Scribble Hunt Review (PC)

Scribble Hunt mimics Meccha Chameleon with the intent to steal a little of that sweet, sweet nectar from the mouth of a nonconventional paint-soaked canvas. With as little as a game of hide-and-seek, a blank blob of a being, and a library of locations that you yourself can morph into self-made Picasso paintings, it swiftly snatches up the opportunity to add its two cents to the arts. The question is, does it make for a more visually appealing portrait, or does it fall under the shadow of a slightly more complex frame? Let’s talk about it.

I almost feel sorry for Scribble Hunt, because if it had released several weeks prior to Meccha Chameleon’s timely arrival, then it would have been given a fighting chance to claim the throne in the PvP hide-and-seek sphere. The fact of the matter, however, is that it sits adjacent to a rival that, with all due respect to Scribble Bunny, has a stronger hold on the market. And while it isn’t quite a shameless replica of an existing game, it does fall into treacherous waters. It doesn’t want to be seen as a mere extension to an existing title, yet it sadly finds itself as one.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, Scribble Hunt is a creative PvP hide-and-seek survival game in which two teams—the Seekers and the Hiders, naturally—engage in quick-fire battles. Hiders, armed with a white pudgy canvas, are given the opportunity to turn regular hiding spots into paint-smothered foliage with a wide variety of colors, patterns, and materials. The Seekers, while working against the clock, are then told to locate the Hiders and remove them from the board. Like your typical game of hide-and-seek, then, but with a little extra paint and creative flair.

The Hiders have a lot to fool around with in Scribble Hunt, with dozens of objects to sketch, hundreds of colors to blend, and a handful of materials—plastic, tin, and glass, for example—to experiment with. To add, each team has a selection of stages to explore, including a toy box-themed world where colorful blocks tower over vibrant spaces, a museum where oil paintings and complex line work ooze intricate shapes and patterns, a neon fun fair where UV and light go hand in hand, and a fully-fledged Backrooms biome where liminal spaces pose creatively apt challenges.

Unsurprisingly, Scribble Hunt gives you a lot to work with. With an intuitive palette that you can adopt and tailor to create plausible backdrops, everything that you spot here will give you another reason to think outside of the box. And to be honest, that’s half of the fun: examining the environment and challenging it. If you think you can paint a convincing image that puts you in the center of the frame and out of harm’s way, then you probably won’t find a shortage of objects to adopt for your portfolio. Do you need to be a natural-born artist to pull the wool over your competitors’ eyes? No — but it definitely helps.

On the bright side, you don’t need to have an artistic bone in your body to enjoy Scribble Hunt, as it bodes well with a casual audience that can laugh at its own mistakes. Even though it provides you with a palette of colors and creative options, at no point does it force you to lean into your inner Van Gogh. It’s all rather silly in that regard, as it rewards effort, but doesn’t belittle poor quality. Winning is great and all, but it isn’t the main reason that you’ll want to stick around for the long haul. It’s the brief spells of humor, as well as the reactions that make it a delight to watch unfold.

With a quality selection of settings to choose from, Scribble Hunt delivers plenty of bang for your buck, with just enough wriggle room for it to latch onto alternate locations in the near future. Again, it might splash its paint on a similar canvas as Meccha Chameleon, but to give credit where credit is due, is works on a surface that has since been deemed sturdy enough to host an long-lasting exhibition. It’s a concept that works. Yet, the question remains: is it more effective than its closest rival?

While it’s no secret that both properties have their similarities, Scribble Hunt does, with thanks to its large collection of paintable set pieces and intuitive gameplay elements, make for a worthy adversary in the hide-and-seek domain. A few additional biomes would certainly take things a little further, mind you. But then, it clearly has the foundation and the tools to develop its infrastructure in future updates. For what it currently has at its disposal, though, it shows a lot of promise. It’s merely the case of finding an active player base that can keep the ship afloat, so to speak.

All in all there’s a good PvP game here that feeds into the usual creatively comical genes with ease. Could it be better? Sure, but I’m not about to dock points for its lack of originality. It delivers its purpose, and it brings just enough to the table to keep you laughing for the short term. With friends, that’s an invaluable boon in itself. It just needs a little more content to help it reach its true potential.

Verdict

Scribble Hunt adds its two stencils and paint brushes to a familiar canvas of comically rich hide-and-seek escapades, not with the intent to dethrone the likes of Meccha Chameleon, but to blaze a similar trail that has been proven to exist as a testament to simple yet oddly effective PvP battlers. A little extra meat on its bones would certainly go a long way I’ll admit. That being said, for what it does showcase on its palette, it shows a lot of potential. Here’s hoping that it can keep an active player base for the near term. With any luck, it could just be the new Picasso to your Van Gogh.