u/PeaLanky314

All from the public available IPAs. Do you remember playing them?

Do you remember them?

Yep. It's finally coming. Now you officially can put your "Find the forgotten game" type of requests in the comments of this post. I hope it will go well for you. Please use a following form before typing:

- Genre: HOG/HOPA/Adventure
- Platform
- The store where you bought the game
- Year when you played the game
- Noticable character(s)
- Noticable gameplay moments
- Other stuff: this is where you write gameplay, story and all other stuff you want to

Background images for menus

Back in the middle of 2010s, G5 Entertainment were actively making free-to-play titles with their favorite developers. One of them were Artifex Mundi.

And that’s how Nightmares from the Deep: A Hidden Object Adventure was born. There’s no actual footage of this game because it never made past the soft-launch on iPads in 2016. The only remaining footage of it it’s the official trailer from Artifex Mundi’s channel and MobyGames page, featuring official store screenshots.

The game was set in 18th century in the eternal Caribbean. You had the story with 3D cutscenes, puzzles and hidden object scenes. You could also collect and create collections and upgrade your ship.

>Nightmares from the Deep: A Hidden Object Adventure is a bold mix of features from one of the most popular HOPA adventure games, and the free-to-play model. Set in the 18th century in the eternal Caribbean, the game allows players to immerse themselves in the colorful world of legendary pirates.
The player takes on the role of Aimee Duvall, an orphan whose tough life in the shady districts of a port city have made her resourceful and able to confront adversity. The story starts when the heroine is captured by pirates from the Society of the Black Spot. The villains are looking for the lost treasure of a Portuguese fleet, and their legendary Captain Bloodbeard seems to consider Aimee the key to finding the mythical fortune. Bootjack, her father’s friend, arrives to rescue the heroine just in time. The girl begins to understand that the medallion and piece of a mysterious map that she inherited may be much more than just a family keepsake.
Will Aimee succeed in solving the riddle and find her father?

In 2020, this game was rebranded by G5 themselves under the name The Hidden Treasures. The game got simplified but the concept stayed the same and now you can choose to play Match-3 instead of Hidden Object.

Would you play this game in 2016 if you had a chance?

See how it's tied to the original trilogy delisting here.

I’m not good at writing essays, so let’s use this board inspired by Enigmatis to let me explain everything to you!

Evidence #1:
In 2018, G5 Entertainment buys full ownership rights to the Nightmares from the Deep trilogy and the Facebook game Kate Malone from Artifex Mundi. Remember that — it will lead us to a crucial detail.

Evidence #2:
Back in 2016, G5 Entertainment was actively pushing their partner developers into free-to-play live-ops development. This is how Nightmares from the Deep: Hidden Object Adventure was born. The plan was simple: use a famous IP to draw in an audience. However, the results were disappointing — the game didn’t make it past soft launch. But G5 didn’t give up. In 2020, they pulled the assets from the archives and rebranded it into The Hidden Treasures.

Evidence #3:
Throughout the 2010s, G5 was actively publishing classic HOPA games created exclusively for them by third-party studios like Vogat, World-Loom, Cateia, and Floodlight.

Evidence #4:
In 2020, Artifex Mundi launches Unsolved — a unified F2P hub for their massive game collection. The project becomes a massive SUCCESS!

Evidence #5:
In 2022, Artifex Mundi was forced to remove the original Nightmares from the Deep trilogy from sale on all platforms. But what pushed them to do it?

And here’s the verdict:
G5 Entertainment saw the massive success of Unsolved, which made them completely reconsider their strategy. Around 2019, they decided to pull all premium titles from stores. Contracts for ported games simply expired, and there was no reason to renew them — premium games weren't bringing enough revenue, and maintaining them cost money. Over 20 exclusive G5 titles vanished for the same reason.

However, Unsolved proved that old IPs weren't dead weight — they were a potential goldmine if turned into F2P. G5 quickly built their own unified hub, Unexposed, featuring 6 games at launch.
It was quietly released in November 2021 — and this date is the missing puzzle piece!

Launching Unexposed (which was also targeted at PC) was the exact trigger. G5 needed heavy hitters for their content roadmap, so right around this time, they sent the takedown request to Artifex Mundi. They wanted 100% control over the IP, needed to eliminate direct competition between the original premium titles and their new F2P hub, and wanted to cut off Artifex's passive revenue stream driving traffic to Unsolved.

Nightmares from the Deep WAS SUPPOSED to be the main star of Unexposed in 2022. But due to an internal crisis at G5 and the fact that Unexposed quietly flopped shortly after launch, the hub was abandoned — leaving the classic trilogy stranded in delisting limbo.

TL;DR: Inspired by Artifex Mundi's success with Unsolved, G5 Entertainment launched a rival F2P hub, Unexposed, in November 2021. To clear the runway for Nightmares from the Deep to become its main F2P asset, G5 forced Artifex to delist the original premium trilogy in 2022. But after Unexposed quietly bombed, G5 abandoned the project — leaving the original trilogy delisted for nothing.

Platform(s): Android

Genre: Quiz, puzzle

Estimated year of release: 2010-2013

Graphics/art style: 2D, minimalistic, very primitive

Notable characters: windows-like people icon

Notable gameplay mechanics: answering a question. 4 variants.

Other details: On the recreation. There were also memorable sounds. Question appears with the high key sound. correct answer uses the same sound as I recall correctly. And wrong sound was sharp and short, you will immediately lose and return to the main menu that had the same background.

Edit: The font is systems‘ default one. Not handwritten or customized.

The first game was released in 2010 and was quite successful. It brought G5‘s attention, and later G5 Entertainment collaborated with Floodlight Games, and the sequel, Engaged to Kill, was released under G5’s publishing. After that, the series went silent.

In 2016, G5 released a new game, S.E.D.: Special Enquiry Detail. There is not much information about this game, except that it was only available on mobile devices. It tried very hard to be like Criminal Case. It failed, but G5 wasn't going to give up.

In 2017, S.E.D. was rebranded as Homicide Squad, and this time the game was successful. It's still active today and receives new events and cases. In 2020, a spin-off called Crime Mysteries was released. This game features a whole different team, and instead of taking place in New York, it takes place in L.A.

image credit goes to ILoveCakesAndCupcakes, they gladly shared the collage with me.

I also extended it's duracy, S3 ending was too fast for me and transformation sequences were random.