Time Trap: Hidden Objects Year Published: 2012 Publisher: Crisp App Studio Developer: Crisp App Studio Time Trap is a 2012 smartphone game that was ported to Steam in July of 2017, and I'm guessing "Hidden Objects" was added as a subtitle to distinguish it from the 2017 movie of the same name, which even has a vaguely similar premise. This is only ironic because parts of that movie reminded me of a hidden object game - but, better ones than this. I guess you're not actually playing as this character, as he seems to be talking directly to you, but with this game, who knows? Time Trap: Hidden Objects is a very oldschool HOG whose meager attempt at a narrative only serves as an explanation for why you look at still scenery in this genre. You're on the trail of a missing journalist who has discovered that some scientists created a machine to reverse time, which had the side effect of opening a portal to another dimension through which H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft-inspired monsters are entering our world. I found it curious that at one point, a gargantuan octopus tentacle looms down a flight of stairs, and at another from inside a cave, and yet you press ahead, undeterred. I guess it doesn't matter since nothing can move - everything is caught in a time loop. The H.R. Giger nonsense begins. You endure scene after scene of nothing but finding objects, occasionally using one or two, and sometimes solving a puzzle, most of which are the "spin the tiles to form a complete picture" variety. The backgrounds look like the devs took photographs of areas around their city and scattered clipart all over them. You can scroll the screens and zoom in, and you'll be thankful for that second option when expected to find tiny objects that blend in with the clutter. Whether or not you'd want to play Time Trap depends on if you like oldschool HOGs, you don't mind that this one is really short and repeatedly makes you find the same items, and don't care that it is rather buggy. If you don't beat it in one sitting, you may find it didn't save your game. Although it's possible to get all five Steam achievements, several in-game achievements are bugged and won't unlock. There is also a clunky system in which you can select an achievement to work on after completing a stage instead of clicking the arrow for the next stage, but by continuously doing so you'll end up skipping all the puzzles and a good portion of the already threadbare story, arriving at a very abrupt ending. You're not caught in a time loop, that's just the deja vu of an office job. I probably don't need to end this review by telling you that you can replay stages to attempt higher scores and to get on leaderboards, because I doubt anyone will actually want to. There are so many better hidden object games, that there's no need to be trapped in this one's loops. SCORE: 1/5