tap the item that you find to clear it off the list.

What makes solving puzzles challenging is the element of time as a delimiting factor that adds some pressure to the gameplay. An item you are searching for may look different in one session than another. Similar items may also be available in other locations but you can expect to discover new things in every new area you unlock. Clicking on the wrong item will show you a red aura on the item and yield a time penalty.

Hidden City: Hidden Object provides players with the ability to zoom in on the scenery to help them see items more clearly. This will be presented as a guide before starting on some puzzles and is an essential tool you must habitually utilize. There are also special tools you can use to help you find items instantly or extend the allotted time for the puzzle. These are consumables that can be bought using premium currency or can be earned as rewards from quests and events.

Every puzzle you solve in a location fills up an expertise bar and, once full, the level of that location will be upgraded for you. Each new upgrade makes solving puzzles in that location give more rewards. However, you can expect subsequent sessions to be more challenging as well, by leaving you to have to find more items or having you play within a shorter time.

Another simple feature you should appreciate is the pause button at the upper left corner of the screen. Playing a timed session can become stressful for beginners and Hidden City: Hidden Object does not want you to feel compelled to play through each session without any pauses or breaks.

Every puzzle you attempt to solve consumes energy and while there is a cap to the energy you can hold, it replenishes over time. Newer locations will typically require energy and failing to solve a puzzle in any location forfeits the energy you consumed to attempt to solve the puzzle.

2. Follow The Story Quest

There is a deep yet short narrative that greets you as dive into the world of Hidden City: Hidden Object. The lore as to how you found yourself in pursuit of solving a huge mystery is likewise provided in the app’s description. Hidden City: Hidden Object capitalizes on this story much further than you might expect as the puzzles you engage in follow a series of quests that are in line with moving forward with your seemingly never-ending investigation.

One of the gameplay mechanics you will be introduced to early on is the quest system. An icon will emerge on the left side of your screen and clicking on it will apprise you of a quest to pursue. Likewise, the initial exclamation mark on it will become a check mark if the quest has been completed and you have to tap on it and claim rewards to clear the quest and move forward.

Accomplishing quests earns you different rewards and one of the most important resources to keep grinding for is EXP. Quests are a good source of EXP so pursuing it should be your top priority. Reaching level milestones enable you to unlock new locations and areas to explore and all unlocked areas can be visited at any given time. As more and more locations become available to you, though, it is best to stay focused on the quest. In as much as there will always be something to gain from solving puzzles in any open location, there is a lot more to gain when you play in that same location in pursuit of a quest.

You will start off having just one pending quest on the left side of the screen but will soon have multiple pending quests to pursue. Keep in mind that most quests that send you through solving puzzles largely involve securing an item exclusively found in that location. As rewards for every puzzle session are random, it can happen that you will not obtain the needed item in your first or even first few attempts.

Puzzle quests are not limited to exclusively finding hidden items as well as Hidden City: Hidden Object provides plenty of mini-games for you to engage and revel in as well. There are also werewolves, ghosts, gargoyles, and other anomalies you may need to vanquish to earn exclusive items for some quests and some quests also center around completing and trading item collections you amass as you continue to solve puzzles.

It is understandable to have occasional temptations to stray from currently pending quests. Again, quests are the top source of EXP that will help you level up and unlock more content. As much as you can, keep on pushing forward with quests and unlock as much of what Hidden City: Hidden Object has to offer before straying from quests. If for some reason the roster of current quests is too challenging for you, then that would be a reasonable excuse to pursue other activities for the moment.

3. Complete And Trade In Collections

The fun and excitement in Hidden City: Hidden Object is mainly attributable to solving various puzzles, even the ones in the mini-games, but there is an almost equally addictive element relative to the collection mechanics of your journey. You will be introduced early on to collections as some of the quests that form part of your adventure will have you solving puzzles to secure pieces of a collectible item to trade in. You will initially be visiting your collection to trade in quest items but you should, later on, consider visiting it often, through the icon on the lower right side of the screen, and strategize around completing certain sets.

The Collection menu in Hidden City: Hidden Object is divided into 4 separate tabs, which only makes sense given the abundance of items to collect. Every set has five items you need to have as well as a set of items called assemblers, which are necessary, to assemble the set. The quest collections stand as the most basic sets you will be introduced to early on considering quest objectives will regularly have you collect and assemble these items.

