APP STORE AWARDS

Cultural Impact winner: Finding Hannah

Finding Hannah

A Modern Hidden Object Game

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Through one of the year’s most inclusive and heartfelt tales, this vibrant hidden-object game explores the power of healing long-standing family wounds.

– App Store editors

Hannah is turning 40 soon, and has dear friends, a loving grandmother and a lucrative job at an ad agency. What she doesn’t have is a firm sense of who she is and what she’s meant to do in life.

As you help her grapple with those questions, Finding Hannah transforms from a hidden-object game into a beautiful meditation on intergenerational relationships – and the strength they can provide.

Search for items to progress to the next chapter in Hannah’s story.

Set in Berlin, Finding Hannah whisks you through a series of richly illustrated scenes – a packed dance club, a bustling U-Bahn train, a cluttered bookstore – where you try to find items hidden in plain view, such as a ladybird or Buddha figurine. Locating them all (and completing a few merge puzzles) unlocks new chapters in Hannah’s story, along with glimpses into the lives of her mother and grandmother as young women.

Hannah’s time-hopping story unfolds almost entirely through conversations, whether with her bestie/ex-girlfriend, Emma (their relationship is “complicated”); her estranged mother; or the grandmother who raised her. In all of these interactions, what isn’t spoken reveals just as much as what is.

By diving into the difficult decisions that shape our lives, Finding Hannah deftly broaches topics few games explore, such as the trials of living in Germany during World War II and the complexities of being a millennial woman today. That boldness was heartening to discover.

Quick tip

Be ready to think creatively as the game progresses. If you’re stumped, try examining the jewellery people are wearing. Sometimes the “cherry” you’re trying to find will be a fruit-shaped earring, the “moon”, a crescent necklace.

Fun fact

The scene set on a hospital roof with a warplane circling overhead was inspired by the real-life experience of developer Lea Schönfelder’s grandmother.

Meet the creator

After getting pushback from male colleagues that her ideas were “too mellow”, Schönfelder founded Berlin–based Fein Games with Franziska Zeiner in 2020 to tell authentic stories through casual games for women. To date, players have completed over half a million rounds of the game.