Every child knows a picture packed with people, animals and objects in which something has to be found. In German it is called a Wimmelbild, a picture that teems with life. Pictures like this appear today in books for the very young, in magazines and in computer games. Their roots, though, go back to the 16th century.
Bruegel and paintings full of people
In 1559 the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted Netherlandish Proverbs. In a single village scene he showed about 126 proverbs and idioms, acted out literally. One man bangs his head against a brick wall, another casts roses before swine, the Flemish version of casting pearls. The painting hangs in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. The German Wikipedia calls it an early forerunner of hidden picture books.
A year later, in 1560, Bruegel painted Children’s Games. A town square full of children, from toddlers to teenagers, shows more than 80 games of the time, and some sources say over ninety. Children ride hobby horses, roll hoops, play leapfrog and walk on stilts. The painting is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The games are painted so precisely that experts have been able to identify and name them one by one.
Bruegel was not painting puzzles, of course. But his paintings are looked at in exactly the way we look at hidden pictures today. The eye wanders from one corner to another and keeps finding something new.
Ali Mitgutsch and the first Wimmelbuch
The father of modern hidden picture books is said to be the Munich illustrator Ali Mitgutsch, who lived from 1935 to 2022. In the 1960s, the child psychologist Kurt Seelmann encouraged him to draw children’s books with pictures in which a lot happens at once. Mitgutsch later said he was inspired by the dioramas he had loved looking at as a child on pilgrimages with his mother.
In 1968 his book Rundherum in meiner Stadt, roughly All Around My Town, was published. It has large pictures of a town in which dozens of small stories happen at the same time. In 1969 it won the German Youth Book Prize, the Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis. According to the German Wikipedia, it was the first Wimmelbuch in the German-speaking world.
Other authors followed Mitgutsch, among them Rotraut Susanne Berner with her books of the seasons. Such books are meant for children from about eighteen months. Wikipedia describes them as educationally valuable, because they lead to conversations between adults and children and prepare the way for reading.
Where’s Wally?
Hidden pictures became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to the English illustrator Martin Handford. His book Where’s Wally? was published on 25 June 1987 by Walker Books. The task is simple: in a crowded picture, find the man in a red-and-white striped shirt, a bobble hat and glasses.
Wally has different names in different countries. In America he is Waldo, in Germany Walter and in France Charlie. Over time, more characters to find joined him: his friend Wenda, Wizard Whitebeard, his rival Odlaw in yellow and black, and Woof the dog. According to the English Wikipedia, more than 73 million books had been sold in 26 languages by 2007.
Handford’s books added what Bruegel’s paintings lacked: a clear task. Looking for something specific is more fun for many people than just looking.
Hidden objects on the computer
As computers with colour graphics spread, hidden pictures moved onto the screen. Wikipedia names Mother Goose: Hidden Pictures, released in 1991 for the CD-i, as one early example. From 1997, Scholastic published computer versions of the popular I Spy books.
The big boom came with Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, released by Big Fish Games in 2005. It set the pattern many later games followed: the player gets a list of objects and searches for them in a detailed scene. The third game in the series, Ravenhearst, was the third best-selling PC game in the year-end sales period of 2007.
Who plays these games is interesting too. According to 2021 figures quoted on Wikipedia, 85 percent of Big Fish Games players were women, and about three quarters of those women were over 55. Hidden object games are clearly not just for children.
Why we enjoy searching
Hidden pictures combine two things people like doing: looking at something nice and the small sense of success when they find what they were after. Unlike many other games, they need no rules, no reading and no opponent. That is why a two-year-old can enjoy them with a parent, and so can a grandfather who otherwise never plays games.
Hide and Seek on HoyHop
Hide and Seek follows in this tradition. Each level is a drawn picture of one setting, such as a garden, a market or a winter landscape, with animals of one kind hiding in it. The first levels are small and clear, like pages in a book for toddlers. The last ones are large and busy and feel more like Wally.
How the game works is described in How to play Hide and Seek. Tips for searching faster are in Hide and Seek search tips.