Items under the City tab categorically consist of every possible collection item you can find in different locations across the city. Note that for some of these items, your rank in a particular location must reach a certain level first before they become obtainable. In any case, random elements affecting which item you can get make it exciting and at the same time challenging but there are consumables you can use as well to tilt luck in your favor.

The collectible under the Mysticism tab can be a little more challenging to pursue as these items either exclusively only appear from certain anomalies, monsters, or game modes other than the regular one. As there are certain requirements to banish monsters and the presence of anomalies, like the various game modes, are completely random, you can expect to not have as many of these items as you do in the previous collection tabs.

Finally, the artifacts section of your collection houses artifacts you can use for their temporary boost effects. The ingredients or pieces required here are the only ones you cannot request from your friends as the items you need to gather to complete any artifact are the ones you assemble in the previous tabs. As challenging as it can be to even complete all the requisites for just one artifact, keep in mind that everything you assemble in any of the collection tabs also comes with its own set of rewards.

Although we maintain our recommendation of prioritizing quest advancement as far as progressing through your adventure is concerned, you should eventually consider learning to target specific collection items, especially in pursuit of specific artifacts that will be useful for you moving forward in your journey.

4. Prepare To Do Some Research

Finding hidden objects that are well placed in the background scenery can be challenging beyond what you can imagine and Hidden City: Hidden Object can make it a bit more challenging when the object you are looking for is very different from your idea of it in mind. On one hand, items like an American football and a painter’s palette will always look similar to one another but on the other, objects like a kite or fire extinguisher can take on many different forms.

A cat is easy to recognize and find regardless of its poise and fur color but there can be instances when the clutter of details in the scenario can make even the most obvious objects easy to miss. Considering everything, the most challenging part of finding an object is when you are not even sure of what that object is. For example, you may not be as familiar with what a Chinchilla is given that it is native to South America. A fleur-de-lis may be completely foreign to your stock knowledge of words as well.

Given these instances where you may be completely unfamiliar with something or perhaps not entirely certain as to what object you are exactly looking for; your browser will be your best companion to help you solve the puzzle. If you see a word you do not know, simply pause the game through the button at the upper left side of the screen, open up a browser, and type in that word. Selecting to see images of that object will be highly recommended, of course.

There are also game modes in Hidden City: Hidden Object that scrambles words to make the puzzle even more challenging for you. The idea is for you to unscramble the words first to determine what you need to look for. While more experienced word game players may only take a few seconds to figure these out, it is expected to be a huge extra layer of challenge for beginners. As such, we likewise recommend using your Google-fu-for-word unscramblers to help you with these types of puzzles.

5. Take Advantage Of Event Challenges

Hidden City: Hidden Object, without a doubt, already has an abundance of content and features awaiting you in its expansive world. Even at the start of your adventure, you will already have an idea of just how long the journey will be given the size of the city map and the levels you need to reach to unlock the farthest areas. If you peeked a bit into the collection menu at this point, then the seemingly endless list of items to collect and exchange also hints at Hidden City: Hidden Object’s content volume.

Pursuing the story quest in Hidden City: Hidden Object guarantees more hours of fun and excitement than you can potentially count. As the introduction of more complex game modes and the increasing difficulty levels of available locations make it more and more challenging for you to consistently pursue objectives, you will naturally need to redirect your efforts temporarily to other advantageous activities.

Sometimes, even the most difficult puzzles can be made exponentially easier if you have tools and boosters to spare. Given that these tools, although obtainable for free, are expensive if you base their value on the shop prices, you should always exercise some prudence in utilizing them. Fortunately, Hidden City: Hidden Object always has special events available for the most active players to take advantage of and these events can help you amass resources including tools and boosters to prepare you better for the more challenging puzzles ahead of your journey.

Do not get the wrong idea, though, as event targets and objectives do not necessarily connote additional effort that strays too far from your usual activities. In fact, most special event objectives only require you to remain actively engaging in puzzles to earn points and claim rewards. You will always see special limited events icons on the right side of your screen. Simply click on them to check on the task details as well as claim rewards for objectives you have accomplished.

As of this writing, the City of Shadows Challenge is running in Hidden City: Hidden Object. It is only available for a limited time and 3 different objectives will be available to you at a given time. Each objective you clear earns you outright rewards, and clearing all 3 unlocks a treasure chest with even greater rewards. Claiming a treasure chest here resets the list of objectives, enabling you to continue pursuing quests and earning rewards to your heart’s content.

