Hidey Spot

Hidey Spot is destined to be remembered as one of the quintessential early Pulp games, up there with anything and everything Pixel Ghost makes. You’re an 8-year-old kid and you really want to find those Christmas presents before Christmas, so you wake up in the middle of the night and sneak all through the house. You asked for a hoverboard, and you know it has to be hiding somewhere in the house. Some of the presents are easy to find (your messy sister just left her gift for you out on her bedroom floor), but your parents are a little sneakier with their choice of hiding spots because they know what kind of kid you are.

There’s no combat or anything; it’s just a pleasant little game where you wander through the house and enjoy the nice writing. Your family is all asleep but are well characterized with just a few lines of description: your aunt does stand-up comedy, your dad loves tools and fixing things, the fairy in the basement loves to steal your stuff… wait, what?

Yep, there’s a little more going on this night than first seems – finding the presents is only half of the game. It’s a very PULP Pulp game - before Resonant Tale showed some of the wild things possible with the engine, games like Hidey Spot showed what most people thought Pulp would be used for – small adventure games with a cute concept and (hopefully) strong writing. And in that, it succeeds! It’s maybe half an hour long, puts you in the shoes of this relatable kid, and has a clear goal. Almost every part of the environment has a little text description, whether there was a present there or just some other doodad to spur a childhood memory.

It’s like a bedtime story. You meet some silly characters and do some silly things. It’s just… nice! Thanks, Pulp, for letting people tell short stories like this.

(Buy it on Catalog.)