There’s always a first time for everything, as the saying goes. That applies to hidden object games online as well. One day, the genre may sound alien to you but, in the next days or so, you’ll find that you’ve embraced the games’ concepts and stories as part of you.

Of course, before the games become a part of you, there’s what they call the newbie stage. This is the stage where you’re like a newborn baby – you’re still grasping and holding on to the ropes as you try to learn how to navigate the world of Hidden Object games. Fortunately, there are tips that you can make use of to help you accelerate your familiarity with HO games.

First, you’ll want to take advantage of the games’ Casual mode, if you’re playing Big Fish games like Dark Canvas: A Murder Exposed. The Casual mode is what beginners like you should be playing in for your first few games into the genre. The Casual mode is the most laid back in terms of difficulty. For instance, your Hint button recharges faster in this mode than in other settings. You’re also notified by certain visual icons when there’s a Hidden Object puzzle nearby, so you’ll know where to go. HO puzzles, at least in Big Fish Hidden Object games, hold some of the important tools that you need to move the narrative forward.

Big Fish games are, of course, not the only HO games that you’ll encounter. You also have the popular Facebook games like Criminal Case. These games are typically time HO puzzles. You’ll have to spot a certain number of objects within a specific span of time in order to score favorably and be part of the leaderboards. There’s no away around this – these games are made to be difficult and challenging, which explains the difference in times needed by each individual player to finish a puzzle.

You do have Hints that you can use here, but the mechanics are different. Hints come in a finite quantity. In Criminal Case, you have at most 5 hints but that depends on how active your team member is in the game. So, seek out those people who play the game every day (or regularly, at least) and add them to your team.

Try not to use the Hints as much as possible though. Criminal Case’s algorithm works in a way that you’re given a bonus on your score depending on the number of hints you have remaining. A full five Hints remaining will give you a 100,000 points bonus on top of your time-based score, so preserving those hints as much as you can is a big help to your goal of hitting the top spot in the scoreboards.

Last tip – try to familiarize yourself with the puzzles before you take a crack at the scoreboards. You’ll have to memorize where all those objects are. When you do, you’ll be ticking them off the list as fast as you type an email. Familiarization will bring you closer to your goal of being the top scorer in Criminal Case, and other similar HO games online.

Hopefully, these tips will help you form a solid foundation in Hidden Object games as a new player. These hints, however, can only help you thus far – you’d still need to go out there, play and experiment with your own techniques as well.