Comparison

Hidden City vs Grim Tales 24

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Hidden City

Embark on a thrilling detective adventure to rescue a friend from a mysterious phantom city. Solve puzzles, explore dark dungeons, and battle strange creatures as you uncover secrets and confront evil.

Highlights
  • Hidden object scenes
  • Quests and puzzles
  • Dungeon exploration
  • Combat against monsters and cults
  • Offline play
  • Friend assistance
Features
Read full description

Hidden City is a hidden object detective adventure for players who enjoy cozy mystery games, search-and-find puzzles, story-rich quests and richly detailed scenes. Explore a mystical Victorian city, find hidden objects, follow clues, solve puzzles, meet unique characters and uncover magical secrets in the City of Shadows. Your next investigation awaits in a game where detective cases, beautiful search scenes, puzzle variety and magical events blend into one captivating mystery story. Look closer, collect clues and discover why every object, note and artifact matters. What will you investigate? Search atmospheric scenes filled with hidden items, evidence, notes, artifacts, keys, symbols, curiosities and visual clues. Every location invites careful observation and rewards players who love to find meaningful details in beautiful environments. Explore foggy streets, ornate halls, manor-like rooms, curious shops, gardens, arcades, laboratories and magical city districts. Each place supports the mystery and turns object search into part of the investigation. Which search modes can you play? Hidden City keeps the main investigation fresh with different modes designed to test your observation skills: • Words mode: Classic hidden object searching using text lists. • Silhouettes mode: Visual challenges based on object shapes. • Night mode: Focused searches in dim scenes using a spotlight. • Pairs mode: Matching identical or logically related objects to test your attention. These modes support players who enjoy search-and-find adventures, visual puzzles, detective games and finding hidden items through careful observation. Are there mini-games and puzzles? Yes. The core search mechanics are supported by puzzle modes that add variety without taking over the main experience. Take a break from the investigation and play through: • Spot the difference: Compare two scenes using sharp observation. • Match-3 levels: Crystal and gem matching for satisfying puzzle breaks. • Brain teasers: Logic mini-games, memory challenges and story-driven riddles. This mix works well for players who want a detective game with brain teasers, a mystery puzzle with clues or a search-and-find adventure with match-3 elements. How does the story unfold? Follow narrative-driven quests, character stories, special cases and event investigations. Assemble artifact collections, solve anomalies, complete requests and unlock rewards that help you continue your detective journey. Every quest connects detailed scenes, puzzle challenges, magical discoveries and story progression into one polished mystery adventure. Play Hidden City your way • Play offline: Continue your investigation anywhere, even without an internet connection. • Follow the story: Return to character quests, detective cases and magical events as your mystery unfolds. • Regular updates: Discover new cases, quests, search scenes and special events added over time. • Cross-device sync: Save your progress and switch between your devices. While this game is absolutely free to play, you have the ability to unlock optional bonuses via in-app purchases from within the game. You may disable in-app purchases in your device settings. You can play this game even if you’re offline! Game available in: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Ukrainian. ____________________________ Sign up now for a weekly round-up of the best from G5 Games! https://www.g5.com/e-mail ____________________________ Download more great games here: https://store.g5.com G5 Games — World of Adventures™! Collect them all! Search for ""g5"" in the App Store! ____________________________ Visit us: https://www.g5.com Watch us: https://www.youtube.com/g5enter Find us: https://www.facebook.com/HiddenCityGame/ Join us: https://www.instagram.com/hiddencity_ Follow us: https://x.com/g5games

About

Grim Tales 24

Embark on a mystery detective adventure to find a missing daughter and husband. Solve puzzles, search for hidden objects, and uncover the truth behind a family's disappearance. Explore new worlds and face a looming threat in this engaging hidden object game.

Highlights
  • Hidden object scenes
  • Puzzle solving
  • Mini-games
  • Detective gameplay
  • Story-driven mystery
  • Bonus chapter
Features
Read full description

Help Anna Gray find her daughter and husband after disappearing on Thanksgiving Day! Play the hidden object game, solve puzzles, find lost items and enjoy mystery detective! ________________________________________________________________________ Will you manage to solve the mystery of Grim Tales 24: All Shades of Black? Immerse yourself in a mystery detective game and solve puzzles. Be a detective, search and find all the hidden objects and find out the solution to the Gray family's disappearance! Note that this is a free trial version of the hidden objects game. You can get the full walkthrough by means of an in-app purchase. Dorian, Anna and Alice go to the Crimson Hollow mansion to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Suddenly, during the festive dinner, Dorian crumbles into dust, and Alice disappears in front of Anna's eyes. Moreover, Anna discovers that Dorian’s portrait has gone missing. Where did the portrait go? What happened to Alice and Dorian? How will helping Anna affect Anastasia Grim? Find out all this in an exciting hidden object adventure! FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO DORIAN AND ALICE Travel back in time, solve puzzles and mini-games, find clues, explore hidden object scenes and find out why Dorian and Alice Gray disappeared and who is responsible for their disappearance. FIND OUT WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE AND DORIAN Anna continues searching for clues connected with the disappearance of Dorian and Alice. She gets on the trail of the artist who painted Dorian's portrait, but someone insistently doesn't want Anna to be able to return her loved ones. Will Anna Gray be able to save her family and defeat a new evil? FIND OUT WHAT THE PAINTED WORLD IS HIDING IN THE BONUS CHAPTER! Play as Anna Gray and find out what happened to the artist who painted Dorian's portrait. Travel to the past and new worlds. Face a new threat looming over Anna's future and prove yourself. Grim Tales 24: All Shades of Black is a hidden object game where you need to seek and find missing objects like Sherlock. Be a detective and find out why Anna's family disappeared at the party in this mystery detective game! Enjoy replayable HOPs and mini-games, exclusive wallpapers, soundtrack, concept art, and more! Zoom in on the scenes to help search and find all hidden objects, and use hints if you get stuck. Discover more from Elephant Games! Elephant Games is a developer of hidden object games and mystery detective games. Check out our game library at: http://elephant-games.com/games/ Join us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elephant_games/ Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elephantgames Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@elephant_games Privacy Policy: https://elephant-games.com/privacy/ Terms and Conditions: https://elephant-games.com/terms/

