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One of the
problems with hidden object games is that...they can be indistinguishable from game to game.
The conventions tend to be repeated like a grade school student reciting vocabulary words.
Studied, memorized, regurgitated, everyone with the same answer lest they get an F. And
then...no gold star sticker.
And f*ck that.
But you know, I do think there’s room for variation in this genre. It just takes some
creative thinking and a desire to be different, and fortunately, Art Mogul has both.
So this game just hit the App Store, but like a lot of these games, it was originally released
a few years ago on PCs. It is, in fact, a hidden object game...but it’s not a hidden
object game in that predictable style. At least, not entirely. You still have to search
for stuff in pictures, but this time...the pictures are works of art.
No, seriously. They’re...they’re paintings.
See, you play Art Mogul as an up and coming—spoiler alert—art mogul. You travel the world buying
and selling works of art, from San Francisco to London and back again to find the right
pieces and sell them at the right price. Mover and shaker. You deserve a gold star already.
So each city has several places you can go. You can head to the local gallery, where artists
are selling their work. Or you could try a cafe, where you can find salesmen with pieces
at discount rates. Of course, that might be because they’re fake. And finally, the auction
house has very rare pieces up for bidding, as well as a little wishlist of pieces they’d
be willing to offer top dollar for.
Obviously, there are quite a few paths you can take to amass your fortune, and that’s
one of the most enjoyable things about Art Mogul. It feels completely open. In fact,
after the brief tutorial, the game just says “Okay, make money, talk to you later.”
How you do that is really up to you. You might try your luck with the seedy cafe dealers
or you can hunt down rare pieces for the auction houses. It’s really your call.
That openness is the first thing that’s very different about Art Mogul relative to
other hidden object games, but again...it is a hidden object game. And it works in the
object finding really well. For example, finding key items in a piece at the gallery convinces
dealers to drop the price, since you have a good eye for art. And of course, hidden
differences unveil fakes in the pieces offered at cafes.
The drawback is that...with all that freedom, the game can feel aimless at times. It’s
always the same thing, too. Get a painting somewhere, sell it somewhere else, make money,
make more. So there is some repetition here. But ultimately, this is a unique take on a
genre that could use a lot more of them. If you’re a fan of hidden object games, Art
Mogul deserves a spot in your gallery.