Slingo Mystery: Who's Gold? - A casual classic meets the modern casual game.

In the many years I’ve been writing about oddball video gaming stuff, I thought I covered it all. The unofficial expansion packs, the weird cross-promotions, the mostly forgotten cheap games that came out during the 2000s. But it wasn’t until recently did I realize there was one genre I never talked much about: The hidden object game.

A genre I haven’t really covered here, the hidden object game involves usually finding a bunch of items inside a room to make progress. For a good long while, the hidden object genre was the go-to game for super casual gamers everywhere. I assume it’s still modestly popular, but I figure most people have since moved on to Candy Crush Saga and whatnot. 

Normally, I wouldn’t cover these, but then I found an interesting one of them. A hidden object game mashed up with a classic game I remember from my teen years. and when I spotted this game at a thrift store, I had wondered how they decided to bring back a mostly dormant franchise and combine it with one of the most popular casual gamer genres out there.

(James Bond this ain't.)

Slingo Mystery: Who’s Gold? is a game developed and published by Funkitron Games – no relation to Toejam & Earl – that combines the popular hidden object game with Slingo, a game show-like game that mixes slot machines with bingo. Released around 2007 for PC platforms, this game seemed to slip through the cracks, as I didn't realize this existed until I picked it up last year at a thrift store.

(A screenshot of Slingo Deluxe, one of the earlier offline versions of the game. Sadly there isn't many screenshots of the original online game available anywhere, so this will have to do.)

But before we get into the game itself, a small primer on what Slingo is.

The general gist is that you have a bingo card and every spin of the reels gives you five numbers to fill the card with. Alongside the numbers are jokers – a wild card that can be used to mark any number on the column its on, gold coins – gives you extra score, and the devil, which cuts your score in half. You have up to 20 spins to fill the card, and the first to do so wins the game.

Slingo is a game I fondly remember from my days of playing it on America Online. For people of my generation, Slingo was one of those classic games folks played on the early 2000s, web 1.0-era internet. That, the various Yahoo Games, You Don’t Know Jack: The NetShow and Acrophobia are many of these online games I fondly remember. Sadly, they’re mostly gone now, or live on through fanmade clones. 

(Totally forgot how jovial the Zynga Slingo joker was.)

I’ve talked about Slingo once before: Way back in 2012, covering the time Zynga licensed the game for a Facebook mobile game that was fairly short-lived. It was perfectly fine, but filled with microtransactions and nagging your Facebook friends for help. Thank god we kinda moved past that.

But I’ve waxed enough nostalgia. Let’s get into the hybrid Slingo meets hidden object game that is Slingo Mystery: Who’s Gold?

(He doesn't seem happy to be there.)

You play as Maggie Gold, a divorced, destitute woman who finds out from her friend Kyle Sparks that her ex-husband Freddy has passed, and decided to give his massive Las Vegas casino, “The Gold Casino,” to his current wife Gloria. Throughout the various areas of the casino, Maggie finds out the true mystery to Freddy’s death. Of which involves a bunch of bizarre puzzle-solving and hunting down items.

(This is the usual stuff for hidden object games: Mostly licensed properties like Gameloft's The Blacklist: Conspiracy.)

Now, normally I wouldn’t talk too much about hidden object games. They always seemed to be the kind of games that would flood the bargain bins of office supply and department stores, sitting alongside a rack of cheap PC releases of games past like Braid or Far Cry 2. To me, these kind of games peaked when books like I Spy and Where’s Waldo came out. I couldn’t imagine these kind of games were anywhere near my wheelhouse.

(This is a weird combination of items.)

Thankfully the genre is made for the type of person who doesn't play games often, thus it's fairly simple: Each room has a set of items Maggie has to find to continue: Usually items that could be hiding keys, notes and whatnot. After completing a set, another set will unlock that will progress until all the items in that room are found, allowing Maggie to move onto the next room.

(Freddy Gold was one masochistic mofo.)

In some rooms, Maggie not only has to find items and press buttons to make it to the next area, but sometimes solve puzzles. Some are fairly simple, others are borderline comical and complex. Like looking for five cooking pots with numbers on them to find the combination to a keypad in the same room. Or taking a pot of coffee to plug up a drain. 

One room had Maggie build a makeshift pulley, MacGyver style, to open a security door that was booby trapped. Yeah, this game gets wild. Never mind the fact that a divorcee searching the derelict casino of his ex-husband for Slingo machines is already goofy in and of itself, but the areas just get crazy in a way I did not expect.

(We're trespassing on a casino, Kyle. Do we really need to play Slingo right now?)

