Sniper Dan
Developer: Denki
Publisher: PQube
Platforms: Xbox Series X (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, PC, Switch
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $12.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
For the longest time as a child one of the easiest ways to waste some time was with a “Where’s Waldo?” book before the internet became a thing. Spending time searching through a ridiculous scene trying to find the lone striped sweater-wearing man and a few other objects that would usually be highlighted were a delight for the young mind. Now take that concept, add a sniper rifle into the mix, and you have Sniper Dan, a child-friendly game about hunting down objects and problems spread across stages just as chaotic as the classic books. The question is, is this child-friendly take on a sniping game worth it?
Story
As far as a storyline goes, Sniper Dan really doesn’t have one. He’s a man named Dan who has a business and a license from the mayor of the town to freely snipe away any problems or tasks that the people might need help with across six different locations throughout town. Dan makes it a point that he is strictly against harming animals or people, though doing so only results in some minor money loss and a knock against their level score. Some characters do re-appear across multiple stages and each stage, except for the park, spans across three days and can have various events develop from earlier missions, such as needing to chop down a bean stalk on the third day that players helped grow the first day.
Gameplay
The first stage, Perky Park, serves as a tutorial of sorts that helps ease players into what they can expect with Sniper Dan as it is a smaller level and features a wide-range of missions. These missions are all lined up on the right hand side of the screen and have little hints about what the player must do. Sometimes they are fairly straightforward such as asking someone to help push them on the swingset to get rid of all the leaf piles while others are more vague like taking a selfie or blowing bubbles. Players can use “hint tickets” to unveil the location of where the characters are on the map but these are limited and cost a reputation point to replenish.
Regardless of the stage, Dan will always be perched up on his shooting tower, occasionally with a plushie awarded for perfecting a stage or gun key-chain which oddly dangles from the top of the screen rather than the rifle. Here players will aim down the sight and can initially zoom in as far as 32x and up to 64x with an upgrade and search for whatever they might need to target for any given mission. These can range from multi-shot missions such as helping to clean a chimney clogged with soot to single shots to help light a match. Every mission completed will reward players with money and it is possible to fail a mission by missing a shot and shooting the person involving it, especially if it happens to be a mission where a character is holding the item to their body, making the expensive 64x upgrade all the more worthwhile.
While there is no time limit per day or level, there is a “Par time” of usually 15 minutes a stage and as long as players finish every task within that time limit they’ll gain a higher rank and extra reputation at the end of the day. In fact, reputation is based entirely off of time, if hints were used, completed missions, and failed missions, ranging from B, A, to a perfect S with one, two, or three reputation points matching the grade. It is also fun to note that there are little unlockables as well that players can eventually display later on such as magnets for achieving A ranks in levels and even plushies for completing a level entirely.
Alongside the standard missions players will be assigned in a level they will also occasionally get “answerphone” missions that are urgent and must be completed ASAP or risk failure, though these are generally pointed out with big arrows so players at least know what they are looking at, but not what they need to shoot to solve the problem. Upon completing a second day players will also unlock a “bonus” game that is basically a shooting gallery arcade game with a prize should players manage to hit every target in the time limit. Finally on the third day players will find themselves challenging a “boss” style mission and these range from either being a bit simple to being downright difficult. Unfortunately these boss missions also count as a job and only can be done upon completing every job on Day 3, so failing the final mission results in an automatic B no matter what which is rather disappointing.
That being said, the biggest part of Sniper Dan is the replayability element. While the Jobs remain the same every day in every one of the six locations, the actual positioning of most of the jobs changes. This means while players might need to help milk a cow near the barn the first time, it might be entirely on the other side of the map tucked next to a house next time. It is also worth noting that every map features ten fireworks, ten banana peels, a “Waldo” knock-off, and oddly enough a jiāngshī of all things, to shoot in every level. Though players will simply need to knock the hat off of the Waldo and talisman off of the jiāngshī’s forehead to make it flee to complete them.
As players gain money and reputation they can unlock additional stages at the cost of reputation or head to the market where they can buy various cosmetics such as different costumes for Dan to wear, gun upgrades such as increased zoom, reload, clip size, and bolt speed, a gachapon machine, a fridge to place magnets on rewarded from A ranks and to store achievement items, as well as office decorations that will boost the overall money earning rate slightly. For example, players can have their office decorated like a castle with a Little Shop of Horrors Audrey II sitting on their desk while dressed as a pirate should they feel like it. Reputation can also be used to purchase mini-games that can be played in the office, again with shooting them, such as table tennis, air hockey, and bowling. Players can also unlock extra game modes for stages such as time attack and ammo hunt to challenge themselves and give the game even further replayability.
Audio & Visuals
Sniper Dan is very colorful and bright and it helps make every stage look completely ridiculous at the same time. The stages are decently varied and there are plenty of things that players can shoot and break outside of Job targets, some of which even trigger responses from the people out in the level, like blowing the food out of a guy’s hand and having him curse at the player. Stage designs are quite complex and with the amount of wild animals doing zany looking things mixed in with people doing just as ridiculous things players will have a lot to see in every stage, with there even being a camera players can buy to swap to and take photos of.
The game features no voice work of any kind but does feature a decent amount of options to customize the way the player’s gun sounds when it shoots and strikes something, including joke sound effects for kids. The soundtrack consists of mostly generic background music but works well enough for a game such as this as it doesn’t distract from seeking out the items required for Jobs.
Overall
Crafting a hidden-object game around a sniper rifle of all things is certainly a unique idea and one that works out quite well for Sniper Dan. It’s a fun and colorful game with plenty of ways to replay and aim for a higher score or perfect result. It does have a few issues such as an eventual lack of varied content and some poorly designed clues or boss jobs that feel overly punishing for no reason, this is a great type of game that is fun for the whole family and at a fairly cheap price at that.
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