Sniper Dan Review

Meet Sniper Dan; he’s a nice enough guy who’s just getting setup in his new office, because that’s what snipers do in this game, or at least Dan does. There’s a lot of shenanigans going on, and he’s tasked with jobs to help the citizens of Clumsy County. Every job has something to do with finding the problem, and using your sniper rifle to fix it. Whatever it is you do, you can’t shoot people or animals to do it, else money gets deducted from your account. It’s definitely a new way to use a sniper rifle that you’ve never seen, but will appreciate.

There are six locations to carry out your help. The first location is unlocked for you, but the additional places must be purchased with currency acquired for completing jobs, a type of notoriety. Denki is keen on alliteration, so you’re free to unlock in any order: Funky Farm, Happy Harbour, Vibrant Village, Aces Airport, and Central City. Each place is distinct from the last, and full of tomfoolery everywhere you look through your sniper scope.

When starting the day at a location, you’re given a list of jobs to complete. These jobs are not overt, and will often give you a basic clue and sometimes an included picture of what to look for. Regardless of the information, the steps to completing it are to: scan the area, identify the problem, zoom in, confirm the job (accompanied by a circle enclosing the object), and then solving the problem via the clues given. Often there’s multiple people that fit the clue’s description, which subverts expectations with what you’re looking for. For instance, one level asked me to shorten a pirate’s peg leg (don’t ask), and when I found a pirate with a peg leg – it was the wrong one! If you get really stuck, you can use tickets that reveal a previously undisclosed picture, and able to buy more if needed. The clues are sometimes really obtuse, and you have to not only read carefully, but look for abnormalities. While the hint system is fine for what it is, it’s very gated and other games have handled doling out hints with timers and serious score infractions for their use.

Levels also have ticking timers, so you often feel this pressure to go fast, but this can often lead to mistakes. Every level also has a par time to beat, which encourages speedrunning and replayability. It’s fun discovering interactables, or seeking out the hidden fireworks or banana peels strewn about each level. Sometimes you’ll get a call from your nest, and have to react quickly by stopping cows from carrying UFOs away or stopping a giant squid monster. These events are fun, and keep things lively even if there’s not enough of them. The silliness reminds me of WHAT THE GOLF? or WHAT THE CAR? with the text pop-ups and silly engagements when completing jobs at-hand. It’s a game that has its tongue planted firmly in-cheek.

Every location also has day variants, where there are three days per location that offer completely different objectives from the last. This is how Sniper Dan achieves having over 160 missions to take part in. As a 3D hidden object game, it’s a really clever game and demands to scan its environments each time you return on a new day as things aren’t what they were last time you saw them. I do wish instead of pure mid-day, that it could be sunrise, sunset, or even night with night vision to break it up a bit more cleanly.

Between missions, you’ll be back at your office, and here’s where you can go to the market down the street to purchase things for your office and rifle. There’s lots of decor you can buy that has passive benefits that let you earn more money per job, and they stack with the more items you buy, especially if they are themed equally. There’s even outfits that carry these bonuses as well, so if you want to be a sniper that wears a firefighter outfit and a pirate’s hat, you can definitely do that. At first, your office isn’t a looker, so being able to buy better floors, ceilings, and walls for just the visual upgrades are worth it. A sniper is only as good as his weapon, but it can be better. Upgrading your scope for zooming in further, upgrading your magazine to hold more rounds, and reloading faster. There’s also other wacky unlockables like changing the sound your gun makes when it fires, the visual effect when it hits objects, adorning gun charms (which affix to the top of the screen rather than the gun), and wraps for the rifle.

As a low-poly game and straightforward game, Sniper Dan won’t tax your hardware. I played this on Linux and had no trouble playing it with everything set to the highest at the max refresh rate of my monitor. Sniper Dan is colorful, bright, and cheerful. It’s almost so bright I wish there was a dark mode, but it’s a game that simply playing it can lift your spirits.

Sniper Dan is a solid game that’s sometimes frustrating and obtuse, but it certainly isn’t mindless; you do have to be observant and thoughtful. I found the pace and progression of levels or items you can purchase to be off. Denki has crafted a silly and cozy game like no other, albeit repetitive. If you want to play an irregular game outside of your normal gaming habits, you should scope out Sniper Dan.