Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club, aka Pixel Hunt: The Game, is a recent 'Hidden Object' release from Alawar Games, a developer well known for producing high quality casual games. I've never played any hidden object games before and my initial impressions of the genre was that it is based on the most frustrating aspect of the traditional point and click adventure. This is known as is pixel hunting - an ancient technique where the user would repeatedly click on every area of the game screen hoping to find the banana or whatever ridiculous inventory item needed to combine with I don't know say, a broom handle in order to unlock a door and reach the next scene.

I was surprised (through my naiveté) to find that there's a good reason Alawar dedicate an entire section of their online games portal to the genre. It's actually quite fun, a small guilty pleasure presented in the softest, most affable aesthetic imaginable. This game is set in a vibrant steam-punk-ish universe, not too dissimilar to the anime 'Steam Boy'. You play as a young thief and all-round troublemaker Kira Robertson and it is your objective to, as the back of the box blurb puts it, 'Escape her father's overprotective clutches and set out to earn a place in the elite Snark Busters Club.

What is a Snark? And how would one 'bust' one? And why is there a club based around busting the Snarks? These are just some of the many questions which this game presents the player. Something to think about as you hunt for items across the 30 animated scenes. The gameplay system works well actually, you start most scenes by tyring to find the missing parts of the incomplete items in your inventory. It requires a leap of logic initially when items such as a chair leg can make up part of the handle of a broom for example, however you soon get into a groove with it and start recognising the selectable items in the scenes. It's almost like a 'spot the difference puzzle' without being able to see the 'normal' image.

Once you have collected all the parts to an inventory item you are allowed to use it within the environment you are in. Here the gameplay shifts into a more puzzle solving dynamic where you may need to use your newly formed 'rake' to 'rake' up some leaves. The puzzles get a bit more difficult than that, actually I was temporarily stumped on a couple of occasions and ended up using the quite decent hint feature. Once you use the regenerating hint button it focuses a magnifying lens on an item in the environment that you haven’t yet collected. I like how it regenerates instead of providing you with tokens or an infinite allowance, this way you're forced to play the game hint-less for a period of time as it regenerates and usually the time it takes to regenerate is the time it takes to get past a puzzle or find that missing piece of inventory item.

Another thing which I appreciated from the game is how the different scenes are interconnected, so you'll often be doing a lot of back-and-forth between scenes to reveal new items between them. It's a neat idea which expands the scope of the game a little.

Overall this is a fantastic game for kids, your parents and 'the wife' – before I get into trouble for horrific stereotyping, I'll just say that my hardened, war-torn post-'No Russian' gamer self enjoyed it quite a bit too.

Recommended.