Nintendo Switch eShop updated this week for the last time ahead of Christmas, and although this set of games is a smaller list than previous weeks this month, there’s one surprising highlight. Mom Hid My Game! may be a port of a free iOS and Android game, but it still stands out as a delightful surprise on Switch.
Android and iOS users may remember Mom Hid My Game! by another name: Hidden my game by mom, its name on mobile. It launched back in February, but I first dipped into it in anticipation of the Switch port.
The premise is wonderful: You’re a boy who’s obsessed with his Nintendo 3DS-style handheld. Mom’s not feeling the love, though; what you see as a fun time, she sees as a waste. Convinced that the 3DS is a pure distraction, Mom hides the system around the house for you to seek out over the course of an entire month.
On the most basic level, this is a familiar concept. I’ve spent hours and hours straight attached to games like Animal Crossing: New Leaf, to the increasing annoyance of my family. I’ve been forcibly removed from playing Rock Band in the living room for hours on end. Maybe my mom never succeeded in prying my consoles away from me, but I can totally imagine her wanting to.
Mom Hid My Game! expands upon this childhood fear and makes it extremely weird. Seriously: This is one of the weirdest games I’ve played in awhile. But it’s all the better for it, because instead of upturning couches or opening drawers day after day to locate your 3DS, you have to deal with even tougher obstacles.
Sometimes mom will hide your 3DS inside of a bomb that’s about to go off. Sometimes she’ll feed it to an elephant, leaving you to clean off a fresh turd to extract your console. Mom even invites bikers and runners into your living room to give you moving targets to navigate through.
I don’t know why Mom is so anti-gaming that she wants to put your life at risk. So be it. I’m having a great time trying to survive for the sake of the game, and though $4.99 on Nintendo Switch eShop seems like a tall ask for what’s essentially a free-to-play mobile game port, Mom Hid My Game! is the kind of random, breezy game that makes it well-suited for Switch.
And here’s the rest of the new games on eShop this week:
- Frederic: Resurrection of Music
- TINY METAL
- Dark Witch Music Episode: Rudymical (demo)
- 60 Seconds!
- Tiny Troopers Joint Ops XL
- Puzzle Box Maker
- FruitFall Crush
- The Deer God
- The Coma: Recut
- Max: The Curse of Brotherhood
- ACA NEOGEO Pulstar
- Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King
- The Next Penelope
- Heart&Slash
- Tactical Mind (out Dec. 22)
- Bloody Zombies (out Dec. 23)
- Sparkle Unleashed (out Dec. 25)
- Energy Cycle (out Dec. 25)
- RXN -Raijin-