Oh, speaking of Slingo machines, let's talk about how those come into play here. Every few rooms, there will be a Slingo machine. Once all the objectives in a room are completed, Maggie must play Slingo and complete the machine’s goal to unlock the next item and finish. Usually it's score-based, but sometimes it's completing a pattern, filling out the card completely – usually called a Blackout in Bingo parlance, that sort of thing. Thankfully you're not on a time limit and can try as many times as you want if you fail the objective.

(Now this is more my speed.)

Slingo here plays like the game I knew and loved, but with more powerups and additions. Nudge will shift the wheels in case you get no matches, Slingo vision makes hidden powerups in the card visible, Bouncing Slingo will allow you to get a slingo – a five in a row, just like Bingo – with any diagonal line of five, that sort of thing. These additions must be ones that Funkitron might’ve added from their previous Slingo games like Slingo Supreme, as I don’t really remember most of these. Hell, they even have the Super Joker, and the Cherub to protect from the Devil, which I remember a bit from Zynga Slingo.

Yep, this is a hidden object game, alright.

As for the core gameplay itself, it's fine. Item hunting can be a bit annoying in spots. A fair share of “pixelbitching” is prevalent in this game: Fully expect to hunt around for the item in question, which might be easier if playing in full screen at 640x480. (I played in a window for this whole playthrough, as you might’ve noticed.) Some of the items are really fairly hidden, and since you need to find all items to progress, it can be annoying to have to hunt for it, especially since clicking in the wrong place a few times will cause the cursor to shake, slightly hindering progress.

Though, game isn’t that particularly hard, even for someone like me who’s not well-versed in this genre. Slingo Mystery will automatically change the cursor to a hand and point things out if you hover near them, plus there’s an “Ahah!” system that will point out where something is if you’re really scratching your head on where that goddamn pair of scissors is. You can turn most of these off if you want a real challenge, but I kept it on my entire playthrough.

(I swear I can’t tell if I’m playing a hidden object game or a porn game.)

You may have noticed the environments and the cutscenes inbetween rooms look kinda fake and plastic-y. I wasn't going into this expecting Crysis levels of graphic design, but I think there's a reason most hidden object games tend to use a more cel-shaded, cartoony style.

There’s little-to-no movement of the characters between cutscenes, which looks really awkward. I swear the models came from Poser or similar cheap modeling software, it looks that rough. The voice acting is equally clunky in its delivery, which 90% of it comes from Maggie. I expect the voiceovers were likely done in-house, as the people credited don't seem to be professional voice actors.

(Personally I'm more a Craps and Blackjack kinda gal, but you do you, Maggie.)

You may have noticed that I’ve refrained from talking more about the game’s story. That isn't to say this is a hidden gem or anything, I genuinely think this game is average. But the story of this goes so off the rails that it wraps around to be something amazing, and it honestly deserves to be seen to be believed. I don't know if hidden object games usually get this weird, but this game goes places.

(Of course there had to be sequel bait!)

Surprisingly, there is a sequel: Slingo Mystery 2: The Golden Escape, which is more hidden objects and Slingo minigames. I'm not expecting them to reinvent the wheel, but I’m intrigued just to see how the bonkers storyline plays out in that one.

(A goat prospector wasn't something I was expecting.)

Funkitron still exists as a studio as of 2023, still making casual games for mobile devices. Some are knockoffs like CandyPrize, to licensees like Hard Rock Cafe, to even a weed-themed Bejeweled clone called Bud Farm: Munchie Match. Sadly, no more modern Slingo games for them.

The Slingo IP got bought by Gaming Realms around 2015, and now is basically used for cheapo Casino gambling games that milk the Slingo brand into something nigh-unrecognizable. Honestly, I wish it stayed dead, because it doesn’t deserve a fate like this. At least there’s a crossover with the UK game show Deal or No Deal, I guess?

(I too love to say "Ah, Slingo!" when at a casino, it's my favorite thing next to the cheap buffets.)

Slingo Mystery: Who’s Gold? is a fascinating game. Two genres that hit the casual gamer markets: Slingo and hidden object games, and meshes them together into a bizarre, yet fascinating mess. It’s worth looking out for just for the bonkers story alone.

Second-hand physical copies can be found on Amazon or similar outlets, and it’s available digitally at many storefronts for a few bucks. Though, I won’t fault you if you opt for more… illegal methods. I mean, if it worked for Maggie Gold, it can certainly work for you.

Honestly, now I wanna dig into the other Slingo games, as there’s a myriad of them released around the 2000s. My copy of Slingo Mystery that I bought at a thrift store sometime last year also came with Slingo Supreme, a more straightforward Slingo game without the hidden object stuff. I bet this is an interesting rabbit hole to fall into...