Nippets Review
A hidden-object game that trades checklist busywork for weird, funny, and unexpectedly touching little stories.
Nippets. Credit: Blink Industries / Uwu Biz
I already reviewed another hidden-object game recently, but given this game’s pedigree, I had to play it. Nippets comes from Blink Industries, the British production studio behind Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, one of my all-time favorite YouTube series, alongside developer Uwu Biz and art director Fredeikke Frydenlund. It’s short but delightful, packed with interactive details and endearing, bite-sized stories for everything you find.
In each of the four season-themed levels, you’re given a set of objects to track down. You only see outlines, along with the first part of each object’s story as a clue for where it might be. Some are single items, others are scattered sets, like a pair of shoes or fish missing from a bucket. Once you find them, you unlock the next piece of the story, which points you to where the object actually belongs in the scene. Place it, and you complete its story. Some are funny, some are sentimental. My favorite has you helping a kid recover his lost snowballs, which he narrates like a grizzled veteran in an endless war: “For weeks he had heard rumors of a weapon to end the war…”
Some characters recur across levels. A few are obvious parodies, like Jeff Bozos, a depressed billionaire searching for meaning in his life. The whole thing is packed with tongue-in-cheek references like that, clever enough to land as a chuckle and smile instead of a groan.
Nippets. Credit: Blink Industries / Uwu Biz
Levels are filled with reactive elements you can touch, slide, or pull. Windows open, trees shake, people get poked. Doors often hide new sub-areas, like apartments, barns, little pockets of space that expand the scene. It all feeds into the game’s small, self-contained stories, and the sense of discovery is consistently rewarding. I was only stumped a handful of times, and each time it came down to me not reading the clues closely enough.
The game’s distinctive art style renders every level in an isometric perspective. Everything is drawn in clean lines and filled with solid color. There’s a clear influence from Chris Ware’s work, just without the melancholy. It’s lovely to look at.
I loved Nippets. It doesn’t share the tone or vibe of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, but it showcases just how wide the creative range at Blink Industries really is. Their usual domain is animated and live-action work; this is their first foray into video games, and I’m already curious to see what game they’ll make next.
Nippets
Blink Industries’ Nippets is a hidden-object game that trades checklist busywork for weird, funny, and unexpectedly touching little stories.