6. Use Your Tools And Boosters Sparingly

As you make progress in your adventure through Hidden City: Hidden Object, you will be introduced or rather forced to utilize some items that make gameplay a lot easier. These consumable items that help you in your journey can be categorized into tools and boosters. Along with your other items, tools, and boosters can be viewed in your inventory, which can be accessed via the button at the bottom of the screen.

Tools generally include items you can utilize while playing a puzzle. The most basic tools can be used on the main hidden object game mode but there are tools as well you can use for the various mini-games in Hidden City: Hidden Object. As your inventory doubles as access to the in-game store as well, you can always opt to purchase some tools using gems or coins. However, we recommend staying as active as possible to earn these items for free as you should rather save your currencies for more important purchases.

The Discoverer’s Magnifier is a basic tool that instantly points you to a random hidden item. If push comes to shove, this is the best savings for when time is about to expire and you only have one item left to find in the puzzle. The compass provides you a bit of help finding hidden objects, by pointing to the direction of hidden objects for the next 30 seconds. We do not feel that this tool is consistently helpful, especially in the early part of the puzzle but at the very least it will point you in the right direction especially if there are only one or a couple of items to find.

We certainly have utilized the chronometer on more than one occasion as a time extension often appears to be the most appealing choice especially if you have already failed to find all the objects within the period provided. The chronometer gives you an extra 45 seconds to continue playing the puzzle and can be used multiple times in a single session. Finally, there is a Diode Bomb that instantly reveals 3 hidden objects. Given the power of this tool, you can expect it to come with a hefty price.

Boosters are meant to be used outside of playing puzzles. Boosters can provide you with a wide range of buffs for a set period like increasing EXP earned, increasing coins earned, boosting the chance of finding prize items, or even increasing energy recovery or giving you unlimited one for a fixed time.

7. Time Freeze Cheat

Hidden City: Hidden Object makes the task of finding hidden objects in every location challenging through the use of various factors. There are cleverly placed items that somewhat create an illusion in some instances and there are also random game modes like using silhouettes instead of words, scrambling the words, having you find 2 of the same object, and so on. Some anomalies add up to those mentioned.

Perhaps considering every factor that makes every session a challenging one all depends on or centers around the gameplay mechanic of having a limited time to find all the hidden objects. Surely enough, no player can consistently perform at a fast pace across an entire level and what may become easy for one player to spot may not be as simple for someone else. If there were no time limits, almost everyone is guaranteed to clear every puzzle they engage in.

The time limit provided for players will grow shorter as your expertise level in a particular location increases. Even indirectly in some cases, having to find more objects in the same amount of time shortens the time to find all of them. As this predicament will sooner or later spell trouble for you, especially as a beginner, there is an exploit of sorts that you can use that allows you to freeze time to some extent.

All you need to know to be able to take advantage of this cheat is to know how to take a screenshot on your device. Typically, you need to press the volume down and the side button on your Android device to take a screenshot and on iOS devices, it is usually the volume up + side button. Clicking on the screenshot made takes you to the gallery but you may want to hit the pause button in Hidden City: Hidden Object first before you check the screenshot out.

More often than not, the entire location’s area in Hidden City: Hidden Object will not be entirely covered by a single screenshot so you may have to adjust the screen first to screenshot its mid-section or take 2 screenshots to see the entire picture. Of course, this presupposes the fact that you must have the list of items captured or at least know all the ones you are looking for first.

Screenshots are not just a cheat in the sense that it freezes in-game time while you go about looking for the items you cannot find. The zoom function of your device can also go way beyond what is allowable in the game, making some hard-to-see objects much more visible and cognizable. Note that you can choose to utilize this exploit at any time during the puzzle. Starting early basically guarantees that you will find every object within the time allotted. Even for nighttime game modes, a gallery pic that comes with a tool to brighten the picture can come in very handy.

Although we are certain that Hidden City: Hidden Object still has plenty of features and content we cannot squeeze into one guide, we are confident that the simple tips, tricks, and strategies we shared with you will help you uncover and triumph over them moving forward. If you happen to spend a great deal of time within the walls of Shadow City and have your very own tricks and strategies to share, we welcome you to drop us a line!