Screenshots

Hidden City4 screens
Grim Tales 244 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Grim Tales 24 at none against Hidden City's shown. Grim Tales 24 also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.3) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). Hidden City's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (95K vs 428). On price, review sentiment, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Hidden City sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and Grim Tales 24 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Grim Tales 24 holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hidden City has 95K ratings behind it against 428, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 72% of Hidden City's written reviews are positive against 69% of Grim Tales 24's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hidden City ships an update every 9 days, Grim Tales 24 every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Hidden City versus Grim Tales 24: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHidden CityGrim Tales 24
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (95K ratings)4.8 (428 ratings) — better
Positive reviews72.3% of reviews — better69.2% of reviews
Number of ratings95K — better428
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterEvery 3 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#97 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size320 MB969 MB
Age rating9+9+
DeveloperG5 Entertainment ABElephant Games AR LLC

Customer experience

Hidden City

All ratings95,045 ratings
Positive85.6%
Neutral10.4%
Negative4.0%
Written reviews2,584 reviews
Positive72.3%
Neutral10.7%
Negative17.0%

Grim Tales 24

All ratings423 ratings
Positive96.7%
Neutral2.4%
Negative0.9%
Written reviews13 reviews
Positive69.2%
Neutral7.7%
Negative23.1%

User reviews

Hidden City

From 95K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Challenging
  • 👍 Fun and challenging
  • 👍 Great fun
  • 👍 Fabulous
  • 👍 Never knew I could be such a clever person

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Hidden City: You have a VERY offensive ad in your line up
  • 💰 Too costly, not enough bang for your hard earned bucks
  • 💰 Game is the most frustrating I have ever played, very little in return for achieving goals
  • 💰 Game is getting more and more difficult to play without making in-app purchases
  • 🐛 Quite often when visiting friends, the game freezes and I can no longer continue playing

Grim Tales 24

From 428 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Enjoyable and lengthy gameplay
  • 🖼️ Gorgeous graphics and visuals
  • 💡 Magical inventory tools and creative tasks
  • 🧩 Terrific variety of HO scenes and puzzles
  • 🤩 Addictive thrill ride of unusual tasks

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Touchscreen sensitivity issues
  • 💸 Paywall at certain points
  • ⚫ Black screen when trying to purchase
  • 🔒 Won't restore previous purchases
  • 🚫 Hint button stopped working

Bugs and requests

Hidden City

Reported bugs

6 issues
  • Can not access the game to sign in after changing password
  • Game freezes and crashes frequently
  • Losing progress and achievements when switching devices
  • Glitches with events and mini-games
  • Disappearing items and rewards
Show 1 more
  • Compatibility issues with older devices

Requested features

9 requests
  • Give more free rubies, game is too expensive
  • Make the game less expensive
  • Give more rewards for completing goals
  • Make the game less frustrating and more enjoyable
  • Fix the glitches and technical issues
Show 4 more
  • Provide better instructions and tutorials
  • Offer an ad-free version for a one-time purchase
  • Make the mini-games less difficult and frustrating
  • Improve the social features and gifting system

Grim Tales 24

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Game won't open
  • Too many bugs and glitches
  • Black screen when trying to purchase
  • Won't restore previous purchase
  • Hint button stopped working
Show 2 more
  • Cannot get past a certain point without spending money
  • Game dies at Facebook screen and cannot exit

Requested features

2 requests
  • Bring back snarky Richard
  • More Grim Tales games

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Hidden City

One-time10
  • Special Offer$0.99
  • Cluster of Rubies$1.99
  • Tray of Rubies$4.99
Show 7 more
  • Super Deal$4.99
  • Platter of Rubies$9.99
  • Hyper Deal$9.99
  • Drawer of Rubies$19.99
  • Special Deal$19.99
  • Trunk of Rubies$49.99
  • Stockpile of Rubies$99.99
1 purchases

Grim Tales 24

One-time1
  • Unlock Full Version$6.99

Questions

Is Hidden City free?
Hidden City is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Grim Tales 24 free?
Grim Tales 24 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Hidden City or Grim Tales 24?
Grim Tales 24 is rated higher. Hidden City averages 4.3 out of 5 from 95K ratings, while Grim Tales 24 averages 4.8 from 428 ratings.
Do Hidden City or Grim Tales 24 have ads?
Hidden City shows ads; Grim Tales 24 does not.
Which is updated more often, Hidden City or Grim Tales 24?
Hidden City ships an update every 9 days, and Grim Tales 24 every 3 months. Most recently, Hidden City was updated on October 26, 2026 and Grim Tales 24 on October 23, 2026.

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